The Shalom Catholic Community is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. It received recognition as an international association of the faithful and its statutes were approved ad experimentum in 2007. The statutes received definitive approval by the Pontifical Council for the Laity with a decree dated 22 February 2012.
The consignment of the decree took place in a ceremony at the Pontifical Council for the Laity offices on 11 May 2012. This took place during the week of anniversary celebrations being held in Rome (including a day of pilgrimage to Assisi). A large group of members of the Community came for the celebrations taking place between 9 and 16 May.
Back in 1980, Moysés de Azevado was at the Mass being celebrated by John Paul II in Fortaleza. He felt the call to offer his life to God for the evangelisation of young people who are far from Jesus Christ and the Church. In 1982 he opened the first Shalom Centre of Evangelisation. This was the official beginning of the Shalom Community.
Moysés likes to say that the Community was born at the feet of Peter. After thirty years they have returned to the feet of Peter in Rome in order to receive the definitive approval of their statutes from the Holy See.
“This is a historic week for us”, the founder declared. “We are immersed in the source of our charism. In the early nineteen-eighties, an experience of Christ with the strength of the Spirit impelled us towards the feet of Peter to offer our lives for the Church and for humanity. Now, after thirty years, we are once again at the heart of the Church with the same desire to renew our first commitment, and we do so as a people. This people, together before Christ and with the strength of the Spirit, give ourselves to the Church and humanity in order to bring true peace, and that is Jesus Christ. It is a historic event. Back in 1982 in Fortaleza, we were born in the embrace and blessing of John Paul II. Now we feel the embrace and blessing of the Church that sends us on the mission that we must carry out. I am convinced that all of us in Shalom are receiving a special grace as we receive the definitive approval of our statutes”.
