2017 World Mission Sunday
Vatican, 22 October 2017 -- Pope Francis in his 2017 Message for the World Mission Sunday with the state of the 'Mission at the Heart of the Christian faith' offers a new motivation inspiration for the Church. Two core passages are a good food for our Sunday meditation and daily action:
Mission inspires a spirituality of constant exodus, pilgrimage, and exile (art. 6-7)
The Church’s mission is enlivened by a spirituality of constant exodus. We are challenged “to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium, 20). The Church’s mission impels us to undertake a constant pilgrimage across the various deserts of life, through the different experiences of hunger and thirst for truth and justice. The Church’s mission inspires a sense of constant exile, to make us aware, in our thirst for the infinite, that we are exiles journeying towards our final home, poised between the “already” and “not yet” of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Mission reminds the Church that she is not an end unto herself, but a humble instrument and mediation of the Kingdom. A self-referential Church, one content with earthly success, is not the Church of Christ, his crucified and glorious Body. That is why we should prefer “a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security."
Thanks to our diligent Taiwan based missionary we have Pope Francis message summary in 9 wonderful slides of the power point presentation (the photos).
Thanks to the FIDES agency (Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples) were published yesterday the annual world wide Catholic community statitics:
Panorama of the Catholic World – Mission Sunday
The number of Catholics in the world is increasing:
According the continents:
- almost 1300 million, 17.7% of the world's population, the baptized are more than the previous year (12.5 million).
- 222 million of Catholics live in Africa (19% of the total population)
- 625 million in America (64%)
- 141 million in Asia (3.24%)
- 248 million in Europe (40%)
- 10.2 million in Oceania (26%).
Worldwide units and pastoral personnel:
- Diocese (+Vicariate, Prefecture): 3006
- Bishops: 5304
- Priests: 415,656 (diocesan 281.514, religious 134.142)
- Permanent deacons: 45.255
- Religious non priests: 54.229
- Religioius sisters: 670.330
- Secular consecrated: 700 men, 22.859 women
- Lay Missionaries: 352.000
- Catechists: 3.100.000
- Catholic schools: 216.548
- Students in Catholic schools: 65+ million
- Catholic social and health institutions: 118.000
Detailed Statistics Dossier Catholic Church 2017 (ENG-ITA)
Statistics of the Catholic Church 2017 (Youtube- ENGLISH)
