Present on this week’s call:
Clyde (U.S.), Christina (New Zealand), Peter (Kenya), Don (Mexico), Jean-Pierre (France), Lula (Brazil), Liz (Kenya), Rachael (India), and Rene (U.S.)
Summary of the outcomes of today’s meeting:
- Lula Ramires joined our call today and shared more details about the plans for the Aparecida conference in November 2018. Jean-Pierre shared that GCN will be meeting June 24 for further planning of this event. Peter and Lula will be working together to get Afro-Brazilians and Africans connected on behalf the 2018 Global Forum in Aparecida.
- As part of our support for Pope Francis’s Synod on Youth, Liz, heading the young adult committee designing the young person’s questionnaire, reported that the questionnaire is underway being written by young people for young people. There is still no sign that the Vatican questionnaire promised to be released March 1st is forthcoming. Apart from the Synod itself, this will serve as a means of bringing young people together to meet via Zoom. In the first call with young people, they expressed a desire to form their own small communities with readings and discussion topics that pertain to them and to their lives. CCRI is choosing to focus on bringing young people together because we recognize that the long-term future of the Church rests with young people. To round out the committee working on the questionnaire, we have India and Africa represented. It would be helpful if some of you could recommend an active and articulate young adult from other parts of the world to join the drafting committee. They want to be sure that that questionnaire is representative of all cultures throughout the world.
- While we hope to involve some progressive bishops in our work – such as Bishop Mauro from Brazil who will be joining with us soon – we choose to place our energy on bringing together existing small communities – the SCCs, CEBs, and IECs – to meet one another and share what they are doing with one another and connect them together via Zoom. It is our hope that we can work with Fr. Joe Healey in Nairobi to connect us with some of his most active and vocal SCCs. In turn, we can connect them with some of the active CEBs in Latin America and some of the active IECs in North America.
- We are asking the younger generation – Liz, Rachael, Renna, Amal, Alloys – to help us make our Facebook page and Twitter account more appealing to them. We asked them to work with Michael, our social media person, and, once the young adult’s questionnaire is completed, we will spread it via social media.
- To create greater immediacy in our global team communication, we agreed to create a WhatsApp team. If any Advisor would like to be included on that list, please send your phone number to Peter: mbuchi2015plus@gmail.com.
- Don has reached out to Zach, CTA’s new executive director, to invite him to have the CTA 20-30’s Adult Group join the young adult committee working on the questionnaire.
- Don reported that Sr. Socorro will be available to join our call next Monday. Sister is the coordinator of the CEBs in Mexico. The CEBs in Mexico, the CEBs in Brazil, and the CEBs in all the other Latin American countries and the Caribbean are connected through Sr. Socorro’s office in Mexico City. One of the discussion points of next week’s meeting will be to explore connecting the CEBs in Latin America with the SCCs in Africa.
Actions requested:
Let us know if you (1) have any young adult leader to join the drafting committee of the questionnaire for young adults from your part of the world; and (2) if you have an active small community that would like to interact via Zoom with other small communities.
Gratefully,
Rene