Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The first visit of Benedict XVI to Africa has concluded. The media, besides laying emphasis on opposition to condoms and abortion as means of birth control – could they have done any differently ? – here and there, underlined the Holy Father's efforts to understand Africa's sense of religion and native cultures, to encourage efforts to promote reconciliation and peace, to confirm Catholics in their faith. Nevertheless this was not the heart of the Pope's journey, nor is it the heart of Christian mission.
On the Sunday before his departure, the Pontiff said during the Angelus reflection: “I am leaving for Africa aware that I have nothing to propose or give to those whom I shall meet except Christ and the Good News of his Cross, a mystery of supreme love, of divine love that overcomes all human resistance and even makes forgiveness and love for one's enemies possible. This is the grace of the Gospel that is capable of transforming the world; this is the grace that can also renew Africa, because it generates an irresistible force of peace and a profound and radical reconciliation. The Church, therefore, does not pursue economic, social or political objectives; the Church proclaims Christ, certain that the Gospel can move the hearts of all and transform them, thereby renewing people and societies from within. ” (Angelus, 15 March 2009).
The Vatican II decree on mission states that the specific purpose of missionary activity is evangelisation and the planting of the Church, and “the principal means for achieving this is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ ” (Ad gentes, 6). Planting the Church serves to save mankind.
Everyone understands that people with AIDS need treatment and that perhaps Catholic missions – like many humanitarian agencies – are meant to do just this. Certainly, like the good Samaritan, we must care for people who are ill, but there is another evil, which lies even deeper: sin, which is the ultimate root of all evil, in the world and in the individual person. If people only realised that the duty of the Church, the Pope in primis, is to announce to the world the salvation from sin which Christ won for mankind, no one would be scandalised by the statement that only pre-matrimonial chastity, control of passions, especially with penance, save man from evil, physical and above all moral. The Church is concerned for the salvation of the 'whole' person, body and soul, both destined for eternal life and both, as Jesus warns, exposed to the danger of “burning in the inextinguishable fire of Geenna” if we give in to sin and to the tempter.
Therefore this is what missionaries do, what missionaries must do, and this is what the Holy Father went to do: to announce God's truth about man in order to save man. This is the will of God. Truth and salvation are the bread which nourishes man, the wine and oil which heal, they are the sacraments of Jesus Christ.
The Church goes on mission because mission is necessary for salvation (cfr Lumen gentium 14, cited in Ad gentes 7). Catholic missionaries are not workers of some non government humanitarian agency, they are members of the mystical Body of Christ, the Church; driven by divine charity “they carry on such missionary activity by reason of the love with which they love God and by which they desire to share with all men the spiritual goods of both its life and the life to come.” (Ivi).
The mission of the Church– mark well, is never the mission of a single believer, even if the missionary is a priest or a religious – takes place between the first coming of Christ, two thousand years ago, and His final coming at the end of time (cfr Ivi 9): and is therefore charged with tension which renders relative even the most noble humanitarian concern, compared with the other far more important because definitive: holiness. And in this regard, the Pope said as he left Cameroon, “may the Church here and everywhere in Africa continue to grow”. (Agenzia Fides 26/3/2009; righe 44, parole 646)
