OFFICIAL NAME
Promoting Group of the Movement for a Better World
ACRONYM
MBW
ALSO KNOWN AS
Movement for a Better World
FOUNDATION
1952
HISTORY
The Movement for a Better World was born in Rome in response to the call for renewal addressed to the Church by Pius XII with the radio message of 10 February 1952 known as the “Proclamation for a Better World”. Father Riccardo Lombardi, SI, already appreciated by the Pope for his preaching, received the task of animating an experience of renewal of the Church for the construction of a “better world”, which he articulated in the Exercises for a Better World, taken from those of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and transforming them from individuals into communities. In Italy, after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, the historical headquarters of the Movement in Rocca di Papa, given by Pius XII, became an International Centre of Conciliar Spirituality, much appreciated by Paul VI, for the reception of the Council and the diffusion of the Exercises. In the 1970s, the Movement developed studies on change, dialogue, secularization, the Church as People of God, the world, and launched the project “New Image of the Parish”. After the death of Father Lombardi (1979), the group chose to decentralise, leaving its historical headquarters, and developed pastoral projects for youth, families, ministries, and religious institutes, concentrating on the renewal of the local Church, with the diocesan project of renewal-evangelisation that incorporated the parish project, already present in various countries. In the same years, the Group was reorganised into local, regional and national teams and took the name “Community Animation Service”. On December 14, 1988, the Pontifical Council for the Laity decreed that the Promoting Group of the Movement for a Better World was thenceforth recognised as an international association of the faithful. From 2011 to 2019, a special commission revised the Exercises for a Better World, in line with what Father Lombardi himself had already done in his time. From 2019, among the main lines of action of the Group is the commitment to spread the New Exercises in all the nations where the Movement is present.
IDENTITY
The MBW, as Father Lombardi conceived it, is not an organisation, but a dynamism that is engaged in the more global organisation of the Church and the world. The life and activities of the Movement are inspired by Father Lombardi’s Exercises for a Better World, which constitute its fundamental activity, and by the subsequent intuitions and decisions taken by the Cenacle.
In concrete terms, MBW is an inter-vocational group of animators. Its method starts from a reading of the signs of the times and, by calling groups to conversion, opens them up to ever broader horizons. It is characterised by a communitarian conception: loving God, loving one’s neighbour and wanting the common good means building ourselves up together as the People of God, through methods that allow us to achieve communitarian holiness. Each member continues to belong to their own community of origin, on behalf of which they place themselves at the service of the whole, and to which they return at the end of their assignment or term or service.
ORGANISATION
The association is divided into local groups whose most common field of action is that of the nation. However, these groups can also be regional or cultural. Each local group has a directorate and promotes apostolic activities of various kinds, inspired by the New Exercises, and, where they are still active, by renewal-conversion projects. The local groups are organised on an international level by linguistic region, in order to better facilitate an experience of communion and collaboration in apostolic action and formation. Each region has a coordinator and a coordinating team. The general directorate is assisted in the management of the Promoting Group by at least three permanent commissions. The culminating moment in the life and mission of the association is the General Assembly or Cenacle in pastoral session, which is convened every four years, during which the General Director and two other members of the General Administration are elected, and the plan of action for the following four years is laid out.
WEBSITE
http://www.porunmundomejor.com/wordpress/international/
HEADQUARTERS
Gruppo Promotore del Movimento per un Mondo Migliore
Via Monte Altissimo, 23 - 00141 Roma
Tel./Fax [+39] 06.8185678
E-mail: mondo.migliore@iol.it
