IACM NEWSLETTER
Number 5 - January 2005
Issued by the President and the Executive Secretary
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
As we begin 2005, I offer you my best wishes for a New Year filled with peace, good health and joy.
During our most recent General Assembly in Cochabamba (Bolivia), the new Executive Board met on the only two evenings available after the election. This at least gave us a staring point, but it also had the weakness of not all participating.
In November, when I was back at Maryknoll NY for a meeting, Bertrand Roy, our new Executive Secretary, came from Montreal and we were able to spend two full days together discussing the association and our hopes during our term. This was communicated to the entire Executive Board and we are planning a much needed meeting for the beginning of July this year.
How do we build on our beginnings?
The IACM has completed its first four years and has held its second General Assembly in 2004. One image that has been used is that of a baby coming to birth. We are still at the beginnings of the life of the IACM. How do we build on our beginnings?
We wish to explore how to more vigorously pursue the purpose of the association as stated in our statues. How can all of us better promote “missiological research, studies and educational activities and encouraging collaboration among Catholic missiologists?” What do we need to do to fulfill the specific objectives of the IACM? How can we better foster fellowship among Catholic missiologists? What can we do to promote scholarly studies of questions relating to the missionary nature and activity of the Church? What should we be doing to contribute to the content and quality of missiological education and formation that reaches programs for the initial and continuing formation of the clergy, religious and laity in the local Churches?
As members of the IACM, how can we better collaborate with one another? How can we serve the diverse local Churches in their mission? How can we further studies related to the evangelizing mission of the Church? Our last General Assembly created four Study Groups. What do we plan to do with these Study Groups? How can we encourage their participants and ask others as well to join? We have many members who are editors or closely connected with missiological reviews. How can we better cooperate by means of articles produced by our members? This is one way to share missiological research and thinking among continents. How can we better utilize our webpage in the IAMS website and perhaps establish our own website? How can we better work in collaboration with other international, regional or national missiological societies?
What are the services the IACM can offer to its members? Can we offer a scholarship for young missiologists to give them the opportunity for a study experience in some other part of the world? This would lead to a multi-directional exchange.
These core issues deal with the identity and purpose of the IACM and need to be addressed by all the members. We plan to conduct a survey before the 2005 Executive Board meeting in order to explore your interests and connections. This would help to put us in contact with one another, to encourage participation and to give us a realistic idea how to tap the commitment of our members.
We feel that these topics need to come first and then the practical issues internal to the IACM like membership, dues, funding and the like will more easily be addressed.
Collaboration with IAMS
Before we move to these internal issues, let us first appreciate our collaboration with IAMS. Our association has a webpage in the IAMS website at this address: www.missionstudies.org. This webpage is in the section Missiological Networks. The IAMS website is worth a look. The IAMS has told us that they are more than happy for us to have a page on their site as long as we want it. While we have discussed an independent website and hope to move in that direction, we appreciate the outstanding collaboration that exists through this website. The last assembly of the IAMS was less than two months before our own assembly. The board has decided that we will tentatively plan our next assembly in 2007 based on the fact that IAMS will probably have their assembly in 2008. We will wait for their final decision before we finalize our date.
Membership and dues
Internal issues that need to be addressed are membership and dues. We have an impressive list of members, yet if we look at this together with those who have paid dues we will see that some have never paid dues, some have paid once and only a few have paid for 2004. However, even if all paid their dues in full, the dues are not enough to support the association. We need to look for sources of funding. This is one issue that the board will discuss.
At the assembly, we heard that some of the funding came from the personal contributions of the past president, Fr. John Gorski. While we can be grateful for his generosity, why just him? Cannot all of us in some way make contributions beyond our dues? Some of us received gifts at Christmas time, can we share some of that with the IACM. At the assembly in Cochabamba, one member said he would ask someone he knew for a contribution. Can more of us do the same? While this is not expected to answer our funding needs, it goes a long way in demonstrating commitment and ownership for the association on the part of its members.
Regarding funding, the board proposes that the IAMC look also for a number of congregations, societies of apostolic life and others who would become yearly sponsors. This would spread out the sponsorship, assure us of regular donations and free us from over concern with finances so that we can focus on the objectives of our association. We need to establish a system of fund raising that encourages the widest possible sponsorship.
We would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions that you would wish to submit to the Executive Board on these or any issues related to the IACM. I hope that all of us will respond to the survey that will be out in few months. This will help us in the coming years.
Bill LaRousse
Executive Board (2004-2008):
President: William (Bill) LaRousse (Philippines);
Vice-President: Eleazar López Hernández (Mexico);
Executive Secretary: Bertrand Roy (Canada);
Treasurer: Luisa Melo Leyton (Italy).
Regional Representatives:
Africa: Silvester Arinaitwe Rwomukubwe (Uganda);
Latin America: Joaquim Garcia (Peru);
North America: Nicanor Sarmiento T. (Canada);
Asia-Oceania: Lazar Thanuzraj (India);
Europe: Paul Steffen (Italy).
For more information and a report of the Second General Assembly at Cochabamba: www.missionstudies.org/IACM/Cochabamba2004.htm
Message from the Treasurer
It is no understatement to say that the payment of dues is a problem. As was explained at the assembly, we had to close the account we had at the Vatican Bank. This leaves us only with the bank account at Techny, Illinois (USA) that we have due to the help of the SVD Mission Office.
Dues can be paid by sending a US dollar check made payable to the International Association of Catholic Missiologists. The name must be in full and not abbreviated as IACM. Only the full name is recognized as an account name. Please enclose a note that it is for the payment of your dues or a donation. This should be mailed to the following address:
IACM
Divine Word Missionaries
Mission Office, PO Box 6099
Techny, IL 60082
United States
Please send also a copy of this note to the Treasurer (address below) for record keeping.
A direct transfer can also be made to the account name: International Association of Catholic Missiologists to the LaSalle Bank NA, Chicago, Illinois, ABA 071000505. The account number is 5200956596.
The payment of dues is really only an issue once a year or once every three of four years if members pay for three of four years at one time. It seems that the method of payment itself is a problem. What kind of system do we need to facilitate all members to pay dues? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to facilitate this? Should we have regional payment of dues? Can we ask the help of religious groups that have access in their organization of US dollar checks? At present that is all we have. We are trying to open a Vatican Bank account, but we do not have legal status. Again, does anyone have any suggestions to help us all in this needed aspect of our association?
We ask that all members please try to pay their dues for 2005 and for the following years if possible as soon as possible.
Luisa Melo Leyton
Via Stazione di S. Pietro, 6
00165 ROME
ITALY
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