Dear Brothers of the Fraternities of America,
A very fraternal greeting from Cordoba, where we have been warmly welcomed by our Argentine brothers, in the House of Spiritual Exercises, Catalina de María. We have met brothers national leaders and delegates from seven countries: Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, United States and Quebec-Acadie. We were encouraged by the messages sent by Eric Lozada, International Responsible, Angel Rossi, Archbishop of Cordoba, by Rafael Felipe, bishop emeritus and founder of our fraternity in the Dominican Republic and by the visit of Ricardo Seirutti auxiliary bishop of Cordoba.
Following the line of our World Assembly in Cebu, Philippines (2019) and the Guidelines of Pope Francis, we have focused on the theme of the EVANGELIZING MISSION.
We share missionary experiences carried out by our brothers in the geographical and existential peripheries of our America: people with disabilities, addicts, migrants, indigenous peoples, populations affectedby mining megaprojects, excluded minorities. by different peopleand patients. We also include priests in crisis. The brothers from Brazil shared with us a beautiful experience about it. They arevarious forms of poverty in which we find Christ Crucified and Risen, returning their dignity and hope to those whom our society discards, marginalizes and makes invisible. He has reached the peripheries before us missionaries and is doing His liberating work.
We feel signs and instruments of this Christ “who spent himself doing good” through closeness to the most vulnerable, attentive listening, dialogue, compassion and solitary action. Never alone. Always working with other priests, with religious, deacons, laity and laity and men and women of good will. The pandemic has taught us to network because “we are all in the same boat” as Pope Francis says and we are all brothers and sisters.
Our presence of solidarity, joy, kindness and commitment to human dignity, like that of Br. Charles de Foucauld, is the first step in evangelization. It is “shouting the Gospel with our life,” as he himself told us. We firmly believe in the evangelizing power of personal and community witness. His canonization last May confirms us in this way of proclaiming the Gospel and impels us to share our charism with other priests in different dioceses and countries of America where our Priestly Fraternity is not yet present.
The frequency with which Pope Francis mentions Br. Charles in his official documents, in his speeches and homilies shows us that his witness is a richness and an inspiration for the evangelizing mission of the Church today, in the post-pandemic world wounded by hunger, violence, inequalities. and secularism. We feel the historical responsibility to be more faithful to our charism and to cultivate it more intensely with the means proper to our spirituality: adoration and the Eucharist, the review of life, the day of desert, fraternal life and closeness to the poor.
Our evangelizing and solidary work among the most abandoned and despised wants to be a parable of a fraternal world, a seed of the Kingdom inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth and a prophetic denunciation of social sin. Our mission, animated by the Holy Spirit, is aimed at forging fraternity in today’s world as Pope Francis teaches us in Fratelli Tutti.
We thank God that in this Assembly we had experience of this fraternity, lived in respectful dialogue, joy and the search for new paths for our evangelizing action. We are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of our fraternities in America, especially the aging of many of them, but we value and want to be inspired by the witness of fidelity of our older brothers. We thank them for the long years they have persevered trying to build “a poor Church and for the poor” as Pope Francis said at the beginning of his pontificate, suffering, many times, incomprehension, marginalization and discredit.
We want to continue strengthening our continental communion through the exchange of missionary experiences, the formation of a Pan American Team to animate our fraternities and the realization of the first Pan-American Month of Nazareth. This will take place in the Dominican Republic, from July 2 to 28, 2023.
Finally, we thank Fernando Tapia of Chile, his service as Continental Responsible for six years and offer our support and our prayer to our new Pan-American Responsible Carlos Roberto dos Santos of the Fraternity of Brazil.
We place our Fraternity under the protection of Mary, Our Lady of the Visitation.
Members of the Third Pan American Assembly
Córdoba, September 23, 2022