"The most important thing is to rescue and build the disabled person."The first face-to-face meeting of Frater Spain since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020 took place in Malaga at the beginning of September. It was the 11th Fraternity Week, held under the theme "The city was filled with joy", which "reflected on this dimension of the Christian faith. Joy of living, joy of the Gospel, hope and the conviction that pain and sadness do not have the last word", says the president of Frater, Enrique Alarcón, who has been reelected together with the general team for the next biennium.
Enrique Alarcón has been with the Christian Fraternity of People with Disabilities of Spain (Frater) for 43 years, the last four as president, and has had quadriplegia since he was 20, as he explained to Omnes in July.
Also ratified by the assembly were Antonio García Ramírez as national councilor, Blas López García as secretary-treasurer and Ana Quintanilla García as vice-president and responsible for the social function of the movement. For personal reasons, Francisco San José Palomar and María Teresa García Tébar left their positions in the team and were thanked by all those present. Frater representatives from more than 35 dioceses from Andalusia, Aragon, the Canary Islands, Castile-La Mancha, Castile and Leon, Catalonia, Valencia, Madrid and the Basque Country attended the event.
Antonio Gómez Cantero, coadjutor bishop of Almeria and general councilor of Spanish Catholic Action, spoke at the inaugural session of the week on August 31, stating that the city of joy, which is welcoming, needs to be built today, and encouraged the participants in this task. In addition, Francisco Pomares, councilor for Social Action and Equality of the City Council of Malaga, and Rocio Perez, president of Andalusia inclusive COCEMFE, who defined Frater as the "mother" and key player in the beginnings of the associative movement of disability in our country, which while denouncing the shortcomings of this group, must reach out to collaborate in its solution.
Jesús Catalá, Bishop of Malaga; Francisco Torres Hurtado, Mayor of Malaga; and Anxo Queiruga Vila, President of the Spanish Confederation of People with Physical and Organic Disabilities (COCEMFE).
"Between suffering and hope".
The meaning of the 11th Frater Week was framed through the inaugural lecture given by the theologian, priest, writer and Frater member in Castellón, José María Marín, entitled "between suffering and hope". He posed questions that, as Enrique Alarcón explained, are always present in every human being and at any time in history, and perhaps even more topical today due to the reality of latent and global suffering: Is hope possible in the darkness of our own and others' suffering? Is it worth being "born" to live in suffering? Is it possible to find happiness in the garden of death? Is it possible to live in fullness while dying every day? To what extent is hope possible?
The bulk of the work of the Fraternity Week has been structured in four participative workshops, according to the movement:
1) "Taller del Maestro, dedicated to finding the tools that Jesus, our Gospel Teacher, offers and facilitates to heal pain, awaken hope and achieve the joy that he spreads throughout the city. It was animated by Antonio García Ramírez and Marisol Quiñonez Quintero".
2) "Media and presence. The pandemic, with its restrictions, has been the breeding ground for strengthening the media and social networks: what is not in the media and networks does not exist: presence in them to express what we are, our experiences of hope, our demands and complaints..... Encouraged by Enrique Alarcón García".
3) "Inclusiveness. An inclusive Church and society. Inclusion makes us citizens with dignity and rights, as well as apostles involved in the tasks of the Proclamation of the Good News. It was animated by Ana Quintanilla García".
4) "Fraternity in Mission: Everyone counts in the Church and in the world". Today our Pope Francis presents fraternity as a fundamental element of socialization and human encounter through justice and peace. It was animated by Felipe Bermúdez Suárez".
Enrique Alarcón summarized the Malaga assembly as follows: "They have been days full of work and life, of sharing and joy, of present and future, with renewed enthusiasm to work for the synodality of the Church as Pope Francis asks of us".
