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International News
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CATHOLIC COMMUNITIES GATHER AT FATIMA One thousand people, including 28 bishops, who represented 250 Catholic Communities met together at Fatima for the first European meeting of the Catholic Fraternity of Covenant Communities and Fellowships, from 28th Oct - 1st Nov 2005. The Catholic Fraternity, which was founded in 1990 by Brian Smith, from the Emmanuel Community in Brisbane, was the first expression of Catholic Charismatic Renewal to receive statutes and official recognition from the Holy See. The Catholic Fraternity meets every two years at different locations round the world, but this was the first time, there had been a European meeting. The current leader, Matteo Calisi, who leads the Comunita di Gesu' in Italy, called on those present to be united in their work for the Lord. The Fraternity is made of both large and small communities. The largest are probably the Brazilian communities of Shalom and Can??o Nova, who have successfully planted many communities in Southern Europe over the last decade. Can??o Nova in Brazil have recently opened a new building for their weekly prayer meetings which houses 10,000 people. Oreste Pesare, the director of ICCRS, who is also the leader of the Magnificat community, from Italy, commented, "This meeting was an important step forward in the life of the Fraternity. It was the opening of a new collaboration in the mission of evangelisation which we have in common. For me it was a sign that the family of CCR is coming back together to be one, as we recognise that we need each other." Georgina Livesey and Elizabeth de Paolo were the only two representatives from England. They have been asked to encourage representatives from New communities in the UK and Ireland to attend the next Catholic Fraternity meeting which will take place in Brazil 1st-5th November 2006. "It was the most amazing experience," said Georgina. "We have a lot to learn from them." BRITS AT LISBON MISSION Later in the month there followed in Lisbon from 5th-13th November 2005, the third of the International Congresses for the New Evangelisation. These city missions were the inspiration of the five European cardinals of Vienna, Paris, Lisbon, Brussels and Budapest, who felt they needed to do something to evangelise the big cities of Europe and respond to Pope John Paul II's call for a New Evangelisation. The events are a collaboration between the local dioceses and the Emmanuel Community, one of the most established Catholic Charismatic communities of mainland Europe.
Mgr Keith Barltrop and Clare Ford from The Catholic Agency
to Support Evangelisation (CASE) were invited to run several workshops
on evangelisation during the city Mission. Among the dozen or so members
of the small English contingent was also Bishop Charles Henderson, the
retired auxiliary bishop of Southwark, who was very impressed by what
he saw. Also among the English group were Fr Paul Watson and Nicola
Hurley from Maryvale, Fr David Keniry, Tony Schmitz, Matt van Duyvenbode,
a youth worker from the Northampton diocese, Eliz Cook, Deacon John
McKenna from Allen Hall and northern performance poet F Mary Callan,
who shared her work during the Mission. Mgr Keith Barltrop also gave
his personal testimony to the main congress as well as giving a workshop
on how to speak about the gospel without using religious jargon and
alienating people who are not Christian. Clare Ford led a workshop on
how to mobilise parishes to be more missionary in outlook. Clare commented,
"many of those we spoke to were very impressed by the existence
of CASE which is an initiative of the institutional church, and a sign
of the importance that the hierarchy in this country attaches to evangelisation.
There was calls from Australian, Belgian, French and Spanish delegates
for something similar in their own countries". People in the parishes
were apparently very impressed too by the brightly coloured evangelistic
publicity material which CASE produces, especially the car stickers,
which now grace many a Portuguese car in the capital. One of the enriching
features of these city missions is the opportunity for foreign visitors
to stay with local people and experience something of local parish life.
At the Paris city Mission in 2004, each parish had festooned a big banner
advertising the mission outside their churches. In Lisbon, however,
instead of lots of these smaller banners, there were several massive
billboards proclaiming "Cristo Vivo!" the theme of the mission
in prominent places in the city centre. This drew people's attention
to what was going on in the capital. Each church moreover had a special
post box during the week into which everyone, believers and non-believers
alike, were encouraged to drop their petitions to God. The culmination
of the week of evangelistic activities and workshops was a giant procession
through the streets of the city, with an estimated 1.5 million people,
carrying these boxes of petitions and following the famous statue of
Our Lady of Fatima, which was brought from the shrine for the occasion.
The CASE team are hoping that more people from Ireland and the UK, particularly
those interested in evangelisation will make the trip to Brussels this
coming year from 29th October-5th November 2006. "It was a brill
experience", said Clare. DEMONS FLYING IN PORTUGAL While the mission was going on in Lisbon, Catholic layman, Myles Dempsey and Fr Jimmy Collins from Liverpool were ministering at a three day charismatic gathering at Fatima organised by the Bethany community. Here there were spontaneous deliverances as the congregation praised God and worshipped the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Myles commented, "Sometimes people who have been involved in spiritualism can become involved in the Charismatic Renewal, without repenting of their past practices and receiving deliverance prayer. If this happens, when they pray with people there can be a form of transference of what they have been involved in, which is one of the reasons why I always am very careful whom I allow to be involved in the healing ministry and to pray for people." During his last two trips to Portugal, he says has seen a big increase in the power of the Holy Spirit at the gatherings. Over half the 2000 or so participants at Fatima claimed to have experienced some kind of healing at the event. LEARNING FROM AFRICA The month of November also saw two teams from England ministering in Africa. One was Roy Hendy, James Parker and Gerard Pomfret from the Harvesters' Men's Weekends, who spent two and a half weeks in Tanzania and Kenya, the other was Damian Stayne and a team from Cor et Lumen Christi. The two teams found this out when they met at the Catholic Miracle Rally in Dar es Salam in Tanzania. Here the Men's group team led the first few days of the rally and Damian and his community the last half. Roy Hendy commented, "It was an amazing time. I have never seen so many healing and deliverances in my life, as at the Miracle rally. One young woman had been bent up double all her life, and after a few minutes of prayer straightened up before my eyes. She couldn't believe it. You couldn't doubt that the power of the Spirit was there. It certainly wasn't us. At one point I simply held up my crucifix and people around me fell down on the floor manifesting." The team fasted for two days in preparation for the ministry at the event. Gerard Pomfret, who is better known for running the bookstalls at charismatic conferences, had never ministered to such a huge group before, and found himself leading a healing service for 1400 people. As there were only three in the English team, and because of the amount of people to be prayed for, the stretcher bearers were co-opted to help out and were prayed with to receive an anointing so that they could pray for people in the crowd as well. The men's team then went to Kenya to minister at various men's events. Here there were some very moving acts of repentance but they did not see the same manifestations of power in healing and deliverance. The team reflected on this and wondered if it had to do with the fact that Kenya was more westernised than Tanzania. All of the team, however, were very challenged by what they saw in Africa. Roy comments, "in Britain I often feel we are crippled by our fear of what people might think, and this stops the Spirit from really acting in power in our meetings both in terms of repentance and healing and deliverance. It's as if our fear of embarrassment stops us from opening up to God. But I believe this can change. We just need to recognise what's going on and repent and step out in faith." New Dawn Uganda Myles Dempsey, founder of the New Dawn conference in Walsingham will also be going out to Africa soon, as he is to take part in the annual New Dawn conference at Mbarara in Uganda which takes place in January. Last year 35,000 attended the Ugandan New Dawn conference, and this year up to 70,000 are expected.
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