Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - If we put God to one side “in the name of things more important ” such as major social questions, “it is precisely these supposedly more important things that come to nothing. It is not just the negative outcome of Marxist experience that proves this. The aid offered by the West to developing countries has been purely technically and materially based and not only has left God out of the picture, but has driven men away from God. And this aid proudly claiming to 'know better' is itself what first turned the 'third world' into what we mean today by that term” (Jesus of Nazareth, English translation page 33). This reflection by Pope Benedict XVI closely concerns also the “missionary world”: do some not say, first overcome poverty and then announce the Gospel? Yet Jesus, assuring us that the poor would always be with us, asked us to focus directly at Him, to make Him known and loved all over the world and to make disciples of all peoples. To help people believe in the Son of God the Father, that is, carry the gift of faith to those who have yet to receive it, this is missionary “work” by definition. This is why the Church is a sacrament of salvation. Mission would otherwise be humanitarian voluntary service promoted by human generosity rather than divine charity.
The missionary conscience of the Church born at Pentecost, in 1957 was re-launched by Pope Pius XII with the encyclical Fidei donum. Cited frequently by the Ad Gentes Decree of Vatican II together with the other missionary encyclical Evangelii Praecones by the same pontiff (1951), helps us see that the Church before the Council is in continuity with that after the Council. Also because in the opening address of the Council Blessed John XXIII said: “The great problem, facing the world after almost two millennia is unchanged. Christ, ever resplendent at the centre of history and life; men and women are either with him and with His Church and enjoy light, goodness, order and peace; or against Him and deliberately against the Church: they become a motive of confusion, causing bitterness in human relationships and persistent dangers of fratricidal wars”. Therefore the “ missionary world” must invest in the propagation of faith in Christ who alone can make the human person fully human. The Gospel is the power of God, and not simply verbal communication.
The Servant of God Pius XII since his first encyclical Summi Pontificatus in 1939, called missionaries to make a “healthy examination”, to discern what was good in the native cultures and at the same time to correct “religious errors”. He was aware of the failures caused by the fact that the missionaries, who followed colonial landings, were seen as tools of the latter, but in 1944, in an address to the leading members of the Pontifical Mission Societies he explained that the missionary must never carry to mission the cultural forms of the peoples of Europe, instead he must instruct and form the nations, some proud of ancient culture, so they are ready to receive the Christian life which can be “adapted to all profane cultures”. This is none other than that process which today goes by the name of inculturation which Pope Pacelli outlined in a modern way.
Pius XII recalled that human nature created by God is good in itself but wounded by sin and subject to decadence without the help of his grace. This doctrinal fact is fundamental, otherwise we call into the Enlightenment idea of man totally good, and so the announcement of the Gospel is useless. A similar thought spread in the missionary world, not only mission ad gentes but also mission in evangelised nations; this is demonstrated by the fact that no few missionaries believe they must be involved in campaigns for legality and social issues instead of making known the Ten Commandments, the law of God without which there can be no authentic legality. “This, and nothing else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of individual souls - Benedict XVI said addressing the Bishops of Brazil during Vespers in the Catedral da Sé, São Paulo on 11 May, 2007 -Hence the mandate to evangelise… wherever God and his will are not known, wherever faith in Jesus Christ and in his presence in sacramental celebrations does not exist, the essential for solving urgent social and political problems is also lacking”.
The impulse which Pius XII gave to the Church's mission rested on the same awareness of the greatness of “the gift of the faith” to heal and elevate man, to help him encounter Christ. This is the difference between a Catholic missionary and a volunteer social worker. The encouragement in the Encyclical Fidei donum to local Churches to allow some priests to go temporarily to a land of mission, rests on the conviction that the announcement of the Gospel renders the human person more human. (Agenzia Fides 14/6/2007; righe 53, parole 776)
