“Catholic Action assumes the entire mission of the church in generous belonging to the diocesan Church from the Parish. The mission is not one of many tasks in Catholic Action, but it is the one task (...)
It is necessary for Catholic Action to be present in the political, business and professional world, but not in order to believe that we are perfect and formed Christians, but in order to serve better. It is essential that Catholic Action be in the prisons, even with those condemned to life imprisonment, because every prisoner needs a horizon, not a fence, or a wall... CA can give horizons... of reinsertion... It is necessary that CA be in hospitals, in the street, in the villages, in the factories. If this is not the case, it will be an exclusive institution that does not say anything to anyone, not even to the Church itself.”
(Pope Francis at the II International Congress of Catholic Action, 27 April 2017)

Acción Católica General of Spain will hold its III Meeting of the Laity of the Parish from August 1 to 4, 2019.

Taking up this call of the Church from Pope Francis himself, we feel that our vocation and mission, in the present moment, has the challenge to leave our parishes, to feel sent from them to participate in the construction of a society according to God’s Plan, to have a more significant presence in public life.
For this to be a reality we need to create spaces where we can form ourselves, share with others, and above all discern the calls from our Lord to give witness in the different spheres of the social fabric: family, work/economy, culture and the sociopolitical world.
As a conclusion of the Meeting we will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Acción Católica General. We’ve been travelling this new course for 10 years; after a process of reconfiguration, we welcomed, in a climate of Christian hope and joy, the Statutes that our Spanish bishops approved collegially in their XCIII Plenary Assembly. All the lay people of any age, who want to walk together, and all the members of Acción Católica General, from its three sectors (Children, Youth and Adults), are convoked.

Goals
• To offer a space for reflection where the fundamental contents developed in the Magisterium of the Church about the public presence of the laity are exposed.

• To deepen the living out of our evangelising mission as the fruit of the discernment and vocation to which the Lord calls each one of us.

• To promote joint work and living between children, young people and adults.

• To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the new course.

SLOGAN: “Making God’s dream come true”
“Making God’s dream come true” is the hopeful announcement that Acción Católica General is an active, apostolic reality, working in the “here and now” of our history to make God’s Kingdom present. Because the “dream of God” is to make a world of children and brothers. 

“True dreams are the dreams of ‘we’. Great dreams include, involve, are extroverted, share, create new life. And great dreams, to remain so, need an inexhaustible source of hope.”
(Pope Francis, Circus Maximus, Rome, 11 August 2018).

We welcome the words of Pope Francis for our association: “Don’t lose the ability to dream the future: each one of you. Each one of us: dream our family, our children, our parents. Look at how I would like my life to be. The priests as well: dream of your faithful, what you would like for them. Dream as young people dream, who have no “modesty” when it comes to dreaming, and there they find a way. Do not lose the ability to dream, because to dream is to open the doors to the future. To be fruitful in the future.”
(Mass at Santa Marta, 18 December 2018).

Development
“The vocation of the lay faithful to holiness implies that life according to the Spirit expresses itself in a particular way in their involvement in temporal affairs and in their participation in earthly activities. (…) “The unity of life of the lay faithful is of the greatest importance: indeed they must be sanctified in everyday professional and social life. Therefore, to respond to their vocation, the lay faithful must see their daily activities as an occasion to join themselves to God, fulfill his will, serve other people and lead them to communion with God in Christ” (Christifideles Laici 17, John Paul II).
We will work with the support of the Catholic Social Teaching on the family, the world of work, culture and the socio-political world.
On August 4, in addition to the Spanish ecclesial authorities, we will count on the presence of the Pope through Dr. Linda Ghisoni, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

María José Miguel Ortega

Acción Católica General Spain