home › Programs › past program reports ›

ICUU Leadership Seminar in Argentina

San Nicolás de los Arroyos, a small city in Argentina not far from Buenos Aires and a main center of Catholic devotion, was the place where an agreement was reached between the Argentinian territories to create a free Republic. Now the city has also been witness to the first Seminar of Latin American Unitarian Universalist Leaders and the subsequent foundation of the Latin American UU Association (AUULA).

The Seminar was an international meeting of representatives of emerging UU groups in several Latin American countries, including Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Chile, and the US-associate state of Puerto Rico. All of them were locals who learnt about the UU faith through the Internet or elsewhere and joined other religious liberals who lacked a religious community and started meeting informally. This is the case in Cuba where, with support from several UU congregations in the US and Canada, have already organized 4 fellowship under many political restrictions. A 3-member delegation from Cuba was unable to come due to travel restrictions imposed by the Cuban government. They were sorely missed.

The meeting in San Nicolás, sponsored by the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, a grant from the UUA Denominational Grants Panel, and many individual donors, was aimed at potential leaders of emerging congregations to develop their organizational skills, become more familiar with UU worship and ritual, and have a first-hand knowledge of other Unitarian and Universalist traditions and churches around the world. Special attention was given to Covenant Group Ministry as a very valuable tool to be adopted by small groups to develop a sense of spiritual community. Sessions were led by ministers and lay leaders from Transylvania, Spain, and the USA.

When the Chalice was finally extinguished in San Nicolás, there was a common feeling of a vibrant, emerging UU movement in Latin America, a continent full of possibilities and which is ripe for the liberating, non-dogmatic message of Unitarian Universalism.