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.

Archbishop Héctor Miguel Cabrejos Vidarte, the Peruvian Franciscan prelate who is president of CELAM (the Episcopal Conference of Latin America), called on the assembly to “revive Aparecida” and to “open new paths forward, new ways of educating in the pastoral faith, new ways of evangelizing, new ways of being in the society and world of today.”

In his message to the Assembly, Pope Francis called on participants to reflect on “listening” and “overflow”: that is, “ 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.”