Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Agency) - “Our missionary activity is the effort we put in our work to make people know that God is love […]. Dear brothers, this is our main mission as National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies: to bend down, like good Samaritans, over our brothers’ necessities, especially over the poor and the needy”. These were the words used by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and President of the Supreme Committee of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS), in addressing the national Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies gathered in Rome for the ordinary General Assembly this morning (see Fides 3/5/2006).
In his speech at the opening of the assembly, Cardinal Sepe stressed that during the previous Assembly the updated Statutes of the PMS were signed, after a long and troublesome work: “Today we have a clear and adequate text to face the many problems and challenges rising from the present missionary situation in the world”. Then the Cardinal Prefect described some of the aspects of the Pontifical and Episcopal nature of the PMS, starting with what the Statutes say (nn. 15-28). “We must say, first of all, that the Pontifical nature of the Societies is not solely related to their management. - Cardinal Sepe said - The criterion animating any catholic entity, and therefore the structures relying on it, must essentially be “theological in kind”, as Fr. De Lubac put it in Pluralismo delle Chiese o unità della Chiesa? (Brescia
1973, page 40)”.
The Pontifical nature of the PMS is therefore “the expression of their specific ecclesial nature: as soon as this aspect started to become clear in their path, the Societies began to enrich their structure, going from an “actuosa partecipatio” of some laypersons to the life of the Church, to diocesan realities approved by the Bishops. Slowly, they became national and supranational associations, until these aspects made their catholic dimension obvious. Then their Pontifical nature was approved, leading them not to evade the diocesan dimensions of their life, but rather accepting these dimensions and developing them further, into a broader catholic dimension”.
Then, speaking of the mutual exchange of gifts within Churches, which characterises the Catholic communion, the Prefect of the Missionary Disaster stressed that “we must make sure that the gifts that the Churches share abolish the superiority of the ones who give and the inferiority of the ones who receive. They must consider account the real needs of the Churches and their lives; they must reflect an authentic hierarchy of ecclesial needs, and not only the management capabilities of a few; they must reach all Churches, without neglecting anyone. In short, it is a matter of discerning what does promote communion and what expresses and maintains differences in terms of economic and political power, which still exist between Churches”. The central structures must therefore “be capable of offering a framework where single initiatives may take place and contribute to a universal mission”.
The new Statutes of the PMS take into account the deep changes that are taking place in societies and cultures today, which require a new approach to problems and mindsets, categories and languages, “calling for the courage to show a little prophecy, to see problems in advance, and be able to grasp some lines of solution together”. Finally, the new Statutes “exhort us to learn how to understand and interpret together today’s missionary reality”. “In this spirit - he continued - all must embark upon a brotherly dialogue, which needs to be seen as a high form of co-responsibility. It is not a matter of cancelling anyone’s legitimate autonomy, but rather of strengthening it, by better exercising the spiritual gift of the consilium: a gift of the Spirit, the consilium makes everyone’s competence come to the service of the common research for God’s will, here and today, in the context of our missionary tasks”. (S.L.) (Fides Agency 4/5/2006 - Lines 44; Words 630)
