The year 2025 marks the 150th founding anniversary of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD). To celebrate this milestone, the SVD organized an International Conference on Mission with the theme Missio Dei in Today’s World: Healing Wounds, Challenged by Postmodernity, Learning from Cultures, Inspired by Religions.
The conference was held on March 27–29, 2025, at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Both the speakers and the 250 participants came from the Catholic as well as other Christian churches, representing a broad cross-section of the laity, clergy, and consecrated persons from various religious missionary congregations, making the conference a truly ecclesial and ecumenical event.
There is a wide-ranging theological consensus globally and ecumenically that mission is God’s mission—it is God’s initiative and being which involves all creation and peoples. However, to arrive at a deeper understanding of God’s mission, a lot of reflection is still required. This collection of the papers presented at the International Conference on Mission contributes to this quest for deeper understanding.