“We do not want to sell a product, we want real communication”. Today in the Vatican Press Office, Father Fabrizio Meroni, Secretary General of the Pontifical Mission Union and Director of CIAM (International Centre for Missionary Animation) and Fides News Agency, presented the website, the video and the Guide for the Extraordinary Missionary Month announced by Pope Francis in October 2019. “We do not have a product to sell, but divine life to communicate to all and everyone, always, at appropriate and inappropriate times”, Mr Meroni pointed out, explaining that the website “intends to promote and animate the Extraordinary Missionary Month of October 2019, so as to contribute, with its multimedia contents, to inspire all Christians to pray and reflect on the missio ad gentes”.
“The Guide – the director of Fides continued – will serve to inspire the creativity of our local Churches and their faithful as they respond to the challenges of evangelisation starting with the missio ad gentes and with their local context. It is not meant to be an exhaustive, systematic theological or catechetical reflection on mission”.
The Extraordinary Month of October 2019 will also have a specific logo: a missionary Cross whose traditional colours recall the five continents. The image also features the words “Baptised and Sent”, the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the event. Finally, an institutional video on the Extraordinary Missionary Month of October 2019 was also created. Like all other contents, it is available on the website and is a journey across the continents: Asia, Sri Lanka; America, Ecuador; Holy Land; America, Mexico and the US; Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; Australia; Asia, Japan.