Bishops reaffirm commitment to promoting Christ among Uruguayans

Vatican City, Sep 29, 2008 / 18:13 pm

The president of the Bishops’ Conference of Uruguay, Bishop Carlos Maria Collazi, told Pope Benedict XVI at their recent ‘ad limina’ visit that the bishops of the country are committed to promoting Christ among the faithful in order to respond to the challenges facing the Church.

“We have a general objective to respond to the great challenges: promoting the encounter with the living Jesus Christ, ‘the human face of God and the divine face of man’, as an evangelizing Church in a permanent attitude of pastoral conversion,” the bishop said in a letter to the Holy Father on the occasion of their ad limina visit to Rome.

Bishop Collazi noted in his letter the efforts of the Uruguayan people to achieve the common good and national reconciliation. However, he also pointed to negative aspects, such as the aging population, the emigration of young people, political confrontations, “the devaluing of human life and the continuous deterioration of the institution of the family.”

Nevertheless, he went on, “We are optimists while at the same time we encourage people not to fall into confusion or into the search for immediate and simplistic solutions.”  Bishop Collazi also underscored “the life of the diocesan churches” and the “vitality of the faith of our communities in a secularized religiously plural context.”

In the name of all the Uruguayan bishops, he reaffirmed their commitment to “assuming the challenge of the formation of missionary disciples,” which includes three pastoral priorities: living an authentic process of pastoral conversion, living more intensely the call to communion, and living more intensely the call to mission.