Evangelizing Secular South America

In the face of growing secularization, one of Latin America’s leading bishops has signaled a huge opportunity for evangelization.

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Archbishop Andrés Stanovnik of Corrientes, Argentina, vice president of CELAM (the Bishop Conference of Bishops in Latin America) described the existence of “a very secularized culture” among some of the continent’s governments. At the same time, CELAM’s “grand continental mission” sees the Catholic Church in 24 Latin American countries launching evangelistic activities including distributing literature, appointing lay missionaries to work in parishes and organizing Bible study groups. The mission has received key funding from ACN, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians.

Archbishop Stanovnik said: “The mission is already a success in those countries where it has begun, now there is the process of making it a reality across the continent.” He continued, “The biggest challenge is evangelization – the proclamation of Christ to the Church in Latin America.” Archbishop Stanovnik also said: “We believe the encounter with Christ answers the deepest desires of the human being….The encounter with the living Christ humanizes our being and relationships and gives us principles for using the goods we have.”

The archbishop went on to describe how this encounter was the key to understanding life: “When we don’t know God in Christ, reality becomes mysterious, but if we know God, then we are also able to also understand reality, we know where we come from, where we are going to….In the Church it is a real necessity to know Christ and to be a missionary of the Church – the Church feels that it is essential to have this deep encounter with Christ – and from this encounter with the living Christ one can announce this experience to others.”

To the challenge of evangelization he added the challenges of poverty and the environment. Archbishop Stanovnik said: “The Church increasingly understands that the environment is a gift of God, and as it is a gift of God humans can not appropriate the environment for themselves.” Again he underlined how only an encounter with Jesus could help people to care for the marginalized and preserve the environment.

He said, “The Church in Latin America has a lot of centers for those living with AIDS and other diseases….It is very important to first encounter suffering people, stay with them and help them in their problems. Mercy and profound humanity are very important.”

Archbishop Stanovnik thanked ACN’s benefactors for their support for all the work in South America: “The presence of ACN is a very important for the Church in Latin America – it has contributed for projects in evangelization, principally in the formation of priests and pastoral co-workers. For that reason I would like to thank you in the name of all CELAM for the evangelizing and humanizing work of ACN.”

Archbishop Stanovnik concluded by saying, “Thank you to all the benefactors, who are in some way reflecting the dynamism of the divine love of God – God bless you all.”

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