14th ICCFM
General Assembly
Fatima, Portugal
July 28, 2007
Submitted by Gary and
Kay Aitchison and CFM and MFC Presidents from NA
ICCFM North American
Representatives
We are Gary and Kay
Aitchison from Ames, Iowa USA. We are
the North American Continental Representatives to the ICCFM.
The Christian Family
Movement in North America is comprised of two countries, Canada and the United
States. There are three organizations
that represent the movement in North America.
They are CFM USA with membership of 1500 active families, MFCC USA with
a family membership of 2500 and the MFC LA with
500 families in the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles CA. A total
of 4500 families are members of the movement in the USA.The CFM USA is English
speaking and the MFC are Spanish speaking.
Each of the movements support the ICCFM with a $1 donation per family
membership. There are 23 members of the
movement from the USA in attendance at this Assembly.
CFM USA will
celebrate 60 years of Christian service to families in the year 2009. The Christian Family Movement began in the
United States and expanded worldwide under the leadership of Pat and Patty
Crowley and many others.
The University of
Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, USA has established a permanent collection
of the Apostolic Movements of the 20th Century. The collected documents from CFM are quite
extensive. Kay Aitchison maintains
collaboration with the University Library staff at Notre Dame University.
We would like to say
that we have lost several leaders since we last met in 2004 especially Patty
Crowley who with her husband Pat Crowley formed the movement in the late
1940’s. Juanita Figueroa also died in
2006. Juanita and her husband Mario
were Presidents of the MFC USA at the time of her death. And more recently Fr. Sam Palmer who was the
formerly the International Chaplain for ICCFM and NA Chaplain and a long time
supporter of the movement died of ALS in September of 2006 To these leaders, who attended the Assembly
in CA, and many others we express our
gratitude for their love and efforts to bring Christian values to the families
of the world.
We would like to
encourage you to use the resources of the ICCFM website at www.iccfm.org. The website is in English and Spanish and is managed by Andy
Pozdol who is in CFM in Chicago,
Illinois.
The most challenging
opportunity for the movement in the USA is the substantial increase in the
immigration of Spanish speaking families to the US. This not only is bringing large numbers of Spanish speaking
families that need the support of the MFC but it also impacts CFM USA as the
families begin to integrate into the culture of the US. There will be more on this positive
opportunity as the MFC reports are presented.
We are very pleased
that the Presidents of the three movements in the USA are attending this World
and General Assembly of the ICCFM. We
want to thank them for attending and each of them has consented to present a short
report for their movement in North America. The individual report follow in
this order:
CFM USA John and Lauri Pryzbysz, Presidents
Baltimore,
Maryland
MFC USA Juan and Theresa Rodriques, Presidents
Houston,
Texas
MFC LA Erwin and Nora Lopez, Presidents
Los
Angeles, California