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Office of Evangelization (OE)

Desks

1. Missions Desk

A Desk has been created within the FABC-OE under the name of "Missions Desk", following an instruction of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples on Missionary Cooperation. This will be the proper responsibility of the Secretariat along with the general operation of the Office.

Its objectives are:

• to assist to realize the goals of the Instruction Cooperatio missionalis;
• to assist in particular the Central Asian Churches (Associate members of the FABC);
• to assist the member Conferences in realizing their mission ad gentes and ad exteros;
• to assist the various institutes of consecrated life, societies of apostolic life, lay associations, Christian movements, volunteer groups and others to integrate their efforts on missionary cooperation.

2. Missionary Formation of Children

The Child population in Asia averages nearly 1/3 of the total number of people living in our continent. This vast continent is still to receive the Good News that God loves them and has sent His only Son to save them from sin and death. The challenge of evangelization in Asia is truly phenomenal indeed. His Holiness Pope John Paul II makes special mention of this responsibility of the Church when he says:

"Within the territories entrusted to these Churches - particularly in Asia... there remain vast regions still to be evangelized" (RM. 37). And again, "Particularly in Asia towards which the Church's mission ad gentes ought to be chiefly directed, Christians are a small minority" (RM. 37).

This responsibility devolves on all Christians and since the children are the future evangelizers of this continent and their numbers are a blessing to the Church, their formation has to receive our priority attention. Responding to the call of our universal Shepherd we should strive to imbibe a strong missionary spirit in our children and they will become the missionaries of Asia tomorrow.

It is, therefore, necessary to organize a special programme for this purpose so that from their tender age Asian Catholic children learn to exercise their full Christian commitment by being missionaries of Jesus.

The special Desk for the Missionary Formation of Children established recently under the FABC-OE will soon start organizing different activities towards assisting the local Churches in Asia in this regard. The central Office is to be located in Colombo at the Secretariat of the Catholic Bishops' Conference.

The Office will seek to co-ordinate these programmes with the different Episcopal Commissions for Evangelization and the National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Asia.

3. Biblical Desk

4. Liturgy