By Kevin Foy, executive director of the United States Catholic Mission Association
August 16, 2025
Greetings! I am honored to be together with you for this Spirit-led and prophetic gathering. My organization, the United States Catholic Mission Association, is also pleased to serve as a sponsor for this conference. As a community of faith leaders committed to networking, formation and advocacy for God’s mission, we at USCMA believe strongly in the need for mission-minded Catholics to connect and collaborate, learning and praying with and for one another and, especially, in friendship and mutuality with our global family and partners.
Before I came up here, someone asked me what I am going to say about USCMA. But, honestly, I would rather just talk about mission. I was reflecting on this weekend’s Scripture readings, which deal with prophets, the cloud of witnesses, and Jesus’ setting the world on fire with uncomfortable and inconvenient Gospel truths. When I read Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke, I can’t help but recall the testimony of the martyred Jesuit Father Ignacio Ellacuría in El Salvador. As recounted by longtime peace activist Father John Dear, Ellacuría said that, “The purpose of the Jesuit university in El Salvador [where he worked as a professor and rector] is to promote the reign of God. But,” he added, “you can’t be for the reign of God unless you are also publicly, actively against the anti-reign.”
As people committed to communion, cooperation, and solidarity with our fellow family of God in Latin America, and in a particular way for many of you, with the people of Haiti, you know full well that the mission of God does not end at encounter, service, or even the fruits of our discernment and partnerships—the schools, health clinics, and places of worship that are built; the lives that are transformed through increased educational and economic access. As global citizens and residents of what remains the most politically and economically influential country in the world, we also must commit addressing those injustices and indifferences which give contemporary mission so much of its shape—whether that is the current gang violence in Haiti, or the violence of US deportation practices or revoking life-saving humanitarian aid.
But I also think, reflecting on the role of prophetic witness, of where I myself was standing just a week ago. This past Monday, I returned from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where I spent a week at the Catholic University of West Africa learning from and dialoguing with theologians, academics, clergy, women religious, young people, and other lay pastoral leaders from across the African continent and beyond. I’ll share just two brief experiences from my time there. The first is from a homily, delivered in the chapel of the guest house of the Missionary Sisters of Labor—where some of us stayed for the duration of the conference. The priest, a Nigerian-born professor at the University of Notre Dame, had heard some of the other American guests complaining about the state of the world. So, in his homily, he addressed the role of the prophet:
We often think, he told us, of the prophet only as one who agitates. And while a prophet does do this, he reminded us that a prophet is also the one who, against all good sense and reason, continues to hope. As someone who has seen the Church at work in Latin America and the Caribbean many times over—in Haiti, Guatemala, Bolivia, Mexico—I, like you, know firsthand the power of this witness. The reason we go forth into the world the way that we do is because we know that the Lord is already present and active within it. We are not leading or creating or even devising and developing a better world, we are participating in that Reign which God is already working to realize among us: in every loving encounter between strangers, in every new bond of affection and partnership built across our imagined and manufactured lines of division, in every instance of reflecting and repenting for mistaken assumptions and misuses of power and privilege. And, yes, absolutely in every instance of hunger met, illness healed, prisoner liberated, and community reconciled.
The other insight I will share comes from Fr. Stan Chu Ilo, the visionary behind the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN, for short) which organized the conference. At the gathering’s official opening Mass, he described the Church in Africa as being “alive.” That is, “rooted in community, animated by the Spirit, and attentive to the suffering of the people.” As so often happens in mission, these words reflect back to us the hopes which God has for our own local Church, as well. Through your seeking and responding to the face of Christ beyond borders and across seas, through your listening to and amplifying the voices of our global neighbors and partners in mission, and through the tireless work you do fill the gaps in upholding the life and dignity of all people, you help build a church here at home which, too, is alive in the Spirit and reflective of the love of Jesus.
So, with that, I commend you, I welcome you to this evening’s meal and program, and thank you for offering me a bit of your time tonight. We at the US Catholic Mission Association are committed to helping mission leaders like you connect and grow—spiritually and theologically, in understanding changing contexts and how it challenges and informs where mission is going—so that we can make sure we are participating truly and always in the mission of God.
God bless you and you enjoy the remainder of this wonderful gathering.