ASSISI, Italy, OCT. 29, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships is celebrating 20 years with an international conference in Assisi.
The 14th international conference of the fraternity is currently under way through Sunday. The meeting, which is also sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the institution and pontifical recognition of the organization.
The conference is being held in the theater of Las Esteras Center. It opened Thursday with addresses by Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi; Matteo Calisi, president of the fraternity and member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity; Archbishop Alberto Taveira Correa of Belem do Para, Brazil, and spiritual adviser of the fraternity; and Michelle Moran, president of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services and also a member of the laity dicastery.
The Eucharistic celebration of the first working day was presided over by Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Today’s activities included conferences and testimonies of new communities in India, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Italy, Brazil, the United States, Angola, and Mexico.
Some bishops will also give their testimony after participating an international meeting for prelates interested in the new communities of the Charismatic Renewal. This meeting took place during the past week in Assisi, on the theme «Baptism in the Spirit and Charismatic Renewal.»
On Saturday, among other initiatives there will be an ecumenical celebration with testimonies on the theme «One Body and One Spirit» (Ephesians 4:4). An Anglican archbishop of England, Graham Cray, will give an address along with Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen of Fort Worth, Texas.
In the afternoon there will be a meeting with representatives of the international ecclesial movements. Speakers include Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant’Egidio Community, and Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement.
On Sunday, the last day of the meeting, there will be a reflection on the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops and an intervention of Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, former president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.
The organizers expressed the hope that the conference «will be an excellent opportunity to honor the memory of the two founders, Brian Smith (Australia) and Bobbie Cavnar (United States) and of the Papal recognition of the Catholic fraternity by the Pontifical Council for the Laity on November 30, 1990.»
Likewise, they affirmed that «it will be a great occasion to deepen the spiritual bonds with the Holy Father Benedict XVI,» and «to reflect in the light of the Papal magisterium on our ecclesial mission in the perspective of the new evangelization.»
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