It's not just numbers

I don't know if you have ever looked at the numbers: in this land of ours there are 203 countries (if I have not made a mistake in counting), of which 120 depend on the Dicastery for Evangelization, to which should be added specific territories of some countries of America. All this adds up to 1,132 so-called mission territories (territories that are apostolic vicariates, dioceses, prelatures...), that is, 43 % of the earth's surface, where 60 % of the world's population lives.

They are places that depend on the Dicastery for Evangelization because the reality of the Church is still small, the Church is not, it is said, ‘implanted’, it continues to depend on the rest of the Church to be able to carry out ordinary pastoral work. These are the places where we send our missionaries to collaborate in building up the local Church.

The numbers of the Church in those territories are impressive: almost one hundred thousand schools, almost thirty-three thousand social institutions (soup kitchens, orphanages, shelters, women's shelters...). All of them are the responsibility of the universal Church which, through the universal solidarity fund of the PMS, maintains and takes care of them.

Among them, today I would like to highlight that there are 753 seminaries in those places that can open their doors every day because of the help they receive from the PMS, there are more than ninety thousand seminarians who are trained in them, and thanks to this help they have trained teachers, decent libraries, the means to study and work (electricity, internet, water, notebooks, pens...) and to live (food).For this reason, when we celebrate a day like that of native vocations, it is not just another day... we are making it possible that these 1,132 territories may, one day, have their own native priests, who build, maintain and accompany the Church where today, without the help of the missionaries, the Church could not survive. I encourage you to get to know this reality more concretely at www.vocacionesnativas.es.