The 40th meeting of the Bishops of the Catholic Church in America is beginning today in Tampa, Florida, and will conclude Thursday.
The meeting brings together representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM).
This gathering with discuss the theme “Jesus Christ, the face of the Father’s Mercy” with Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and the 2007 Aparecida document of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean as foundational documents. Then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was the principal writer of the Aparecida document.
More than 20 delegates will participate in the Tampa meeting.
The meeting is part of a series of informal gatherings previously known as the Interamerican Meeting of Bishops, held every few years since 1967, and called the Meeting of the Bishops of the Church in America, to emphasize the unity of the Church in the Western hemisphere, since the year 2000.
This year’s meeting is organized by the CCCB. Recent meetings have discussed debt cancellation of the poorest country, immigration, globalization of the economy and cultures, the family, secularism, evangelization, humanitarian efforts for Haiti and communications.
