A missiological turn

According to a well-known theologian of mission, Vatican II represents a "great missionary turn" at the end of a "deviation" which, since the fifteenth century, had reserved the mission ad gentes first to the patronage of the kings of Spain and Portugal, and then to the Propoganda Fide founded in 1622 for the coordination of the missionary activity of the Roman Church. This turn emerges in 1965 with the decree Ad gentes which "proclaims that all bishops and, with them, all Churches are 'collectively' responsible for the evangelization of the world" (AG, n. 6).2 This turn towards a collective responsibility for the evangelization of the world has been translated into new structures of participation and organization. The Synods, the renewed Congregation for the "evangelization of nations," and the recent bodies of the Roman Curia all bear testimony to this. For example, the pontifical Council for culture, and that for interreligious dialogue, to name just two, illustrate that "mission" extends beyond geographical and sociological horizons into the sphere of culture which requires a first or a new evangelization. In addition, the very proceedings of the synod of bishops with its dynamic of consulting and elaborating propositions has clearly associated the world-wide episcopate with the exercise of the Roman Magisterium. On his side, John Paul II has multiplied his apostolic voyages to the four corners of the world, thus underscoring the organic bond that ties local churches to Peter's successor. These facts illustrate the common responsibility shared by the episcopal college and its head in solidarity for the evangelization of the world. The missiological turn of Vatican II has not limited itself to the broadening of missionary consciousness from the center to the peripheries; it has also touched upon the very meaning of the mission ad gentes and the ways of accomplishing it. A glance at the missionary problematic since Vatican II suffices to show this.3 On one hand, a crisis of missions and missionary institutions has followed the realization of the universal character of mission, and on the other hand, ambiguities have arisen in colonial endeavors in missionary lands. In certain circles, people have begun to speak of a "moratorium" in order to indicate the need to rethink in depth the particular contribution of missionaries to the countries and cultures said to be those of mission.4 Elsewhere, mission has taken the form of various battles for liberation, helping underdeveloped nations to come out from the economic dependence and cultural oppression that binds them.5 For many, proclaiming Jesus Christ has turned into a commitment to "human promotion" which no longer adequately distinguishes between worldly progress and the growth of the Kingdom. The manner of evangelization has also undergone changes at the level of pedagogy. The awakening to the values of other cultures and other religions has caused mission to pass from "indoctrination to the exchange of life and word."6 The ruling word in the last stages of the twentieth century will have been the word dialogue. Previously understood in a somewhat unilateral way, mission is more and more taking the form of a dialogue, respecting the identity of the other and accepting his values. The dominant theme of "inculturation"7 acknowledges this new sensibility, which goes much further than the "adaptation" advocated in missiology before the Council.

"The encyclical Redemptoris Missio on the permanent value of the missionary precept had been eagerly awaited."8 Aware of the hesitations and ambiguities that were stalling the missionary impulse, John Paul II wanted to provide some theological criteria which would permit granting a second wind to the missionary endeavor of the whole of the Catholic Church: "Indeed, in the history of the Church, the missionary impulse has always been a sign of vitality, in the same way that its weakness has been a sign of a crisis of faith. . . Faith affirms itself by giving itself!" (RM, n. 2). What is striking in this encyclical are the three doctrinal chapters dedicated to giving dogmatic foundations for missionary activity. Taking up the initial orientations of the conciliar decree Ad gentes, Redemptoris Missio develops, against the "background of a reestablishment of the value of world religions,"9 the central affirmation that Jesus Christ alone is Savior: "It is precisely this uniqueness of Christ which gives him an absolute and universal significance, whereby, while belonging to history, he remains history's center and goal: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end' (Rev 22:13)" (RM, n. 6). This christocentrism, characteristic of the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, which included Karol Wojtyla among its editors, is developed in the following chapter dealing with the Kingdom of God. Firmly anchored in biblical exegesis, this chapter culminates with the affirmation that "the Kingdom of God is not a concept, a doctrine, or a program subject to free interpretation, but is before all else a person with the face and the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the image of the invisible God" (RM, n. 18). Though the Church remains distinct from this Person and this Kingdom, she is "indissolubly united to both" (RM, n. 18). Endowed by Christ "with the fullness of the benefits and means of salvation," inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Church shares with Christ "a unique and special relationship which, while not excluding the action of Christ and the Spirit outside the Church's visible boundaries, confers upon her a specific and necessary role" (RM, n. 18). It will be necessary to explore the nature of this relationship and this role further in order to understand precisely how the mission of Christ and the mission of the Church ultimately make up but one divine-human mission, without confusion or separation, which continues into future ages. The chapter on the Holy Spirit, the "principal agent of the Church's mission," perhaps best reveals the path followed since Vatican II for understanding the mission of the Church theologically, in the divine mission of the Spirit. John Paul II introduces this development with a very dense passage in his encyclical Dominum et vivificantem: "At the climax of Jesus' messianic mission, the Holy Spirit becomes present in the paschal mystery in all of his divine subjectivity: as the one who is now to continue the salvific work rooted in the sacrifice of the Cross. Of course Jesus entrusts this work to human beings: to the apostles, to the Church. Nevertheless, in and through them the Holy Spirit remains the transcendent and principal agent for the accomplishment of this work in the human spirit and in the history of the world(RM, n. 21)."10 Once he has clearly identified the divine agent of the Church's mission, the pope elucidates the ultimate purpose and fundamental pedagogy of evangelization, in light of Jesus' sacerdotal prayer in John's Gospel: "The ultimate purpose of mission is to enable people to share in the communion which exists between the Father and the Son. The disciples are to live in unity with one another, remaining in the Father and Son, so that the world may know and believe (cf. Jn 17:21-23). This is a very important missionary text. It makes us understand that we are missionaries above all because of what we are as a Church whose innermost life is unity in love, even before we become missionaries in word or deed." (RM, n. 23)

This pedagogy of unity, in the image of the Trinity, corresponds to the diversified experiences of ecclesial movements, new communities, and groups of all sorts which have chosen an ideal of communion as the foundation for their missionary extension. "May they be one as we are one" (Jn 17:4-5). Exegesis confirms that "this 'as' is not a matter only of comparison, but also of causation."11 The ties of love uniting the Father and the Son also guide believers in this same desire for communion (koinônia, 1 Jn 3:6-7). Unity alone creates the possibility for success of the mission (Jn 17:21).12 The new missionary consciousness of the Church passes through the experience of a liberating communion. By inviting us to cultivate a "being-incommunion" before "word" or "deed," John Paul II indicates the evangelical path to the renewal of mission. Faced with cultures lacking transcendence, unconsciously desiring to rediscover sacred realities, doesn't the Church offer a communion which would render people and human relations sacred? A crucial question for evangelization today is how to cultivate in the Church a "sacramental" consciousness, that is, how to cultivate a consciousness of belonging to the sacred space of trinitarian relations and to bear witness to them in a meaningful and effective way. This would grant ecumenism and the mission ad gentes a much needed second wind.

The missionary consciousness of the Church that has developed since Vatican II, and whose teacher and interpreter is John Paul II, has begun to mobilize itself with respect to the challenges of evangelization in formerly Christian lands. Since the launching of the celebrations for the fifth centenary anniversary of the evangelization of the Americas in Santo Domingo, the calls reiterated by the pope have provoked a sharper awareness of the need for a new evangelization of cultures. The limitations of the "inculturation" problematic have made the need felt for a shifting of emphasis towards "evangelization."13 Paul VI had prepared the way for this movement by remarking, in Evangelii nuntiandi, on the growing separation between faith and modern culture. He had thus promulgated the ideal of a "civilization of love"14 to combat the ideologies of hate at work in the cultures. John Paul II took up this project under the name of the "new evangelization" by inviting the whole of the Church to involve itself with renewed means, a renewed lan- guage, and a renewed zeal. During its development, this program was enriched with a renewed theological content. The trinitarian agent to which we have alluded is perhaps one of the richest and most promising aspects of this theological contribution. It invites us to a renewed contemplation of the mystery of God at work in the midst of men. This project of new evangelization carries a prophetic and critical dimension. The dialogue between the Church and secularized cultures does not occur without tensions. It calls for a discernment of values and counter-values that emerge in these cultures. John Paul II has taken on this task in the light of a christocentrism which provides the foundations for a critique of ideologies and for a vigorous affirmation of human rights. His confrontations with modern cultures, most notably on the questions of divorce, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, and war, bear witness to the growing chasm between a Christian view and a secularist view of the human person. The encyclical Veritatis Splendor, along with the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, certainly represents a masterpiece of his program of new evangelization. It contains the most lucid diagnosis of the drama of the tragic separation of truth from freedom in the modern age. Moreover, in no uncertain terms, it proposes the only remedy capable of reconciling the alienated sinner to God and to himself: "freedom itself needs to be set free. It is Christ who sets it free: he 'has set us free for freedom' (Gal 5:1)" (VS, n. 86). Though the tight argumentation of this encyclical takes account of reason and natural law, it establishes more clearly than ever before that the fundamental norm for Christian ethics is Christ. Christ appears in his Person, his works, and his teachings as the "way" which is the form of Christian identity. One of the highlights of this document is the paradoxical affirmation that Christ crucified is the model of the fulfillment of freedom: "the crucified Christ reveals the authentic meaning of freedom, he lives it in fullness by the total gift of himself, and he calls his disciples to share in his own freedom" (VS, n. 87). The profound dynamic of this encyclical draws inspiration, as does the new Catechism very explicitly, from a faith renewed in the trinitarian love which gives itself in participation. From this spring flows the enthusiasm and the moral demands of a life in the Spirit, in imitation of Christ, in order to attain to the kingdom of true freedom in love.

Moreover, faith in Christ is not reduced to aiming at a more or less inaccessible moral ideal. It also affirms a liberating "moral content" (VS, n. 89) which forbids in any circumstances those moral acts judged to be intrinsically evil. The new evangelization must thus propose "universal and unchanging moral norms in service to the person and society" (VS, n. 95). These norms are not a hindrance to freedom. Their only purpose is to serve true freedom, and they are a "solid guarantee of a just and peaceful human coexistence, and hence of genuine democracy" (VS, n. 96). With John Paul II we become more aware that the firmness of the Church in ethical matters is the indispensable condition for reordering individuals and societies towards the ideal of Christian freedom. "It is impossible for us to keep silent" (Acts 4:20), exclaims John Paul II in responding to the question, Why mission ?: "Mission is an issue of faith, an accurate indicator of our faith in Christ and his love for us"; it "derives not only from the Lord's mandate but also from the profound demands of God's life within us" (RM, n. 11). This is why he ends his encyclical Redemptoris Missio with a chapter on a missionary spirituality whose points of emphasis summarize well the crucial aspects of the Church's new missionary consciousness: "being led by the Spirit," "living the mystery of Christ, 'the one who was sent," "loving the Church and humanity as Jesus did" (RM, nn. 89-97). In a word, "the authentic missionary is the saint" (RM, n. 90), concludes the Holy Father, and the call to holiness concerns the missionary ad gentes as much as any baptized Christian: "The universal call to holiness is closely linked to the universal call to mission. Every member of the faithful is called to holiness and to mission" (RM, n. 90). This is one of the most vigorous affirmations of the essentially missionary nature of the Church. Thus, in some way, the whole Church and each of her members in full legitimacy can cry out: "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel."

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“Woe to Me If I Do Not Preach the Gospel”

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