Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Pontifical Mission Societies, structure and duties, was the theme of a lecture given by Archbishop Henryk Hoser, secretary adjunct of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples (CEP) and president of the Pontifical Mission Societies, to bishops from mission countries in Rome for a Study Seminar organised by the CEP. The salvation of the world is the mission of the Church, missionary by nature as the Magisterium has often made clear; the Church is missionary because she received from the Lord Jesus the mission to evangelise; since her foundation and all through her history the Church has never ceased to send missionaries to the far corners of the earth: these were the theological statements with which Archbishop Hoser began his conference.
“Missionary activity is entrusted to the whole of the universal Church and the totally of her members. Therefore evangelisation is never an individual or isolated act. It is a profoundly ecclesial act carried out with solidarity as the expression of the evangelising activity of the whole Church” said the President of the Pontifical Mission Societies. Missionary activity is realised between two poles, the universal Church and the particular church. This polarity generates a healthy and dynamising “energetic field” which determines “awareness of belonging to a great community which neither space nor time can limit”. Among indications for the missionary activity of particular Churches, Archbishop Hoser stressed the necessity to reach out to those who have stopped believing, to the indifferent, atheists, members of other religion; moreover the particular Church, as she bears witness to her faith and love, her unlimited charity, is entrusted with the ministry of the Word, to proclaim the Word, so that the Gospel may be heard; local clergy together with missionaries, united under the authority of the local Bishop, must organise common action to preach the Gospel also to those not included in ordinary pastoral care; lastly the local Church must guarantee ongoing formation of pastoral workers to help them “acquire deeper knowledge of theology and pastoral methods in the changing world of today”.
The Archbishop spoke about the Bishop’s “munus missionalis”, which means he must help his particular Church to open the needs of other Churches, help his people grow in mission awareness, promote missionary animation by supporting specifically missionary vocations, develop a fervent missionary spirit among his priests, men and women religious, seminarians and lay Catholics …
After outlining briefly the history of the four Pontifical Mission Societies, Archbishop Hoser illustrated their triple nature: charismatic, episcopal and pontifical. “The Pontifical Mission Societies belong to the Pope, but also to college of Bishops and to the whole People of God - the Archbishop said -. At the service of the Church incarnating themselves in the daily Christian life of peoples and nations, they are a supporting pillar of the bridge the Church is building towards peoples and religions, through Evangelisation and Dialogue”.
In the last part of his intervention, the President of the Pontifical Mission Societies described their structure: (Supreme Committee, Superior Council, Executive Committee, General Secretariats), their presence in the territory (continental, regional, national and diocesan) and then stressed the importance of the Universal Solidarity Fund. The Pontifical Mission Societies “are not a supplementary aid agency to finance ecclesial life in developing countries” Archbishop Hoser underlined, “instead they are the cement which consolidates the rich and varied structure of the Church, sent to all nations”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 20/9/2006; Righe 43 - Parole 591)
