Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - The work of the international convention promoted by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and the Pontifical Urban University on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Council decree Ad Gentes, will be devoted today Friday 10 March to “Challenges and prospects for Mission” on the different continents. This significant panorama was opened by Cardinal Joachim Meisner Archbishop of Cologne, Germany, who spoke on the theme “Mission today in Europe. Challenges and prospects. Relationship between the Church in Europe and young Churches in mission territories”. “The Church, to deserve the attribute "apostolic", must be missionary- said Cardinal Meisner -. Mission should be seen not as some contingent activity, it belongs to the Church’s very nature. Indeed: it flows from the essence of God. Both foreign mission “in partibus infidelium” and home mission in Western countries, are a continuation of the “Missio Dei”, whose source is God’s himself”. Speaking of Mission in Europe the Archbishop of Cologne said “today the Good News is being brought back from what were once missionary countries to Europe, the new territory for mission”, and he underlined in particular that “Eastern European countries were for a long time under Communist rule and they are still partly under this influence; for decades those Christians were subject to massive oppression and so now they are but a small minority. 'Glasnost' and 'prestrojka' policies brought some freedom, but at the same time they brought also a task not to be undervalued, namely to find a new direction both political and religious. People in western Europe enjoy this freedom since World War II, but they are exposed to other currents some of which are no less threatening for Christianity”. In this situation the Church is called to re-evangelise the West of ancient Christian tradition, as the Archbishop of Cologne underlined: “In a society which has rightly been termed "post-Christian" today, even more than in the times of Saint Paul, the Church must bear witness to the "unknown God" (cfr Acts 17,23) to whom our societies erected altars many centuries ago”.
Describing the relation between the Church in Europe and young Churches in mission territories Cardinal Meisner said “although we cannot deny that the Church in the west has retained all its intellectual and spiritual treasures, it needs the complementary enrichment offered by young Churches… We need Asian and African Christians so the Christ of Europeans can be more convincing and solid. And Africans and Asians need us so that through our experience their Christ may be more convincing and solid, and so the missionary spirit of the Church does not slacken”.
Challenges and prospects in countries which belonged to former communist Yugoslavia were illustrated by Cardinal Vinko Puljic Archbishop of Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina. The starting point of his conference was the Council’s guidelines for mission and how these were understood in former Yugoslavia, evangelisation in the region taking into consideration historical, political and religious events. “Bosnia Herzegovina is the toponym the living example of the region - the Archbishop of Sarajevo said -. It is a meeting point for cultures and civilisations, faiths and religions… In no other part of Europe in the past and in the present, are the Cross and the Crescent, Christians of both traditions and Muslims so close and yet so distant. This is unbelievable but true: so distant and so close”. Christianity in these lands lived its times of flourishing and its times of aridity and it has countless saints and martyrs and also missionaries. For centuries it went on mission to other countries, perhaps neglecting it own territory. The situation today is very complex and Cardinal Pulijc identified two relevant motives for this state of things: war and communism.
“Apart from the catastrophic sacrifices and material and human consequences, wars destroyed the future ethical norms and moral values of many generations - the Cardinal said -. In years of many wars this territory was penetrated by a wave of deep and primordial hatred which in the rage of war destroyed human hearts and all human relations and certainly religious relations …. For 45 years communism ploughed negative furrows in the souls of many people. It destroyed most of what not even World War II had erased. It destroyed the sense of the holy, the sacred, morals and honesty, the religious and ecclesiastical sense”. This is why, the Archbishop of Sarajevo concluded: “What is needed is a new awareness which we must starting building today with new missionary activity to re-evangelise these territories and all Europe, just like the first evangelisation of Europe which started precisely in this part of the world”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 10/3/2006; righe 56, parole 836)
