Meeting at Boston College to Develop V Encuentro Guide

On October 25-26, 2015 members of the Process Team, led by the co-chairs Hosffman Ospino and Estela Villagrán-Manancero, met at Boston College with a number of consultants to conceptualize and envision the guide for the V Encuentro. The two-day meeting was sponsored by Boston College and ENAHVE. It was a very positive conversation in which the group gathered to envision with more clarity and excitement the dynamics of reflection in dioceses and parishes, as we move toward formally beginning the process of the V Encuentro in 2017. Besides Hosffman and Estela, the following leaders were present: Alejandro Aguilera-Titus, Fr. Rafael Capó, Bishop José Arturo Cepeda, Dr. Thomas Groome, Nadia Jara, José López, Walter Mena, Roberto Rojas, and Alejandro Siller.

The meeting objectives were accomplished: 1) conceptualize the V Encuentro Guide to be used in dioceses and parishes. 2) Identify pedagogical and methodological principles that will identify the writing of the guide and its use. 3) Determine the number of themes and describe each of these. 4) Establish guidelines for the design. 5) Identify, contact, and commission writers. The group spent some time examining the guides and processes used in previous Encuentros, including the First National Encuentro of Pastoral Juvenil Hispana. We discussed how these guides were developed and the goal envisioned. After several rounds of dialogue and a rich number of ideas, the group began to formulate what would be the best approach for the V Encuentro guide. A key moment was when the group read the passage from Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium, n. 24, which was also used to inspire the call for the V Encuentro theme. In this passage Pope Francis proposes a vision for evangelization that draws from the best of the Latin American ecclesial experience and captures the core ideas of his invitation to the entire Church to a New Evangelization. This vision is delineated in the form of five verbs, which eventually were developed into five topics for the guide: take the first step, get involved, accompany, bear fruit, and rejoice. See Alejandro Aguilera-Titus’ note in this newsletter for more details about the topics of the guide, which were recently approved by the Bishops’ Subcommittee on Hispanic Affairs and the Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church. A number of writers have been identified to begin developing the guide. The goal of the Process Team is to have a first draft of the guide by February 2016 to be discussed by ENAHVE at its meeting in Los Angeles.   2015 © ENAHVE.  All Rights Reserved. Photos by Fr. Rafael Capo.