A three day International Congress on the Church in America commenced yesterday with Mass celebrated in Saint Peter’s Basilica.
The congress coincides with the 15th anniversary of the Synod of Bishops for America. Blessed John Paul II released the post-synodal exhortation, entitled Ecclesia in America, in 1999.
The Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops and president of the Pontifical Council for Latin America, Canadian prelate Cardinal Marc Ouellet, was the principal celebrant for the opening Mass of this year’s international congress.
In his homily, Cardinal Ouellet recalled Blessed John Paul’s call for the Synod of Bishops in America to take place. “On the threshold of the third Christian millennium and at a time when many walls and ideological barriers have fallen, the Church feels absolutely duty-bound to bring into still deeper spiritual union the peoples who compose this great continent and also, prompted by the religious mission which is proper to the Church, to stir among these peoples a spirit of solidarity.”
The 1999 Synod, he continued, “marked a milestone in reconciliation and effective collaboration between our dioceses of North America and South America.”
“The Word of God who unites us is Christ the Lord, the Desired of the nations.