2° Forum Comboniano - Belém 2009 - N° 8

8Th COMMUNICATION – December 2008

To all participants of the Comboni Forum II,
Provincials and Delegates

Dear friends:

This is the last but one COMMUNICATION that you are to receive. The next (and last, just before the CF II) will be sent to you in the beginning of January. We kindly ask you to READ ALL ATTENTIVELY.


1. PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTS
With base on all filled forms we received (63 out of 78 participants) we tried to work out a synoptic table with the profile of all the participants. We believe that it can be useful and will help us to get to know each other little by little from now, according to the suggestions of many of you. In this way, we gain time and facilitate a previous interaction. Please find in attachment a resume of the information about you all. You can download it, together with other texts, from this address (under the title “perfil dos participantes”: http://groups.google.com/group/fsmcomboniano?lnk=srg


2. GRUOPS OF INTEREST
Taking a glimpse on the contexts and on the missionary areas you have been acting in, the Coordination Team has decided for the creation of, even temporarily, some sharing groups. This is to share experiences and reflections previously which, supposedly, would facilitate the proposed interaction (see 7th Communicate) and the integration between the days of Forum itself. The ten proposed groups are not meant to be definitely complete and closed. We cannot pretend to grasp the totality and complexity of all realities and backgrounds where you come from and the whole range of challenges you face in the missions. It is not our intention to determine or to direct the reflections during the Comboni Forum II either. These groups can certainly be re-discussed and reformulated during the meeting. For that, we ask you to check the attachment – also in the Google group – entitled “contextos e grupos de interesse”. There we propose two possible area of interest (with writings in different colours). If you like, you can email the Coordination Team making your comments and suggestions.

The proposed groups for this first attempt of interaction are: children and teenagers, young people, environment / land issues, human rights, periphery (outskirts/slums) / public policy making, security / peace making, cultures and peoples, movements / social pastoral, mass media / missionary animation, JPIC commission / Lobbying and Advocacy.

If you wish, through the synoptic table of the participants (see complete list in attachment), you can access the personal information of those people you can contact and interact with.

3. READING / REFLECTION STUFF
We remind you that the “II Forum Comboniano” Google group community can only become a true space of interaction if you take the initiative by putting forth some questions and thinking based on the already proposed reading stuff or any other relevant discussion. We recommend you to, after reading the articles of Fr. Francesco Pierli and of Marcelo Barros, try to concentrate the discussions taking as the starting point the very questions posed by them:

a) Pierli:

- Will the 2009 WSF, which will be celebrated in Belem in the Amazon, a key region for the world ecosystem, contribute to increase the ecological conscientiousness between us missionaries so that we will make it a pastoral aim amongst the people we serve? In the Christian communities, from the basic Christian communities to the parishes and dioceses, are the Catholics more sensible than others? Is ecology part of the missionary commitment of all of us Comboni Missionaries and Comboni Sisters? Is ecology one of the Kingdom values we are committed with?
- Do we, Comboni Missionaries and Comboni Sisters together with the Christians communities, have spirituality, life style, scientific competency, and enough cohesion to begin a new epoch of social pastoral?

b) Barros:

- What does it mean, from below and in a prophetical way, to put the Congregation and the mission in a state of forum?
- What can this Ethic, that is present and active in the popular movements, teach us who live in a Religious Institution? Do we, in our human relationship with one another and in our own way of dealing with people, put ourselves in this ethical dimension? How can we deepen this way?
- How do we put ourselves in relation to this pastoral dimension and mission that is service to the world? What ecumenical dimension has our sense of mission and our concrete work?
- The WSF in the Amazon will be centred on sustainability. The CF II should deepen how we live it out in the light of our faith. What is the place of sustainability and of communion with the creation in our spirituality and how do we express it? How can we come out of this forum with a vision of mission based on the cultural and religious pluralism and in a perspective of a liberation pluralist theology?

Besides these texts we are going to make available the following ones:

- Ecologia de mente e coração e Missão e ecologia (Ecology of mind and heart & Mission and ecology) by Fr. Dário Bossi

We also recommend for reading (see attachments) others readings stuff:
- Reacender a chama de Comboni (Final Document on the Comboni Forum I)
- Justicia y paz como relación que genera vida (Letter of the Comboni Family on the occasion of Jubilee 2000).
- A Igreja em África a serviço da reconciliação, da justiça e da paz (Lineamenta in preparation of the Bishops Synod of 2009)
- Declaração Final do 2º Congresso Continental das Comissões da Justiça e Paz da AMECEA
- Caminhando para a Conferência Geral do Episcopado Latino-americano e do Caribe (a contribution of the Portuguese and Spanish speaking group of JPIC promotion).
- O projeto de Aparecida by José Comblin

4. INSCRIPTION FOR THE WSF 2009
We would like to inform you that all the confirmed participants of the CF II (besides some Brazilian and Italian young people), without any exception, have been inscribed for the WSF 2009 as a group (a total of 100 people). So, there is no need to be worried about this matter. The inscription fee (R$ 20,00 – U$ 2.00) will be refunded to the Coordination Team of the CF II when you get to Belém.

5. INFRA-ESTRUCTURE AND PRACTICAL GUIDANCE
In the next communication you are going to receive all the necessary information on the weather, transport, food, vaccination, etc. For the time being we ask you to concentrate on having everything ready for your journey to and from Belém: visa (for those who need it) and flight reserve.

In this regard we beg you to confirm, as soon as possible, the exact date of arrival in and leave from Belém. Please note that we can only offer accommodation for our group from January 25th (from 08:00 a.m.) to February 4th (until 06:00 p.m.). Please help us to avoid any last minute trouble. Bear in mind that the Coordination Team is a reduced group to look after many things!

6. PROGRAM
The Coordination Team has already prepared a detailed full program for the CF II. This program has been sent to the assessors so that they can make their comments and any eventual changes. The participants, in turn, will receive the final program with the next communication. We shall take into consideration all the suggestions and expectations of the participants that have answered to the forms that were sent with the 6th communication. With this we hope that the CF II may be a real collective construction and welcomes the diversity and richness of all the participants.

Yet we wish to share with you the objectives of this CF II:
- To favour the knowledge, integration and sharing between the participants trying to value the personal identity and the contexts whereby they develop their mission.
- To introduce the participants into the context of the WSF 2009 in Belém from a social movements and a commitment with the promotion of JPIC point of view.
- To facilitate the integration of the participants in the different events of the WSF
- To integrate the participants in a networked area of interest
- To set a concrete agenda of articulation/collaboration between the participants from the groups of interest and areas of action
- To focus on some reflections in view of the next General Chapter and of the Comboni’s Continental Meeting of Justice and Peace Commission and of the Comboni Sister’s JPIC Meeting.

Besides this, we recommend you to read the objectives of the WSF 2009 which has its own program: http://www.fsm2009amazonia.org.br/forum-social-mundial/noticias/conheca-os-objetivos-de-acoes-do-fsm-2009


7. CONTINENTAL MEETING OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PROVINCIES FOR JPIC
Considering the importance of this meeting we recall on the requirement done in the previous communication: We wish to point out that, according to a proposed that was made some time ago and welcomed by the provincials and delegates of Americas, the date of 4th of February will be entirely dedicated to the meeting of the representatives/responsible of the JPIC in the provinces and delegations. This meeting should crown the whole process of reflection of the CF II and propose some guidelines to the provinces and to the Institute as a whole on the occasion of the Chapter. So, we ask the provincials and delegates to confirm us the name of the representatives of their provinces for this meeting so that we can define a possible work format with its specifics tools for the whole 4th of February.


8. “JUSTICE ON THE RAILS” CAMPAIGN
The Coordination Team of the “Justice on the rail” campaign, a Brasil Nordeste Comboni Missionaries initiative together with various social movements both national and international, has already defined its program for during the WSF and invites you all to participate in the events they are organising. This is a kind of action moved against multinational companies and the predatory model of development in the developing countries. In this case the focus is on the Vale, the world’s largest mining company. Here is the program:

a. Justice on the Rails: the conflict between people and the VALE COMPANY
International seminar – 28th January – morning
With representative of the largest movements for Environmental Justice in Brazil, Canada, and Italy

b. Justice on the Rails: peoples in the world in conflict with the VALE COMPANY
International seminar – 28th January – afternoon
With the representatives of the victims from mining works in Canada, England, Mozambique, New Caledonia, and Brazil.
c. Justice on the Rails: the conflicts between people and the VALE CAOMPANY (an environmental analysis)
Workshop – 29th January – with Forum Carajás
d. Justice on the Rails: the conflicts between people and the VALE CAOMPANY (an economic analysis)
Workshop – 30th January – with the Centro Nuovo Modello di Sviluppo
We hope that the mood of good preparation for the coming of Emmanuel may be enriched with the reflections and preparations for the CF II.
We take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Christmas!
See you soon!

Brotherly,
On behalf of the CF II Coordination Team

Fr. Gustavo Covarrubias Rodríguez
fsmcomboniano@gmail.com