Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The ministry of the Bishop with regard to the evangelisation of cultures was the theme of the conference given by Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Inter-religious Dialogue, on 13 September to Bishops from mission countries gathered in Rome for a special Seminar organised by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.
The Cardinal recalled that Pope Paul VI in his “Evangelii nuntiandi” encyclical said clearly that evangelisation is a ‘person to person’ movement. However evangelisers depend on their culture and those to be evangelised are immersed in their cultures. Cultures can help or hinder the proclamation of the Gospel. “A major challenge for the Church today which is regularly mentioned at every Synod of Bishops at which I have taken part for 25 years now, is that of inculturation of the Gospel” said Cardinal Poupard. “Evangelising cultures is the mission of the Church, a task she has always undertaken through her members and intends to continue with the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, in the midst of the joys and hopes, and sorrows and anguish triggered by events in society in this beginning of the third Christian millennium, for over six billion men and women living in our world of contrasts”.
Cardinal Poupard underlined the vastness and complexity of the field of culture and its numerous definitions because this concept “refers to a complex phenomenon which cannot be defined in categories of a dictionary”. We refer to elements which characterise a people defining its identity: languages, customs, grade of education, behaviour, patrimony inherited in the centuries, art, architecture, literature … the great vision of mankind brought by Christ and proposed by the Church can never put cultures that open to the Gospel in crisis. The history of Covenant teaches that God “speaks to man in languages he can understand. And the Church, in order to make the |Good News of Christ heard and understood, must speak the languages of peoples and help them understand the language of God”.
To evangelise cultures it is necessary to identify and discern the challenges facing the evangeliser in our day the Cardinal said mentioning globalisation, and its positive and negative aspects (“the human person is no longer considered the goal of economy and finance, progress in science and technology, education and politics …”). This poses a problem of the identity of people and their legitimate cultural diversities and can lead people to reject the Church as an expression of a foreign culture, and this is certainly an obstacle to evangelisation. There is also the challenge of cultural pluralism, accompanied by spreading urbanisation which gives rise to new forms of culture.
Another challenge is posed by the encounter with Islam which should lead Christians to “deeper awareness of the joy of being Christians, adorers of the one God, not a solitary point, but a source from which there springs eternal and infinite the love of the Father, the Son and the Spirit … Dialogue with Islam must help Christians become more aware of the beauty of the Christian faith founded on the Incarnation of God who became man to enable mankind can become God”.
Cardinal Poupard ended his conference with these words: “Inculturation is at the heart of mission. The Gospel creates cultures. It is faith which becomes culture, faith which becomes Church, in the new joy of Christmas, the redeeming light of Easter and the creator fire of Pentecost”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 14/9/2006; Righe 47 - Parole 660)
