Final communiqué issued following the Meeting of the Bishops of the Church in America, held in Baltimore, 7-9 February 2011, on the theme “Communion and Communication”
Thursday, February 10 20112011 Meeting of the Bishops of the Church in America
Baltimore, Maryland – The annual meeting of the presidencies of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (CELAM), accompanied by four Bishops from the four regions of Latin America and the Caribbean — the Presidents of the Conferences of Bishops of Peru, Chile and Panama, as well as the General Secretary of the Conference of Bishops of Brazil — took place in Baltimore, Maryland, February 7-9, 2011. The purpose of the meeting was to foster collegial bonds among the Bishops comprising the episcopates of Canada, the United States and Latin America.
The theme of this 36th gathering of the Bishops of America was “Communion and Communication”. It centred on an exchange of views on how to transmit, to the modern world, the Gospel message and the image of the Catholic Church made up of the faithful gathered together in Christ Jesus. From their experiences and perspectives as Catholic Bishops from different regions in the whole American continent, the participants discussed successes and challenges in communicating and living the faith as a result of the rapidly changing means of social communications. Together they shared their experiences of how the new media can serve to bring together and to expand the knowledge and personal experience of the message of Christ in a rapid and accessible manner, both within the Church and in society at large. They also discussed the challenge of forming, in all members of the Church, a spirit of deepened reflection on the wide-ranging contents of newly developed means of social communication, in light of the Gospel message.
The list of participants is the following:
Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano (CELAM)
His Eminence Cardinal Dom Raymundo Damasceno Assis, Archbishop of Aparecida, Brazil; President
The Most Reverend Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, Archbishop of Mérida, Venezuela; First Vice President
The Most Reverend Andrés Stanovnik, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Corrientes, Argentina; Second Vice President
The Most Reverend José Leopoldo González González, Auxiliary Bishop of Guadalajara; General Secretary
Father Sidney Fones Infante, Adjunct General Secretary
Presidents of Episcopal Conferences of Latin America
The Most Reverend Dom Dimas Lara Barbosa, Auxiliary Bishop of Río de Janeiro, Brazil
The Most Reverend Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, S.D.B., Archbishop of Santiago, Chile
The Most Reverend Héctor Miguel Cabrejos Vidarte, O.F.M., Archbishop of Trujillo, Peru
The Most Reverend José Luis Lacunza Maestrojuan, O.A.R., Bishop of David, Panama
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB)
The Most Reverend Pierre Morissette, Bishop of Saint-Jérôme; President
The Most Reverend Richard Smith, Archbishop of Edmonton; Vice-President
The Most Reverend Paul-André Durocher, Bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall; Co-Treasurer The Most Reverend Douglas Crosby, O.M.I., Bishop of Hamilton; Co-Treasurer
Monsignor Patrick Powers, P.H., General Secretary
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
The Most Reverend Joseph Kurtz, Archbishop of Louisville; Vice President
The Most Reverend José Gomez, Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles; Chairman, Migration Committee
The Most Reverend George Murry, S.J., Bishop of Youngstown; Secretary
Monsignor David Malloy, P.H., General Secretary
Monsignor Ronny Jenkins, P.H., General Secretary-elect