Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) - “The evangelisation mission of the Church at the beginning of the third millennium” was the theme of an Academic Act on March 8 at the Pontifical Gregorian University, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Faculty of Missiology. After greetings by the rector Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, the dean of the Faculty of Missiology, Fr. Adam Wolanin traced these 75 years of history underlining the institution’s particular relevance for today.
Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples gave a conference on evangelisation in the context of religious pluralism. “From the start the Church was faced with the challenge of preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ amidst a variety of religious traditions, beginning with the Jewish religion from which Christianity was born and later with the beliefs of people in regions where Christians went - the Cardinal said -. However in modern times evangelisation poses a particular challenge since we live in an epoch in which persons of different religions meet and interact more than in any other period of human history”.
Recalling the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the Church’s relations with non Christian religions, Cardinal Dias said that faced with the vast range of religious traditions present in the world “Christians must strive to discover in these traditions the working of the Holy Spirit- in other words the seeds of truth, as they were called by Vatican II - and, free of any superiority complex, lead these traditions to full knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ”. Christians too can find in non Christian religions certain values of their faith which they may have forgotten or neglected, such as rigorous fasting, frequent prayer, asceticism… nevertheless care must be taken: “under the pretext of not hindering interreligious dialogue some even put Jesus, true God and true Man, on the same level as the founders, some of them mythological, of these religions. This attitude is contrary to Our Lord’s mandate to preach the Gospel and make disciples throughout the world … our task is to help the seeds of the Word mature and come to completion in Christ”.
The Cardinal then spoke about the relationship between Evangelisation and inter-religious Dialogue: “The Holy Spirit is the main agent of evangelisation… interreligious dialogue is an indirect manner of evangelising through which Christians present their identity and listen to the religious convictions of their non Christian interlocutors. It is a question of explaining and proposing one’s faith without wanting to impose it”. Among the different forms of interreligious dialogue Cardinal Dias mentioned: dialogue of life “in which people strive to live in a spirit of openness and cordiality towards others”; dialogue of deeds, in which Christians and other believers cooperate; dialogue of theological sharing and dialogue of religious experience “a sharing of spiritual wealth, for example prayer and contemplation”.
Cardinal Dias enriched his conference sharing some his own experience in pastoral ministry in India confirming the validity of inter-religious dialogue in the modalities presented. Lastly the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples recalled that dialogue “is founded on hope and charity and will produce fruit in the Spirit”, and that other religions are a positive challenge for the Church, prompting her to seek and recognise the signs of the presence of Christ and the working of the Spirit and thus become more aware of her own identity.: “The interlocutor must be consistent with his religious traditions and convictions and ready to understand those of the other person, without dissimulation or closing but with truth, humility, honesty, aware that dialogue can enrich both parties. There must be no abdication or irenics, but rather reciprocal witness for common progress on the path of religious searching and experience and at the same time to overcome prejudice, intolerance, misunderstandings. Dialogue leads to purification and interior conversion which, if pursued with docility to the Spirit, will be spiritually fruitful”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 9/3/2007 - Righe 49, Parole 683)
