Washington, D.C. – This September, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will be convening a gathering of more than 3,000 delegates from across the U.S. for the V National Encuentro of Hispanic/Latino Ministry with the theme, “Missionary Disciples: Witnesses of God’s Love.”
The event will be a crucial turning-point for the Catholic Church in America and its response to the growing numbers of Latino Catholics in the United States. The four-day event will focus on discerning ways in which the Church in the U.S. can better respond to the Hispanic/Latino presence and strengthen the ways in which Hispanics/Latinos respond to the call to missionary discipleship. It will be led by U.S. bishops and delegates in diocesan leadership roles from across the country as well as leaders of Catholic ecclesial movements and Catholic organizations and institutions.
As a priority activity of the USCCB’s Strategic Plan for 2017-2020, the event is the culmination of a two-year process of evangelization, mission and consultation through a series of Regional and Diocesan Encuentro’s held thus far in 9 regions and 143 U.S. dioceses. So far, the Regional and Diocesan Encuentro’s have had more than 51,000 leaders participate, and more than 26,000 people have been trained as missionary disciples.
Currently, Latinos make up 40 percent of the 74 million self-identifying Catholics in the United States, based on a weighted average of recent surveys from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Pew Research Center, adjusted by a proprietary model of the V Encuentro Research Team to include the imputed affiliation of children who were not included in the surveys.
Bishop Michael F. Olsen of the Diocese of Fort Worth will be hosting the national event that will be held in Grapevine, Texas, from September 20-23.
For more details about the V National Encuentro, please visit https://vencuentro.org/.
