MANILA, September 21, 2013—In line with the celebration of Year of Faith, CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Culture (ECC) organized a national conference on culture and faith.
Slated on October 14-17 in Alfonso, Cavite, the first national conference of Catholic Cultural Centers brings together its members all over the country to reflect, share and discuss how they can collaborate with the whole Church and with each other so as to be active gateways for the New Evangelization.
Dubbed as “Where Faith and Culture Meet—Catholic Cultural Center: Gateways to New Evangelization”, the conference will challenge the Catholic faithful to work together in search for new ways of making the values of the Gospel be better appreciated and understood.
According to Culture Commission there are five key objectives for the conference. These are dialogue which is to personally encounter and network with the directors and representatives of the Catholic Cultural Centers of the Philippines and share challenges, experiences, ideas and information regarding each other, and awareness to update members of the ongoing and upcoming activities, programs and initiatives of the centers and the ECC and key areas of new evangelization spearheaded by the Catholic Church.
“We also need to learn where individual and communal enrichment and empowerment through conference talks and workshops on important cultural themes relating to New Evangelization including Filipino values, youth culture, cyberspace and the new media, philosophy conscience formation, migration, Gospel and liturgy; and uplift through identifying existing local activities and initiatives regarding New Evangelization and formulate possible ways for the Catholic Cultural centers to assist and collaborate in their continuous development,” ECC added.
“And lastly, plan, which is to actively participate in programming new concrete initiatives for the mission of New Evangelization that can be adapted by each affiliated and non-affiliated local religious and secular institutions. All of these will help us gain a lot of things during the first national conference,” they furthered.
Currently, there are 73 Catholic Cultural Centers in the Philippines; mostly Catholic schools and seminaries.
Catholic Cultural Centers serves as a venue for New Evangelization especially on the dialogue between faith and culture. (Jandel Posion)
