It concerned the missionary activity of the Church. The genesis of
the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes" and of the 1990 encyclical "Redemptoris
Missio" in the previously unpublished memoirs of Fr. Piero Gheddo, who
worked on the writing of both documents
ROME, November 9, 2012 – At the synod of last October on the new
evangelization, an impression was made by the criticism addressed by
Indian cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo against those religious orders
which act "like multinationals, doing very good and necessary work to
meet the material needs of humanity, but have forgotten that the primary
purpose of their founding was to bring the kerygma, the Gospel, to a
lost world."
The criticism is not new. And it was addressed by recent popes, a number of times, to the Catholic Church as a whole, urged to revive its sluggish missionary spirit.
The watershed was Vatican Council II.
"Until the council, the Church was living through a season of missionary fervor unimaginable today," recalls Fr. Piero Gheddo of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, who was one of the experts called to the council by John XXIII to work on the drafting of the document on the missions.
But then there was a sudden collapse. So much so that in 1990, twenty-five years after the approval of the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes," John Paul II felt the need to dedicate to the missions an encyclical, "Redemptoris Missio," precisely in order to shake the Church from its torpor.
Fr. Gheddo was also called to work on the drafting of this encyclical. And he says:
"John Paul II, with 'Redemptoris Missio,' certainly wanted to confirm the conciliar decree 'Ad Gentes,' but he also intended to fill a gap in that text, which is very beautiful but hasty and incomplete. That is, he wanted to deal with issues that at Vatican II had been examined hastily or were even ignored. And I can say this with confidence, having met with the pope a number of times while I was preparing the three drafts of the document, between October of 1989 and July of 1990."
In recent weeks, Fr. Gheddo – who is 83 years old, has made countless voyages on all of the continents, has written more than 80 books translated into numerous languages and was until 2010 the director of the historical office of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions – is reorganizing his memoirs concerning the council and its aftermath. Some of his notes have been published by Zenit and by Asia News.
DURING THE COUNCIL
On the affair of the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes," which he helped to write, Fr. Gheddo says:
"The journey of the decree was as laborious and obstructed as can be imagined. In the first place, the needs and solutions proposed by the council fathers were very different according to the continents. To give only one example that I recall well: from the Asian Churches, rich with vocations and with an ancient tradition of celibacy in the local religions, there was insistence on the need to maintain priestly celibacy; from Latin America and from Africa, on the other hand, some episcopates were asking for its abolition, or the admission of married clergy under certain conditions."
The document was even in danger of being scrapped. The account of Fr. Gheddo continues:
"The difficulties increased when on April 23, 1964, between the second and third sessions of the council, the secretariat of the council sent a letter to our commission: the schema on the missions had to be reduced to a few proposals. No more a long and in-depth text, but a simple list of proposals. The aim was to simplify the work of the council and to bring it to an end with the third session. Some of the baseline texts could be fairly expansive; others, believed to be less important, had to limit themselves to a few pages of proposals. The talk was that the expenses for the council fathers, about 2,400 in all, and the machinery of the council were entirely unsustainable for the Holy See.
"The commission on the missions worked at a feverish pace, even at night, in order to meet this request, concentrating the text into 13 proposals. But as soon as the news got out among the bishops the protests came, some of them vehement, like that of Cardinal Frings of Cologne, who sent letters to the German bishops and to others, urging them to protest: What in the world! It is said that the missionary effort is essential for the Church, and then it has to be reduced to a few pages? Incomprehensible, impossible, unacceptable."
"A group of bishops asked that the document on the missions be abolished, and the material be integrated into the constitution "Lumen Gentium" on the Church. Others instead, more numerous and battle-ready (these included missionaries 'from the field,' at the mere sight of whom it was impossible to tell them no), proceeded by personal contacts, one by one, with all of the council fathers, gaining followers. The battle in the assembly concluded with success: only 311 council fathers spoke out in favor of the document on the missions being reduced to 13 proposals, while 1,601 asked that the missionary decree be preserved in its entirety. Its fate was decided at the fourth session of the Council, the longest of all, from September 14 to December 8, 1965."
One of the controversial points concerns the role of the Vatican congregation "de Propaganda Fide":
"On one side, there was even a request for the abolition of the congregation for the evangelization of non-Christians. On the contrary, many council fathers asked for its enhancement, that it be restored to a role of leadership, surpassing its merely juridical function and work of financing missionary dioceses that it had been taking on.
"In fact, from its birth in 1622 until the beginning of the 20th century, 'Propaganda Fide' had a strong and vigorous role in the strategy and concrete leadership of missionary work, as also in the life of the institutions and missionaries themselves. But then its role was reduced, while the secretariat of state gained power, with the relative apostolic nunciatures. Not a few missionary bishops therefore wanted to reinforce the congregation of the missions, for whose freedom of action they felt a great necessity, as a guarantee of their own freedom."
The request of these missionary bishops did not reach its goal – Fr. Gheddo says – "in part because the tendency to the centralization and unification of the governance of the Church was perhaps inevitable."
However, on another controversial point, success smiled upon a group of bishops from the Amazon region:
"It is a matter that I personally followed," recalls Fr. Gheddo. "Bishop Arcangelo Cerqua of the PIME, a prelate of Parintins in the Brazilian Amazon, and Bishop Aristide Pirovano, also of the PIME, a prelate of Macapà in the Amazon, became promoters of a 'lobbying' action that led to the insertion into the decree "Ad Gentes," at the last moment, of note 37 of Chapter 6, which equates the prelatures of the Brazilian Amazon (35 at the time) but also many others of Latin America with the missionary territories under the supervision of 'Propaganda Fide.' Without this equating, Latin America would have been excluded from the assistance of the pontifical missionary works, from which it benefits today.
"In the decisive vote, in November of 1965, 117 fathers of Latin America rejected the text put to the vote, which made no mention of the prelatures. Too few, out of 2,153 voters. At the same time, however, another 712 fathers voted in favor, but 'iuxta modum,' therefore requiring that the text be rewritten, because it was not fully approved by two third of the voters. And so the prelatures of Latin America were included among the territories helped by the pontifical missionary works."
Father Gheddo comments:
"Facts such as these, but also many others, for example the approval of the collegiality of the pope with the episcopate, confirm the evident working of the Holy Spirit in guiding the assembly of Vatican II."
This does not change the fact – Fr. Gheddo continues – that in the interval between the second and third sessions of Vatican II, "there was on the commission a sense of anxiety, and in some even of near desperation."
"The text sent to the bishops in the summer of 1965 was five times longer than the previous 13 proposals to which the attempt had been made to reduce it. It seemed like an incredible success. But the most difficult task for the drafting commission came afterward. The decisive months were October and November. The text was expanded with many of the observations suggested by the bishops. In November, there were twenty votes that approved it by a wide majority, but with another 500 pages of 'modi,' of suggestions, of proposals in the assembly that asked for more additions, corrections, different formulations. There was less than a month to go until the end of the council, and again it seemed almost as if we had to start over from the beginning!
"Then, mysteriously, in the end everything came together. The decree as a whole was approved at the last public session, with 2,394 votes in favor and only 5 against, the highest level of unanimity in the voting of the entire council. 'The Holy Spirit is truly here!' exclaimed Cardinal Agagianian, prefect of 'Propaganda Fide' and one of the four moderators of the assembly."
AFTER THE COUNCIL
Already in the immediate postcouncil, nonetheless, the dream of a new missionary Pentecost gave way to the opposite tendency. Fr. Gheddo recalls:
"The religious obligation to evangelize was reduced to a social commitment: the important thing was to love one's neighbor, to do good, to give the witness of service, as if the Church were an agency of assistance and emergency aid to remedy the injustices and the scourges of society. The 'scientific' analysis of Marxism and of third-worldism was acclaimed. Completely false ideas were proclaimed as true, for example that it is not important that peoples convert to Christ, as long as they accept the message of love and peace of the Gospel."
These tendencies were also manifested among the bishops who took part in the 1974 synod on evangelization. It was Paul VI, with the 1975 postsynodal apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi," who forcefully reaffirmed that "even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if . . . the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed."
"But Paul VI was not heeded," Fr. Gheddo comments. And his successor John Paul II, with the encyclical "Redemptoris Missio" of 1990, also ran up against a wall of incomprehension.
Fr. Gheddo recalls that he collaborated with the pope on the drafting of this document:
"Not a few, in the Vatican curia, opposed that encyclical even before it was released. They said: 'An encyclical is too much, an apostolic letter would be enough, as is done for the anniversary of a conciliar text.' But even after its release, 'Redemptoris Missio' was undervalued in the Church by theologians, missiologists, missionary magazines. They said: 'It doesn't say anything new.' When instead it introduced new and absolutely revolutionary ideas, not even touched upon by the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes," as for example in the chapter entitled "Promoting Development by Forming Consciences." John Paul II was right to observe that in the history of the Church, the missionary impulse has always been a sign of vitality, as its diminishment is a sign of a crisis of faith."
Fr. Gheddo continues:
"Observing today the magazines and books, the conferences, the campaigns of missionary institutions and organisms, the question arises of whether "Redemptoris Missio" has been understood and lived. Let's be honest. The very grave reduction of missionary vocations depends in part on how the figure of the missionary and of the mission to the nations is presented.
"Half a century ago, there were vigils and missionary marches, with missionaries in the field asking God for more vocations for the mission to the nations and encouraging young people to offer their lives for the missions. What prevails today is mobilization on issues such as the weapons trade, the collecting the signatures against the foreign debt of African countries, water as a public resource, deforestation, etc. When issues like these become the focus of missionary activity, it is inevitable that the missionary will be reduced to a social and political agent.
"I ask: is it even thinkable that young men and woman could feel drawn to become missionaries when they are taught to make denunciations and protests, to gather signatures against weapons or foreign debt? In order to have more missionary vocations, young people must be captivated by the Gospel and by life in the missions, they must fall in love with Jesus Christ, the only treasure that we have. All of the rest comes as a result."
A NOTE OF TRUST
With Benedict XVI, center stage has been given to the fight against relativism, against the idea that all religions are as good as one another and are ways of salvation. Among the many texts of this pontificate on this topic, there is the doctrinal note of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith on some aspects of evangelization.
Fr. Gheddo comments:
"The note was desired and approved by the pope; it was published on December 3, 2007, the feast of the missionary par excellence St. Francis Xavier; and yet it was almost entirely ignored by the Catholic and missionary press, when instead it is a text that the diocesan missionary institutions, the press, missionary groups and associations should study and discuss in order to have the precise point of reference in the climate of secularization and relativism that threatens to make us lose the compass of the right way."
But in spite of all of this, Fr. Gheddo continues to have trust, and he presents a few figures in his support:
"There is too much pessimism today on the effectiveness of the missions among non-Christians. The reality is different. In the millennial history of the Church, there is no continent that has converted to Christ as rapidly as Africa. In 1960, there were about 35 million African Catholics with 25 local bishops; today there are 172 million with about 400 African bishops. According to the Pew Research Center in Washington, in 2010 in all of Africa Christians and Muslims each had just under 500 million faithful, but in sub-Saharan Africa alone there are 470 million Christians and 234 million Muslims.
"In 1960 in Asia there were 68 Asian bishops and in no country was there a sustained growth in the number of baptized. Only in India was there a good rate of conversions, and here today there are at least 30 million Catholics, twice the official figure. The same holds true for Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Burma, Vietnam, where Catholics are already 10 percent of the 85 million Vietnamese, with numerous conversions and vocations. In 1949, when Mao came to power, China had 3.7 million Catholics; today, in spite of the persecution, there are estimated to be 12 to 15 million, and Christians as a whole are 45 to 50 million. In South Korea, where there is freedom of religion and the statistics are credible, there are more than 5 million Catholics, 10.3 percent of South Koreans, and Christians all together make up 30 percent of the population.
"The positive effect of the council and of the popes is evident in the advancement of the young Churches, which today are missionaries outside of their own countries and to the West. The stereotypes that the mission to the nations has ended and no longer has any efficacy must be eliminated, because they do not correspond to the reality of the facts.
"John Paul II wrote in 'Redemptoris Missio': 'The mission to the nations is only beginning.' We do not know the plans of God, but probably even this period of stasis of the mission to the nations has its positive meaning. Perhaps we will understand it in half a century."
The criticism is not new. And it was addressed by recent popes, a number of times, to the Catholic Church as a whole, urged to revive its sluggish missionary spirit.
The watershed was Vatican Council II.
"Until the council, the Church was living through a season of missionary fervor unimaginable today," recalls Fr. Piero Gheddo of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, who was one of the experts called to the council by John XXIII to work on the drafting of the document on the missions.
But then there was a sudden collapse. So much so that in 1990, twenty-five years after the approval of the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes," John Paul II felt the need to dedicate to the missions an encyclical, "Redemptoris Missio," precisely in order to shake the Church from its torpor.
Fr. Gheddo was also called to work on the drafting of this encyclical. And he says:
"John Paul II, with 'Redemptoris Missio,' certainly wanted to confirm the conciliar decree 'Ad Gentes,' but he also intended to fill a gap in that text, which is very beautiful but hasty and incomplete. That is, he wanted to deal with issues that at Vatican II had been examined hastily or were even ignored. And I can say this with confidence, having met with the pope a number of times while I was preparing the three drafts of the document, between October of 1989 and July of 1990."
In recent weeks, Fr. Gheddo – who is 83 years old, has made countless voyages on all of the continents, has written more than 80 books translated into numerous languages and was until 2010 the director of the historical office of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions – is reorganizing his memoirs concerning the council and its aftermath. Some of his notes have been published by Zenit and by Asia News.
DURING THE COUNCIL
On the affair of the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes," which he helped to write, Fr. Gheddo says:
"The journey of the decree was as laborious and obstructed as can be imagined. In the first place, the needs and solutions proposed by the council fathers were very different according to the continents. To give only one example that I recall well: from the Asian Churches, rich with vocations and with an ancient tradition of celibacy in the local religions, there was insistence on the need to maintain priestly celibacy; from Latin America and from Africa, on the other hand, some episcopates were asking for its abolition, or the admission of married clergy under certain conditions."
The document was even in danger of being scrapped. The account of Fr. Gheddo continues:
"The difficulties increased when on April 23, 1964, between the second and third sessions of the council, the secretariat of the council sent a letter to our commission: the schema on the missions had to be reduced to a few proposals. No more a long and in-depth text, but a simple list of proposals. The aim was to simplify the work of the council and to bring it to an end with the third session. Some of the baseline texts could be fairly expansive; others, believed to be less important, had to limit themselves to a few pages of proposals. The talk was that the expenses for the council fathers, about 2,400 in all, and the machinery of the council were entirely unsustainable for the Holy See.
"The commission on the missions worked at a feverish pace, even at night, in order to meet this request, concentrating the text into 13 proposals. But as soon as the news got out among the bishops the protests came, some of them vehement, like that of Cardinal Frings of Cologne, who sent letters to the German bishops and to others, urging them to protest: What in the world! It is said that the missionary effort is essential for the Church, and then it has to be reduced to a few pages? Incomprehensible, impossible, unacceptable."
"A group of bishops asked that the document on the missions be abolished, and the material be integrated into the constitution "Lumen Gentium" on the Church. Others instead, more numerous and battle-ready (these included missionaries 'from the field,' at the mere sight of whom it was impossible to tell them no), proceeded by personal contacts, one by one, with all of the council fathers, gaining followers. The battle in the assembly concluded with success: only 311 council fathers spoke out in favor of the document on the missions being reduced to 13 proposals, while 1,601 asked that the missionary decree be preserved in its entirety. Its fate was decided at the fourth session of the Council, the longest of all, from September 14 to December 8, 1965."
One of the controversial points concerns the role of the Vatican congregation "de Propaganda Fide":
"On one side, there was even a request for the abolition of the congregation for the evangelization of non-Christians. On the contrary, many council fathers asked for its enhancement, that it be restored to a role of leadership, surpassing its merely juridical function and work of financing missionary dioceses that it had been taking on.
"In fact, from its birth in 1622 until the beginning of the 20th century, 'Propaganda Fide' had a strong and vigorous role in the strategy and concrete leadership of missionary work, as also in the life of the institutions and missionaries themselves. But then its role was reduced, while the secretariat of state gained power, with the relative apostolic nunciatures. Not a few missionary bishops therefore wanted to reinforce the congregation of the missions, for whose freedom of action they felt a great necessity, as a guarantee of their own freedom."
The request of these missionary bishops did not reach its goal – Fr. Gheddo says – "in part because the tendency to the centralization and unification of the governance of the Church was perhaps inevitable."
However, on another controversial point, success smiled upon a group of bishops from the Amazon region:
"It is a matter that I personally followed," recalls Fr. Gheddo. "Bishop Arcangelo Cerqua of the PIME, a prelate of Parintins in the Brazilian Amazon, and Bishop Aristide Pirovano, also of the PIME, a prelate of Macapà in the Amazon, became promoters of a 'lobbying' action that led to the insertion into the decree "Ad Gentes," at the last moment, of note 37 of Chapter 6, which equates the prelatures of the Brazilian Amazon (35 at the time) but also many others of Latin America with the missionary territories under the supervision of 'Propaganda Fide.' Without this equating, Latin America would have been excluded from the assistance of the pontifical missionary works, from which it benefits today.
"In the decisive vote, in November of 1965, 117 fathers of Latin America rejected the text put to the vote, which made no mention of the prelatures. Too few, out of 2,153 voters. At the same time, however, another 712 fathers voted in favor, but 'iuxta modum,' therefore requiring that the text be rewritten, because it was not fully approved by two third of the voters. And so the prelatures of Latin America were included among the territories helped by the pontifical missionary works."
Father Gheddo comments:
"Facts such as these, but also many others, for example the approval of the collegiality of the pope with the episcopate, confirm the evident working of the Holy Spirit in guiding the assembly of Vatican II."
This does not change the fact – Fr. Gheddo continues – that in the interval between the second and third sessions of Vatican II, "there was on the commission a sense of anxiety, and in some even of near desperation."
"The text sent to the bishops in the summer of 1965 was five times longer than the previous 13 proposals to which the attempt had been made to reduce it. It seemed like an incredible success. But the most difficult task for the drafting commission came afterward. The decisive months were October and November. The text was expanded with many of the observations suggested by the bishops. In November, there were twenty votes that approved it by a wide majority, but with another 500 pages of 'modi,' of suggestions, of proposals in the assembly that asked for more additions, corrections, different formulations. There was less than a month to go until the end of the council, and again it seemed almost as if we had to start over from the beginning!
"Then, mysteriously, in the end everything came together. The decree as a whole was approved at the last public session, with 2,394 votes in favor and only 5 against, the highest level of unanimity in the voting of the entire council. 'The Holy Spirit is truly here!' exclaimed Cardinal Agagianian, prefect of 'Propaganda Fide' and one of the four moderators of the assembly."
AFTER THE COUNCIL
Already in the immediate postcouncil, nonetheless, the dream of a new missionary Pentecost gave way to the opposite tendency. Fr. Gheddo recalls:
"The religious obligation to evangelize was reduced to a social commitment: the important thing was to love one's neighbor, to do good, to give the witness of service, as if the Church were an agency of assistance and emergency aid to remedy the injustices and the scourges of society. The 'scientific' analysis of Marxism and of third-worldism was acclaimed. Completely false ideas were proclaimed as true, for example that it is not important that peoples convert to Christ, as long as they accept the message of love and peace of the Gospel."
These tendencies were also manifested among the bishops who took part in the 1974 synod on evangelization. It was Paul VI, with the 1975 postsynodal apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi," who forcefully reaffirmed that "even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if . . . the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed."
"But Paul VI was not heeded," Fr. Gheddo comments. And his successor John Paul II, with the encyclical "Redemptoris Missio" of 1990, also ran up against a wall of incomprehension.
Fr. Gheddo recalls that he collaborated with the pope on the drafting of this document:
"Not a few, in the Vatican curia, opposed that encyclical even before it was released. They said: 'An encyclical is too much, an apostolic letter would be enough, as is done for the anniversary of a conciliar text.' But even after its release, 'Redemptoris Missio' was undervalued in the Church by theologians, missiologists, missionary magazines. They said: 'It doesn't say anything new.' When instead it introduced new and absolutely revolutionary ideas, not even touched upon by the conciliar decree "Ad Gentes," as for example in the chapter entitled "Promoting Development by Forming Consciences." John Paul II was right to observe that in the history of the Church, the missionary impulse has always been a sign of vitality, as its diminishment is a sign of a crisis of faith."
Fr. Gheddo continues:
"Observing today the magazines and books, the conferences, the campaigns of missionary institutions and organisms, the question arises of whether "Redemptoris Missio" has been understood and lived. Let's be honest. The very grave reduction of missionary vocations depends in part on how the figure of the missionary and of the mission to the nations is presented.
"Half a century ago, there were vigils and missionary marches, with missionaries in the field asking God for more vocations for the mission to the nations and encouraging young people to offer their lives for the missions. What prevails today is mobilization on issues such as the weapons trade, the collecting the signatures against the foreign debt of African countries, water as a public resource, deforestation, etc. When issues like these become the focus of missionary activity, it is inevitable that the missionary will be reduced to a social and political agent.
"I ask: is it even thinkable that young men and woman could feel drawn to become missionaries when they are taught to make denunciations and protests, to gather signatures against weapons or foreign debt? In order to have more missionary vocations, young people must be captivated by the Gospel and by life in the missions, they must fall in love with Jesus Christ, the only treasure that we have. All of the rest comes as a result."
A NOTE OF TRUST
With Benedict XVI, center stage has been given to the fight against relativism, against the idea that all religions are as good as one another and are ways of salvation. Among the many texts of this pontificate on this topic, there is the doctrinal note of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith on some aspects of evangelization.
Fr. Gheddo comments:
"The note was desired and approved by the pope; it was published on December 3, 2007, the feast of the missionary par excellence St. Francis Xavier; and yet it was almost entirely ignored by the Catholic and missionary press, when instead it is a text that the diocesan missionary institutions, the press, missionary groups and associations should study and discuss in order to have the precise point of reference in the climate of secularization and relativism that threatens to make us lose the compass of the right way."
But in spite of all of this, Fr. Gheddo continues to have trust, and he presents a few figures in his support:
"There is too much pessimism today on the effectiveness of the missions among non-Christians. The reality is different. In the millennial history of the Church, there is no continent that has converted to Christ as rapidly as Africa. In 1960, there were about 35 million African Catholics with 25 local bishops; today there are 172 million with about 400 African bishops. According to the Pew Research Center in Washington, in 2010 in all of Africa Christians and Muslims each had just under 500 million faithful, but in sub-Saharan Africa alone there are 470 million Christians and 234 million Muslims.
"In 1960 in Asia there were 68 Asian bishops and in no country was there a sustained growth in the number of baptized. Only in India was there a good rate of conversions, and here today there are at least 30 million Catholics, twice the official figure. The same holds true for Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Burma, Vietnam, where Catholics are already 10 percent of the 85 million Vietnamese, with numerous conversions and vocations. In 1949, when Mao came to power, China had 3.7 million Catholics; today, in spite of the persecution, there are estimated to be 12 to 15 million, and Christians as a whole are 45 to 50 million. In South Korea, where there is freedom of religion and the statistics are credible, there are more than 5 million Catholics, 10.3 percent of South Koreans, and Christians all together make up 30 percent of the population.
"The positive effect of the council and of the popes is evident in the advancement of the young Churches, which today are missionaries outside of their own countries and to the West. The stereotypes that the mission to the nations has ended and no longer has any efficacy must be eliminated, because they do not correspond to the reality of the facts.
"John Paul II wrote in 'Redemptoris Missio': 'The mission to the nations is only beginning.' We do not know the plans of God, but probably even this period of stasis of the mission to the nations has its positive meaning. Perhaps we will understand it in half a century."
_____________
The decree of Vatican Council II on the missions, from 1965:
> "Ad gentes"
The 1975 apostolic exhortation of Paul VI:
> "Evangelii Nuntiandi"
The 1990 encyclical of John Paul II:
> "Redemptoris Missio"
