As the Church prepares to mark the centenary of World Mission Day on October 18, 2026, the Pontifical Mission Societies of Canada hosted a webinar on May 29 featuring Father Claude Morneau, IMC, a Quebec-born Consolata missionary who has devoted nearly fifty years of his life to mission in South America and Africa.

A member of the Consolata Missionary Institute (Institut des missionnaires de la Consolata), Father Morneau spoke with simplicity and depth about the experiences that have defined his twenty-six years in Brazil and eight years in Mozambique. His testimony was a reminder that mission is not simply a matter of travelling to distant lands; it is, above all, a response to the needs of the most vulnerable and a witness to the Gospel wherever God calls.

Mission lived in encounter

Throughout his testimony, Father Morneau returned again and again to the importance of closeness with the people he served. His years among some of the poorest communities brought him to an understanding of poverty that caught him off guard:

"I discovered what poverty really is. Being poor isn't necessarily lacking material things. It's lacking the good relationships that help you move forward. The greatest poverty is having no friends, no support."

That conviction shaped everything that followed. Listening, presence and solidarity became for him not merely pastoral methods but the very form his missionary witness took.

A call received

On the question of vocation, Father Morneau was equally clear. Mission, he said, does not originate with the missionary.

"Mission comes from the heart, but it comes also from God who calls. 'You did not choose me,' Jesus said, 'I chose you.'"

That call, he suggested, continues to resound in the universal Church today, inviting every baptized person to take part in mission according to their own vocation, whether through service, prayer, witness or support for missionary works.

Mission in communion

One of the most consistent themes of the webinar was collaboration. Father Morneau was firm on this point: mission is never carried out alone.

"Mission is never carried out alone. You go with me. You carry the mission with me through your prayer, through your friendship."

That communal vision was evident throughout his account, in his work alongside local communities, engaged laypeople and members of other religious traditions encountered in the field.

A living hope

The webinar also touched on the challenges facing the missionary Church today, at a time when the relationships between local Churches are taking new forms. Father Morneau spoke of the importance of intercultural and interreligious dialogue, and of the need for genuine solidarity with Churches throughout the world.

His testimony, for all its honesty about difficulty, was marked throughout by hope: a hope rooted in the conviction that the Gospel continues to transform lives and that the Church's missionary calling remains as urgent as ever.

The theme chosen by Pope Leo XIV for this centenary year, "One in Christ, United in Mission," finds in Father Claude Morneau's fifty years of witness a living illustration of what those words require.

The full webinar is available (in French only) to view on YouTube:

Joanne Dorcé
Content Manager and Assistant Director,
Communications Department
Archdiocese of Montreal