Perspectief 2014-26

2014-26 Towards a Healthy Future of Catholicity in the Roman Catholic Church 41 Reag eer Pope Francis we studied is the necessity for the Catholic Church to rediscover its missionary nature, especially by focusing on the periphery. I take the paragraph in Lumen Fidei thematising the outreach towards non-believers to have been an addition to pope Benedict’s draft version by pope Francis. “Because faith is a way, it also has to do with the lives of those men and women who, though not believers, nonetheless desire to believe and continue to seek.” (§ 35) It seems typical for the inclusive view on catholicity of Pope Francis to claim that “any-one who sets off on the path of doing good to others is already drawing near to God.” In the CELAM address the pope contrasts a Church in which the emphasis is on the centre so that “she becomes increasingly self-referential and loses her need to be missionary” to a missionary discipleship oriented towards “the existential peripheries”, recalling that “the centre is Jesus Christ, who calls us and sends us forth.” The same topic is addressed in even greater detail in the Jesuit interview. Here, pope Francis invites the Church “to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quite or are indifferent.” Towards persons living in what the Church considers to be irregular situations, such as homosexuals, we should in first instance proclaim God’s mercy. The missionary strategy is definitely not “to occupy spaces” but rather to “initiate processes.” When a Church leader is confronted with pastoral approaches which he does not share himself, it is advisable to have patience, since God may reveal himself through unexpected ways. Today Church leaders should “have the courage to open up new areas to God” rather than being “a restorationist” or “a legalist.” Christians have “to live on the borders and be audacious” but not “fall into the temptation to tame the frontiers.” The same leitmotif finally also occurs in Evangelii Gaudium . As of the first chapter of the apostolic exhortation the pope expresses the hope that the entire Church will be transformed by becoming missionary. This implies the willingness of being enriched by the periphery: “Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel.” (§ 20)