Posted On 2014-09-05 In Dilexit ecclesiam

The Continental Mission Has the Challenge of Being Urban

NOTICELAM, Virginia Bonard. From August 18 – 23, 2014, the Latin American and Caribbean Seminar on Urban Pastoral Care took place in the Conference House “Santa María” of the Slaves of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Bogotá, Colombia.  One of the experts invited to this conference was the Argentinean priest, Jorge Eduardo Scheinig – pastor, with a degree in Pastoral Theology, coordinator of Urban Pastoral Care in the region of Buenos Aires (PUBA) – who spoke with NOTICELAM on what was analyzed in those days with specific depth, plurality of vision and a great deal of pastoral experience.

Since the Seminar, which are the concepts that echo most in your analysis?

The seminar became an encounter between Latin American brothers and sisters who in  sharing  different experiences enriched my vision, my thoughts and the immense pastoral posibilities which evangelization has in the large city.  The way for Urban Pastoral Care (PU) in Latin America (AL) is immensely positive and has a great future.  It has been a hopeful conference and on the same level proposed to us by our Pope in number 1 of Evangelii Gaudium:  a new phase of evangelization with joy.  Perhaps what has most resounded for me is that PU is a reality on the way in AL…..that the large city has the challenge of being discovered and especially the God who abides there…..that the continental mission has the challenge of being urban.

Were specific questions from the different cities represented approached by such a diverse cast of experts from such different backgrounds?

We have not analyzed this.  The seminar did not speak of the cities in particular nor of their particularities.  We touched on specific topics boarding on a reflection, a theological pastoral approach for  PU.

How much is 21st century man’s attachment to technology and his passing through cities affected?

One of the participants posed the topic of the TIC’s and said:  “God lives in the city, but I ask:  Does God live in virtual space?”  We did not give an answer, but we become aware that the new technologies, especially those of communication, are the vehicles to take “the urban” everywhere, also to the rural areas.

How do you form a multidiscipline group who takes as an objective to study-contemplate man amidst the city and his relationship with the transcendental?

In the Seminar, we have dealt with the importance of the interdiscipline to boarder on the urban and the study of the large cities.  Nevertheless, having analyzed the historic process of the PU in AL, which we believe began formally in 1965 at the first conference in Brazil and which had other and many local experiences, having analyzed this process said that the sciences which most help the pastoral discernment of the PU are sociology and anthropology, especially cultural anthropology.  We understand that the paradigmatical key of the PU in AL is the sociocultural.

Can one meditate (find God) in the midst of the city?

Present was the contemplative vision to discover the presence of God in the city, and not fabricate it as was proposed by Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in the First Congress of the PU in Buenos Aires.  That “feeling-thinking” inroad is valued for approaching the urban complexity.

Were pastoral experiences shared?

Yes, two from Bogotá (one from the diocese of Engativá and along with this the evangelization plan for the archdiocese of Bogotá):  another experience of investigation work motivated by the German episcopate based in Argentina, México, Colombia, Brazil and Chile; then the experience from México and finally the experience of PUBA.  Each one of these experiences has clear originalities and differences due to the objective they pursue.  The experiences of México and Bogotá are very enlightening for our PUBA process.

Pope Francis crosses with his global surrender all pastoral approaches.  What was there of him in the Seminar?

There was a lecture in which a great analysis of the PU was made in relationship to the apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.  We believe that Pope Francis, from his own experience, understands and motivates the PU.  His teaching was permanently present.  We have also analyzed the urban from the experience of Jesus and St. Paul, really very interesting.

The final conclusions of the Seminar are being worked out.

Original Spanish: Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA  09032014

Source: Noticelam Agosto 2014

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