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Portugal
Population: 99 million Life expectancy males/females: 72/79 years Infant mortality rate: 7.4‰	Illiteracy: 20.3% Religions: Catholic 90%; Jewish. GDP per capita: US $10,420 (1995)

Spiritan presence: since 1867.

a) Introduction - The Country
Portugal is situated on the extreme west of Europe and with Spain forms the Iberian peninsula. It has at present 9.860.000 inhabitants, but in the same socio-political unit are the Azores islands (pop. 237.800) and Madeira (pop. 253.400), autonomous regions. The Church has 18 dioceses and includes a castrensian hierarchy.

b) The Spiritans
The six years gone by since the last General Chapter (1992-1998) were for this Province a time of grace, characterised by a search for new ways of participation, in communion and in collegiality in the internal activities of the Province and in the continuing effort of solidarity with mission ad extra, both at the level of missionary personnel and at the level of material goods.

At present the Portuguese Spiritan community has 201 members, of whom 124 on mission in the province and 77 on external mission. In formation one notes a generous presence of young people. As regards missionary dynamism, the province lives an increasing sensitivity to the demands of mission, although the age of some confreres and the appearance of few vocations translate into a certain numerical decrease.

Areas of work ad extra
The Province has 26 members in Angola, 12 in Brazil, 15 in Cape Verde, 8 in the rest of Africa (with 2 in Mozambique), 7 in America, and in the rest of Europe, totalling 77 members in mission ad extra.

The province formulated an animation plan along the lines of 'sensitising the Christian communities for the universal mission of the Church', "promotion of the protagonism which is due to the laity", in close collaboration with other institutes of mission ad gentes (IMAG). But mission awareness in the province comes from a long way back and witnesses to this are LIAM, JSF, ASES, VOLUNTARIADO MISSIONARIO, MOMIP. A significant help have been the efforts made for a long time by the Spiritan written press with the specialised publications of the review Encontro, the newspaper Accao Missionaria, and other publications by Spiritan authors.

The service promoting justice and peace
It has relied on the new-born but already known structure of CEPAC (Father Alves Correia Centre) which untiringly tries to be a sign and a relief for many African emigrants scattered in the Country.

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Portugese Spiritans

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