The MCC in the Church

The charism that is recognised in the MCC is the origin and support of an ecclesial movement, of a special aggregative reality, a channel of participation in the life and mission of the Church. Like so many others that arose in the context of the Second Vatican Council, the ecclesial movements have been recognised as gifts of the Spirit to respond to the needs of the Church and of the world at this time, a richness of the Church that the Spirit raises up to evangelise all environments and sectors. 

In the words of Bishop Hervás, “originating in a specific charism, it emerges as a new ecclesial movement in which a group of Christians share the same mentality and begin to work with a minimum of organisation and their own method to achieve the intended purpose”. 

It is an ecclesial movement that maintains and reflects the criteria of ecclesiality indicated by St. John Paul II in Christifidelis laicis3, in which the laity have a special role, but in which there is a precious intermingling of laity and priests, each with their own specificity, each with their own function, in a close, cordial and friendly union. It is also a movement with a universal dimension, established throughout the Church and thus recognised by the hierarchy, but at the same time it is an eminently diocesan movement, which is incarnated in the reality of a specific diocese, under episcopal authority, for the achievement of its evangelising action.  

The MCC finds its being in the Church, as an ecclesial movement, of the Church and for the world. This implies, first of all, living as Church, as a sign and instrument of God’s love for mankind, as a space for God’s saving presence. It participates in the mission of the Church in evangelisation, in the specific field of the first proclamation and the fermentation of environments. This mission makes sense from the experience of communion: communion, in its various dimensions, is the framework of action for the Cursillo Movement.