Spain. From Thursday, February 25 till Thursday, March 4, a committee of 12 Claretians, representing different places and pastoral areas of the geography of the Congregation, gathered in Colmenar Viejo. The encounter was coordinated by Fr. Agustín Monroy CMF, General Prefect of
Apostolate, with the objective of translating into concrete and viable tasks the orientations of the Chapter Declaration and the Plan of Action of the General Government. The participants were: Fr. Angel Calvo from the Philippines (ASCLA EAST), Fr. Henry Omonisaye from Nigeria East (ACLA), Fr. Ronaldo Mazula from Brazil (CICLA), Fr. Bruce Wellems from USA East (NACLA), Fr. Stefan Wolf from Germany (CEC), Fr. Juan José Raya from Santiago (IBERIA), Fr. Juan José García from Bética (IBERIA), Fr. Gaspar Masilamani from Bangalore (PROCURE – ASCLA WEST), Bro. Arnel Alcober from the Philippines (JPIC), Fr. Juan Carlos Martos from Bética (PASTORAL VOCATIONAL SECRETARIAT) and Fr. Antonio Santillán from Argentina-Uruguay (GENERAL CURIA).
Elaborating the planning of the Prefecture of Apostolate implies being very optimistic but also very realistic because the planning is being done for culturally very rich but very different realities.
The work methodology used parted from an analysis of the universal and continental reality, which was presented by Fr. Pedro Belderrain CMF. Then there was a presentation of the “state of affairs,” that is a historical and qualitative summary of our specific ministries, especially in the last sexennium. Fr. Vicente Sanz shared his experience as former Prefect of Apostolate and of the Workshop of Shared Mission; Fr. Maxim Muñoz presented the Workshop of Transmission of Faith; Frs. Jorge Sánchez and Luis Manuel Suárez presented the reality of the Child, Youth and University Ministry and the preparation of the Claretian Family for the forthcoming World Youth Day in Madrid 2011.
Within the education field, Fr. José Cristo Rey García Paredes and the Professors Artieres (from Brazil) and Adriana Mora (from Colombia) presented the work with the Technologies of Information and Social Communication (TISC) in different fields of Higher Education, and Fr. Antonio Santillán shared the conclusions of the II World Congress of Educators. Fernando Prado cmf and Jesús Centeno cmf presented the world of publishing houses and the Web, especially from the viewpoint of ciudadredonda.org; Fr. Javier Ojeda and the lay person Laura, presented the project of Caring Mission (Proclade and JPIC) from Province of Santiago, in Spain.
After the state of affairs, a group debate followed to define strengths, weaknesses and proposals. From that we went on to elaborate the planning, stating priorities, action lines and activities for the sexennium. The Encounter included also a visit to the Claretian community of the School of Segovia, La Granja, the Escorial and the sharing of the Eucharist and some other moments with the Assistential Community and the international community of students of Colmenar Viejo.
