Havana, Cuba, Jun 5, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Cuban church officials revealed this week that Pope Benedict XVI, in a message sent through Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, exhorted the Church in Cuba to give impulse to “an untiring missionary action.”
The message, sent last week to the National Assembly of Missions meeting in Havana and published by the Spanish news agency EFE, was read by the Apostolic Nuncio en Cuba, Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, before the delegates from Cuba’s eleven dioceses.
Pope Benedict invited participants in the gathering to “give new impulse to the untiring missionary action” in response to “the challenges of today’s society, giving thanks to God for the past and the present of the life of this beloved Church in Cuba.”
The Pope recalled that “the evangelistic work of the Church is a responsibility of all her members” and he exhorted them “to strengthen the spirituality and missionary vocation in those who are committed to this task, so that they may be a flame that ignites missionary fervor in their own surroundings.”
The Assembly brought together most of the country’s bishops, as well as 141 delegates consisting of 6 priests, 14 religious, 11 permanent deacons, 110 lay missionaries and 23 seminarians.