The Sixth Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean, which opened on November 21, is the most significant Latin American bishops’ meeting since the 2007 meeting in Aparecida, Brazil, at which the future Pope Francis chaired the committee that drafted the final document.

“Community discernment requires a great deal of prayer and dialogue in order to find God’s will together, and it also requires finding ways to overcome differences so that they do not become divisive and polarizing,” the Pope said in his message, dated October 15 and released November 21. “I ask the Lord that your Assembly may be an expression of the ‘overflow’ of the creative love of his Spirit, who urges us to go out fearlessly to meet others, and who encourages the Church to become ever more evangelizing and missionary through a process of pastoral conversion.”