The Gospel and missionary activity of the Church in the service of the cultures of nations

Abstract

Culture is both one and multiple. Unity and plurality both say that this reality belongs to human existence. All cultures have equal dignity, a dignity that flows from the people who express themselves in them. Their multiformity demands dialogue between different cultural conceptions and languages.

This ideal perspective clashes with the power acquired by some cultures. They do not hold it on the basis of cultural factors, but by virtue of the interest and power of the groups that express it. Our time knows the worldwide imposition of a techno-scientific monoculture that expresses a mathematical interpretation of life and a view of the worldas a dominable object devoid of intrinsic ends.

Culture includes an evaluative criterion capable of organizing and hierarchizing the multiple experiences of human living.

There is a strong link between the Gospel and the human person. One must love man because he is man; one must claim love for man because of the special dignity he possesses. The set of claims concerning man belongs to the very substance of Christ's message and the mission of the Church. Religion is the soul of cultures; it is the criterion of their deep logic.

Faith must be the embodiment of Christian life and message in a concrete cultural area, so that this experience not only succeeds in expressing itself with the elements proper to the culture in question, but becomes the inspiring, normative and unifying principle that transforms and recreates this culture, giving rise to a "new creation." The centrality of the Gospel and liturgy is certainly an original feature of the missionary conception. The Word of God and liturgy speak of the work of the Creator God and his action to open the historical present to the eschatological reality of the Kingdom.

This process of encounter between the Gospel and culture has a long and complex history It is important to take a look at and affirm attention to missionary methodology at the time of the great geographical discoveries.

The proclamation we are talking about has nothing to do with the requerimiento, an evangelization procedure mandated by Spanish laws. Indians became subject to the king of Spain and his laws; they had to accept them and become Christians.
In this context, one can understand the use of missionaries and the choice of religious who, because of their spiritual and cultural preparation and rule of obedience, made it possible to organize lasting forms of mission in a short time. Thus it was that, in the month of octoberbred 1523, the minister general of the Franciscans, Francisco de los Ángeles Quiñones, gathered his friars leaving for America - los doce apostolos. The theme of proclaiming the Gospel had pivoted mainly on the religious: Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Mercedarians and, later, Jesuits and Carmelites.

Seeing that mission as desired by the pope, the early religious did not have a clear awareness of the social and political implications that their natural sharing of the Spanish world could have. Only later would they become fully aware of a situation marked by the corruption of authority and the abuses of the conquistadores. Against this background one can understand the importance and complexity of the task of proclaiming the Gospel.

One of the issues that most excites the missionary world is the relationship between evangelization and the development of poor peoples. Ever since the gulf separating the North from the South has become a dominant theme of public opinion. The Church has certainly not lagged behind in participating in and seeking solutions to the dramatic living conditions of the millions of poor. The Church has never neglected to promote the human upliftment of the peoples to whom it brought faith in Christ. Many avenues attempted for an operational response: engagement in economic aid to poor countries; financing "development projects"; strengthening the charitable, health, educational, and welfare work of the missions; socio-political conscientization and formation; denunciation of injustices at the local and international levels; struggle with slavery; preferential choice of the poor, sharing their sufferings and their path to liberation; appeals to the rich world, especially the world's Christians, to be truly brothers and sisters of the poor.

With the Gospel message, the Church offers a liberating and development-promoting force precisely because it leads to the conversion of the heart and mentality, makes people recognize the dignity of each person, disposes them to solidarity, commitment, and service of their brothers and sisters, and inserts man in God's project, which is the building of the Kingdom of peace, of justice, beginning already in this life. Man's development comes from God, from the model of Jesus, Man-God, and must lead to God. That is why there is a close connection between Gospel proclamation, culture and human advancement.

Automatically generated using: deepl