Review article
The People of God as the agent of evangelization of the Church. Evangelii Gaudium and the Church's missionary transformation
Branko Murić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article discusses the question of the missionary transformation of the Church as proposed by Pope Francis, and the focus is placed on the people of God as the agent of proclaiming the Gospel. In doing so, the author analyzes the words of Pope Francis, primarily those set out in the exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. The analysis of Pope Francis on the need for the transformation of the Church is contextualized in three ways. First, we want to determine what specifically Croatian believers think of the Church and whether they feel that they are part of the Church, which is presented through sociological research conducted in Croatia. We see that there is a declining sense of belonging to the Church which is accompanied by a critical opinion about the (un)importance of individual evangelizing and pastoral activity of the Church. This gives importance to the words of Pope Francis on the necessity of pastoral transformation of the Church. Because he aims, in a particular way, to elaborate the question of the people of God as the agent of evangelization, in the second step the author moves to actualize the concept of the People of God as presented by the Second Vatican Council, which marked the change of awareness in understanding the Church. The aim is to show how Pope Francis in his teachings and actions relies precisely on this altered awareness brought by the Second Vatican Council as a particularly important starting point in understanding the Church. Finally, in the third step, by analyzing a short speech by Pope Benedict XVI addressed to the German laity during his apostolic visit to Germany in 2011, the author examines the possibility of (dis)continuity between the two popes. We come to the realization that Pope Benedict XVI equally advocates the need for the transformation of the Church especially in its mission to the modern world and in the present moment, but he has a different starting point than Pope Francis. As a point of convergence we see the talk on the "present of eternity" which shows how Pope Francis' vision of the missionary Church leans on the speculative heritage of Benedict XVI. In the end we are presented with programmatic elements of the ecclesiological vision of Pope Francis that are based on the "pastoral conversion" driven by the joyful proclamation of the Gospel by "missionary disciples". On the basis of the analysis we come to the conclusion that the novelty of evangelization of Pope Francis is found in the change of communicological perspective which requires a change in the sense of belonging and co-responsibility in the Church of all the baptized who are understood as "missionary disciples". This shows that the starting point of this transformation for both popes is, in fact, the deep insertion into the divine initiative in the present. Both popes manifest a clear need for the missionary mandate of the Church as a clear response to today's ecclesiological challenges, where Benedict XVI proceeds from the contemplative insight that enables the manifestation of God's concrete love, while Francis puts emphasis on popular piety as a strong reflection of faith that is already embodied in the culture of a people. Pope Benedict XVI proposes the Church's "detachment from the world" in order to discern the essence of the Church and its mission, while Pope Francis proposes action "without hesitation" as described by the images of "the Church that goes forth", "the missionary Church", "the open door Church" and "the Samaritan Church", which alludes to the directness of action and not waiting for "institutional solutions" to individual problems (Pope Francis' image of "the dirty Church"). The analysis of Pope Francis' words, we believe, also provides us with an answer to the challenges for the Church in Croatia which we tried to reflect in the sociological research on the question of belonging to the Church.
Keywords
the people of God; detachment from the world; missionary disciples; missionary Church; the Church's transformation; Pope Benedict XVI; Pope Francis
Hrčak ID:
134078
URI
Publication date:
9.2.2015.
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