From
the beginning it is important to state that we are not talking about
"another Church, but another way of Being Church" with the
good will of being the Church of Jesus Christ without pride or belittling
others. It is possible and necessary to be the Church of Jesus, but
in a different way.
Throughout
history, the Church of Jesus has taken on different forms and there
have always been different ways of being church within it. Today, we
are experiencing great insecurity and fear simultaneously in the Church,
and in the Churches in general. The great German theologian, Rahner,
spoke years ago about the "winter" of the Church. And for
years we have been talking about "involution". The word has
even made its way into public use, with journalists talking about involution
in the Church.
There
is insecurity and fear, but on the other hand there are also demands
which are growing more explicit and even collective, and becoming experiences
of liberation. There has never been so much diversity in the Church
of Jesus as today, particularly in terms of the laity. This is true
not only in Latin America, but also in Europe. The base communities
are an alternative experience of Being Church compared to the traditional
parish model, for example.
The
Church's many fears
In
Nicaragua, a magazine published a special issue dedicated to the Church
today. The title of the special issue was: "Why we believe in the
Church". In this issue there was an article written by Rev. Victor
Codina, a Jesuit working in Bolivia. He describes the Church's fears,
he offers a litany of fears, which I am going to describe with brief
comments.
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There is still fear of Marxism, which has not been overcome despite
the collapse of real socialism.
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There is fear of the modern secular world that has pushed the Church
out of the public sphere, relegating it to the private sphere.
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There is fear of ecumenical dialogue, which has cooled off in recent
years. The Churches have withdrawn to defend and protect their own identities.
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There is fear of interreligious dialogue, the proliferation of
all kinds of religious expressions world-wide, which is macroecumenism
as we stated in the First Assembly of the People of God in Quito in
1992 to mark the 500th anniversary of Latin America.
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There is fear of Episcopal collegiality and the resurgence of local
churches. You know that there are certain Bishops who frequently have
problems with the centre because of Episcopal collegiality and the resurgence
of local churches. Centralism exists in the Church and we need to recognise
it. The Church is a port on the one hand, and landlocked on the other.
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There is fear of the laity, that they have a public opinion of the Church
and its political and social commitments. Despite all the talk about
the protagonism of the laity, when lay people express their commitment
we either leave them alone or, on some occasions, condemn them.
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There is fear of women, which is one of the greatest fears, and their
contribution in decisionmaking, although this right is defended.
If women can and should be equal to men in society, why not in the Church?
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There is fear of theologians. There have been many books written by
theologians that have not been published and will not be published because
they might be censored. I personally know of several cases.
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There is fear of cultures. This happens because of interreligious
dialogue because evidently dialogue between cultures means dialogue
between religions.
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There is fear of young people, although there are efforts to attract
them, because youth is youth. It is critical, noisy and free. Its loud
volume is troubling.
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There is fear of Latin American Liberation Theology. You know that during
his Visit to Central America a journalist asked Pope John Paul II if
liberation theology had ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The
Pope said that liberation theology was no longer a problem. I believe,
with due respect, that it never was a problem. For us, it was of great
importance, a relevant solution and it continues to be. But there continues
to be a certain level of fear of liberation theology, of less traditional
theologies, and also of Asian and African theology.
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There is fear of base communities and an effort to get them back into
the parish.
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There is fear of religious life inserted in the community, that is involved
on the margins. In Santo Domingo and with good faith - but who knows
if there were some Bishops with other intentions - religious men and
women were asked to return to the classroom. I think education is important,
but without abandoning work on the margins.
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There is fear of sects, to such an extent that we begin to call everything
a sect. Evangelical churches are "sects", everything is a
sect.
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There is fear of reviewing things like the ordained ministry, optional
celibacy, lay ministries, to say nothing about women's ordination.
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There is fear of liturgical changes and bad experiences.
Demands
and new freedom in the Church
Along
side the fears I am also going to summarise the demands. There is a
document circulating in Europe that has been signed by millions of Christians.
It is called: "We are the Church". It began in Austria and
it asks for: the construction of a fraternal Church with full equality
for women's rights; free choice between celibacy and not being celibate;
and valuing sexuality as an important part of the human being created
and accepted by God. It calls on the Church to adopt a message that
is happier, full of hope and even tenderness, instead of its message
of control, restriction and threats.
This
is what the people who have signed this document want. I know that Bishops
in Europe who are not considered revolutionaries think this document
is acceptable and sensible, that it deserves attention and that the
large number of signatures indicate that it is a collective demand.
Maybe what the people who have signed it are saying in a loud voice,
is what millions more in the Church of God are saying quietly. So, there
is fear and concern on the one hand, and demands and freedom on the
other. I think that we are living through an important time in the Church,
and the process can only accelerate. The Church will become increasingly
less hierarchical. There will continue to be a hierarchy, but it will
be less hierarchical. The laity will have greater protagonism.
We
will be more communitarian. When we talk about base Christian communities
we say that what is most important is not the community or the many
communities but the spirit of community. At times when democracy in
the Church is discussed I say: I do not want democracy in the Church,
I want much more. Democracy is not enough, especially the formal type
of democracy we are accustomed to. We want a fraternal community with
the full participation of all people, each person with his or her service
or ministry but with total participation.
I
believe that in the Church, as well as in the grassroots movement, we
have moved forward even if it does not always look that way. There is
involution at the upper echelons, but there is evolution at the grassroots
level. There is much more participation in both the Church and the grassroots
movement. Those who have lived in Latin America in the past 25 years
can perceive this very clearly.
It
seems to me that when we talk about the Church, about our own problems
and anxieties, and take on the challenges that correspond to us as church,
we need to categorically affirm that we are "church" just
as much as anyone else, including the Pope. We are more or less church
if we are more or less followers of Jesus. The Pope is as much church
as any other baptised Christian. The Pope has a ministry, which is singular
and indispensable, but as church. We are church from Baptism, all else
is ministry and service. We need to affirm this categorically, live
it and give thanks for it.
We
are church. In the Church we are the inheritors of those witnesses,
as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us. And we are going to leave an
inheritance to others. This awareness of Being Church should fill us
with gratitude, responsibility and freedom of spirit which should enable
us to live it with greater awareness, freedom and reality.
The
Church: mystery, history, sacrament of salvation
We
need to highlight three dimensions of the Church:
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One dimension is that of mystery. The Church is a mystery of faith and
we can confess that, "I believe in the Holy Church". It is
a mystery of faith: the Church is the bride of the lamb, it is the Body
of Christ.
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In the second place the Church is an institution and history. As such,
like many institutions in human history, from the beginning of time,
and today and tomorrow, the Church is, was and will always be holy and
at the same time a sinner. Or as the first Christians said graphically,
"chaste and a prostitute". The reformers throughout time have
been good for the Church because they shook it and reminded it that
it had to change with the times.
Then,
as a institution and as history, we can criticise the Church, recognise
the nonsense it has created, creates and will create. We are all church,
the hierarchy, the grassroots ... Of course, the nonsense of the hierarchy
is more evident because we are at the top and because until now the
Church has depended directly on us, the hierarchy. And this we need
to humbly recognise. I believe that we should not be afraid to ask forgiveness
for our omissions and even our crimes: slavery, the crusades, the conquest
of America. We always begin the Eucharist asking for forgiveness. A
good act of penance is always opportune. It is a good way of recovering
credibility.
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Finally, we cannot forget that this Church that is steeped in mystery,
that is institution and history, is the sacrament of universal salvation.
The universal is the kingdom and the Church is a sacrament of the universal
kingdom, universal salvation. A sacrament, a mystery.
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Who knows if theologically and pastorally the correction that we must
make in the Church is this: think, insist in the ministry of the entire
Church on the service of the Kingdom. The ministry of the Kingdom is
the great ministry of the Church and all other ministries are secondary
to this. And in the ministry of the Kingdom we are all ministers. A
priesthood common to all the faithful. This means, above all, a priesthood
that celebrates, announces and waits for the Kingdom. And we all feel
committed. We no longer talk about the Church as institution, we talk
about ourselves and others and that each of us assumes his or her responsibility.
This will open spaces where they are still lacking because this is their
right through Baptism.
Another
Way of Being Church
A
new God, a new church, a renewed option for the poor
I
joke at times that when we arrive at the threshold of heaven the first
thing we will realise is that from the threshold on in and for all eternity
we will never again talk about religion or church. There we will talk
about the Kingdom and those of us who were church and those who were
religious and even those who were not - we are all the children of God
- will be part of the family of God and live the fullness of God's Kingdom.
So it would be good if we started here because perhaps we are poorly
trained and we will start discussing theology until the Holy Spirit
gives us peace.
We,
Christians, must emphasise that our great paradigm will continue to
be the same paradigm held by Jesus: The Kingdom. This is the paradigm.
In
this great paradigm we can and must insist on Being Church in a more
or less new way, to become this church that we dream about and believe
in with humility but also with freedom and joy. This is the church that
Jesus dreamed about. Finally, we can highlight three paradigms, or three
sub paradigms:
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We need to begin with a new theological approach. Do not be scared.
I have changed my God and I will always be changing my God. Thank God
for that. Thanks to the one and only God, I continue changing my God
a little each day. And when we reach heaven the first thing we will
do is completely change our God. Only then will we see how God sees
us. And we will see that God is something else. It will cause a glorious
scare, a great happiness. This is what the ancients called the "beatic
vision".
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A new approach to theology could lead to a new ecclesiology. A Church
that is more communitarian, serving, dialoguebased, inserted in
history and in reality with the poor, thirsty, concerned and hopeful,
as the Council asked us to be in Gaudium et Spes.
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A renewed option for the poor, who today are excluded, from their full
liberation. The worst thing that we could do, the greatest heresy we
could commit in our Latin America, in the Third World, is to think that
the option for the poor is no longer important. There are many people
who in their own interests or because they have gone astray think that
"they have talked enough about this option for the poor".
At times friends or journalists have asked me what remains of the option
for the poor. And I say, "the poor are still with us, as is the
God of the poor".
I
think that as long as the God of the Poor, who is the God of Jesus,
exists and we want to believe, and as long as there are women and men
who love and serve this God as Jesus did, then the option for the poor
will continue. Furthermore, liberation theology will continue as long
as there are minds that think about God and the poor. Unfortunately,
as Jesus warned us, "the poor will always be among us". What
he did not say is that there would always be increasingly more poor
people. This is what neo-liberalism tells us as it washes its hands
like Pilot did.
"Another
way of Being Church", with simplicity but also happiness, liberty
of spirit, must mean being the Church of Jesus. A way of being evangelical,
incarnate and placed within history. Being Church is what we want. We
do not want anything else, we do not think about a parallel church in
the pejorative sense of the word. We must be church and this depends
on us.
Ref.
LADOC,
Vol.
XXVII, July/August 1997.
[This
article was published in two parts in Crie (Mexico) No. 351 and 352,
March and April 1997].