Ponce, Puerto Rico – The Sixth American Missionary Congress (CAM6) was inaugurated on November 19, 2024, with an address by Archbishop Roberto Octavio González Nieves, OFM, Metropolitan Archbishop of San Juan. Before an audience of over 1,300 missionaries, including 57 bishops from across the Americas, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, President of the USCCB, and several national directors of The Pontifical Mission Societies (TPMS), including Father Anthony Andreassi, Interim National Director of TPMS USA, Archbishop González highlighted the shared missionary vocation of the Church, setting the stage for a week of spiritual renewal and collaboration.
“Welcome to our beautiful Puerto Rico, a land we now call a place of missionary impetus, synodality, and the charity of Jesus,” Archbishop González began, expressing gratitude to local clergy, religious, and volunteers for their efforts in hosting CAM6. “May you feel at home here, just as Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good that we are here’ (Lk 9:33). Let this be a moment to celebrate our faith and strengthen our missionary commitment together.”
Reflecting on Puerto Rico’s pivotal role in the Church’s history, Archbishop González noted, “Puerto Rico holds the primacy of ecclesialization in the New World. It was here, in 1511, that one of the first dioceses in the Americas was established, and the first bishop to set foot in the New World, Alonso Manso, made his home in San Juan.” He spoke of the resilience of the Puerto Rican Church, calling it “a David among the Goliaths of the world,” and emphasized the strength derived from the island’s deep Catholic roots.
For this reason, the Archbishop of San Juan pointed out, “it moves me greatly to think that in our homeland, the smallest of the Greater Antilles, is where the first roots of the ecclesialization of the New World are sunk”. And, he stressed, “America is united by the Christian faith. A faith that proclaims a love for God and neighbor. That is why we are in solidarity with our countries, as we have done in a special way with the Church in Nicaragua, which is experiencing one of the most violent persecutions in America today.”
A missionary holds a flag of Panama during the opening day of CAM6. (Credit: Courtesy of CAM6)
The Puertorican is a Church, said Bishop González Nieves, that “has grown from the missionary spirit of so many Spaniards and Dutch, and in the last century with North American brothers and sisters, especially with nuns who founded many Catholic schools in Puerto Rico and in the last decades, with Dominican, Cuban, Colombian, Mexican, Haitian and Venezuelan priests and religious. And it is also a Church that experienced a traumatic and political event in 1898, when it passed from Spanish sovereignty to that of the United States. An event that led to an effort by the federal government to “make Puerto Rico the first Latin American Protestant country, dividing the island into five regions of different Protestant denominations”, but the Catholic Church “has never resigned itself and has demonstrated the strength of its Catholic identity. The harder they hit us, the stronger we become!”
It was clear then and now, he said, that “our Church, both worldwide and in Puerto Rico, has in the laity its greatest treasure.” He also recalled the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017 that took the lives of four thousand people, for which “our people are still in mourning.”
Addressing the laity, the Archbishop of San Juan valued that “you are the living stones of this surviving Church; to you we owe as much in catechesis, as in building temples as in sustaining the clergy and religious and in witnesses and models of holiness. You are the ones who to a great extent carry the cross of Christ when you evangelize, when you create homes, when you work, when you treasure and demand the right to life, to health, to education, to work, to a dignified life and to the self-determination of the Nation.”
Archbishop González Nieves recalled the joy, in 2001, for the first blessed of the island, the layman Carlos Manuel Cecilio Rodriguez Santiago, dedicated to missionary catechesis and very focused on the Mystery of the Easter Vigil, to which he referred saying “we live for that night”.
“Now, we make ecclesial history once again,” concluded the Puerto Rican Archbishop, ‘as we welcome you to this sixth American Missionary Congress, an encounter between our different cultures marked by a single faith, a single baptism and a single Lord’.
Archbishop González Nieves concluded with an inspiring call to action, referencing the Congress’s theme: “America, with the Power of the Spirit, Witnesses to Christ.” He added, “Let this gathering ignite our missionary flame. Together, let us walk with Mary, whose faith illuminates our path, and proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth.”
CAM6, which runs through November 24, features liturgical celebrations, theological reflections, and workshops, bringing together delegates from across the Americas to strengthen the Church’s missionary efforts. The Congress is being broadcast in multiple languages, ensuring its message reaches a global audience.
