Meeting of the coordinators of the geocultural areas: a new horizon for collaboration

From 10 to 14 February 2025, an unprecedented meeting was held at the Generalate in Rome between the General Government and the coordinators of the Congregation’s geo-cultural areas (representatives of the Conferences of Major Superiors of Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe). 

This meeting, which was held in the spirit of the last General Chapter, provided an opportunity to enhance and deepen synodal collaboration in the Congregation’s mode of governance and leadership.  A new horizon is opening up in our way of working. It does not replace existing forms of collaboration, but rather enriches them, leading to ever more direct and participative leadership. 

For this first meeting, the work focused on receiving the Programmatic Letter 2024-2030: “Abide in my love”, which presents the General Administration’s program for the six-year period, but above all, the vision and orientations resulting from the General Chapter. Together, then, the General Government and the coordinators revisited the assets and strategies needed to better receive, assimilate, understand and implement the major pillars of this letter: identity, communion and mission. 

It was a moment of intense reflection, but also of sharing and celebration of fraternity. Prayer was not forgotten. One of the highlights was passing through the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica, embracing the hope of the Church and the world in the name of the entire Congregation. As pilgrims before the tomb of Saint Peter, we gave thanks to God for what he gives us to be and to live, as Church and as Congregation, and entrusted to him, in the renewal of our profession of faith, our Dehonian jubilee, the centenary of the death of Father Leo Dehon and the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Congregation.