Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In the post-council period we saw, in the name of religious pluralism, a sort of levelling: Christ was presented as one of many mediators of salvation and the Church as one of many ways to salvation, and so people spoke of a crisis in missionary activity. In particular of a crisis in traditional and praiseworthy missionary work, to the point that some wondered if it was worth spending men and energies for this undertaking. In fact, rather than from the ecclesiological side, the crisis came from diverse memories of the mistakes made and the new relations with other religions. Since the latter were not seen in terms of opposition but instead with esteem and appreciation, for all they contain that is true and holy (cfr. LG 17), the arose, inevitably the significance of mission was questioned.
Against this tendency we saw interventions by Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to claim the unique saving nature of Christ and the Church and consequently the Church's right and duty to continue her missionary activity. Paul VI in his Evangelii Nuntiandi (8 December 1975), starting from the awareness that Christ is the gospel of God, affirms that the Church is an evangelised and an evangelising community and therefore her most profound identity and vocation is evangelisation, she exists to evangelise (n. 7). He indicates the basis of this with these words: “The Church is born of the evangelising activity of Jesus and the Twelve.… Having been born consequently out of being sent, the Church in her turn is sent by Jesus. The Church remains in the world when the Lord of glory returns to the Father. She remains as a sign - simultaneously obscure and luminous - of a new presence of Jesus, of His departure and of His permanent presence. She prolongs and continues Him” (n. 15). there rests, by divine mandate, the duty of going out into the whole world and preaching the gospel to every creature …“the whole Church is missionary, and the work of evangelisation is a basic duty of the People of God” (n. 59).
John Paul II, in his first encyclical in which he traced the programme of his pontificate, Redemptor hominis (4 March 1979), underlines the close bond between the mission of Christ and the mission of the Church: “The Church lives the Mystery of the Lord … and she searches continually for ways to bring the Mystery of her Master to mankind, to all peoples, nations and to every man and woman. The Church exists for mission, she is for mission … she exists to render possible man's encounter with Christ” (n. 7). Mission is then the Church's substance, her main concern. To demonstrate how the Church renders possible this encounter John Paul II uses the expression: “Jesus Christ is the principal way of the Church ”, explaining that: “He is our way to the house of the Father and he is the way for every man and woman”. Along the same line the encyclical Redemptoris Missio (7 December 1995), dedicated to the permanent validity of the missionary mandate: “The Church is missionary by nature, since Christ's mandate is not something contingent or exterior, is reaches the very heart of the Church” (n. 62). (5 - to be continued) (Agenzia Fides 27/11/2007; righe 33, parole 512)
