The thirteenth assembly of Latin America’s base communities last week found delegates in good heart, particularly as for the first time these mainly Catholic groups, rooted in the Second Vatican Council’s spirit of renewal, received a message of support from the Pope “Good evening, People of God,” bellowed Bishop Fernando Panico across the warm night air to the crowd of 4,000 seated on the esplanade of the Franciscan sanctuary in Juazeiro do Norte, in the north-eastern Brazilian state of Ceará. As head of the Diocese of Crato, which includes Juazeiro, Bishop Panico was the host to this assembly of Brazilian church base communities, the thirteenth in a line that goes back to 1975. During the evening there was a roll call of the 12 previous assemblies, a gosp