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Venerable Brothers and dear sons and daughters, Greetings and the
apostolic blessing.
I. Inheritance
1. At the Close of the Second Millennium
THE REDEEMER OF MAN, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of
history. To Him go my thoughts and my heart in this solemn moment of the
world that the Church and the whole family of present-day humanity are now
living. In fact, this time, in which God in His hidden design has
entrusted to me, after my beloved predecessor John Paul I, the universal
service connected with the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, is already very
close to the year 2000. At this moment it is difficult to say what mark
that year will leave on the face of human history or what it will bring to
each people, nation, country and continent, in spite of the efforts
already being made to foresee some events. For the Church, the People of
God spread, although unevenly, to the most distant limits of the earth, it
will be the year of a great Jubilee. We are already approaching that date,
which, without prejudice to all the corrections imposed by chronological
exactitude, will recall and reawaken in us in a special way our awareness
of the key truth of faith which St. John expressed at the beginning of his
Gospel: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,"(1) and elsewhere: "God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life."(2)
We also are in a certain way in a season of a new Advent, a season of
expectation: "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by
the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son...,"(3)
by the Son, His Word, who became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. This
act of redemption marked the high point of the history of man within God's
loving plan. God entered the history of humanity and, as a man, became an
actor in that history, one of the thousands of millions of human beings
but at the same time Unique! Through the Incarnation God gave human life
the dimension that He intended man to have from his first beginning; he
has granted that dimension definitively -- in the way that is peculiar to
Him alone, in keeping with His eternal love and mercy, with the full
freedom of God -- and He has granted it also with the bounty that enables
us, in considering the original sin and the whole history of the sins of
humanity, and in considering the errors of the human intellect, will and
heart, to repeat with amazement the words of the sacred liturgy: "O happy
fault... which gained us so great a Redeemer!"(4)
2. The First Words of the New Pontificate
It was to Christ the Redeemer that my feelings and my thoughts were
directed on October 16 of last year, when, after the canonical election, I
was asked: "Do you accept?" I then replied: "With obedience in faith to
Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and of the Church,
in spite of the great difficulties, I accept." Today I wish to make that
reply known publicly to all without exception, thus showing that there is
a link between the first fundamental truth of the Incarnation, already
mentioned, and the ministry that, with my acceptance of my election as
Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, has become my specific
duty in his See.
I chose the same names that were chosen by my beloved predecessor John
Paul I. Indeed, as soon as he announced to the sacred college on August
26, 1978, that he wished to be called John Paul -- such a double name
being unprecedented in the history of the papacy -- I saw in it a clear
presage of grace for the new pontificate. Since that pontificate lasted
barely 33 days, it falls to me not only to continue it but in a certain
sense to take it up again at the same starting point. This is confirmed by
my choice of these two names. By following the example of my venerable
predecessor in choosing them, I wish like him to express my love for the
unique inheritance left to the Church by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI and
my personal readiness to develop that inheritance with God's help.
Through these two names and two pontificates I am linked with the whole
tradition of the Apostolic See and with all my predecessors in the expanse
of the twentieth century and of the preceding centuries. I am connected,
through one after another of the various ages back to the most remote,
with the line of the mission and ministry that confers on Peter's See an
altogether special place in the Church. John XXIII and Paul VI are a stage
to which I wish to refer directly as a threshold from which I intend to
continue, in a certain sense together with John Paul I, into the future,
letting myself be guided by unlimited trust in and obedience to the Spirit
that Christ promised and sent to His Church. On the night before He
suffered He said to His apostles: "It is to your advantage that I go away,
for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go,
I will send him to you."(5) "When the Counsellor comes, whom I shall send
to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the
Father, he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because
you have been with me from the beginning."(6) "When the Spirit of truth
comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his
own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to
you the things that are to come."(7)
3. Trust in the Spirit of Truth and of Love
Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am
entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This
inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an
utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican
Council, which John XXIII convened and opened and which was later
successfully concluded and perseveringly put into effect by Paul VI, whose
activity I was myself able to watch from close at hand. I was constantly
amazed at his profound wisdom and his courage and also by his constancy
and patience in the difficult postconciliar period of his pontificate. As
helmsman of the Church, the bark of Peter, he knew how to preserve a
providential tranquility and balance even in the most critical moments,
when the Church seemed to be shaken from within, and he always maintained
unhesitating hope in the Church's solidity. What the Spirit said to the
Church through the Council of our time, what the Spirit says in this
Church to all the Churches(8) cannot lead to anything else -- in spite of
momentary uneasiness -- but still more mature solidity of the whole People
of God, aware of their salvific mission.
Paul VI selected this present-day consciousness of the Church as the
first theme in his fundamental encyclical beginning with the words
Ecclesiam Suam. Let me refer first of all to this encyclical and link
myself with it in the first document that, so to speak, inaugurates the
present pontificate. The Church's consciousness, enlightened and supported
by the Holy Spirit and fathoming more and more deeply both her divine
mystery and her human mission, and even her human weaknesses -- this
consciousness is and must remain the first source of the Church's love, as
love in turn helps to strengthen and deepen her consciousness. Paul VI
left us a witness of such an extremely acute consciousness of the Church.
Through the many things, often causing suffering, that went to make up his
pontificate he taught us intrepid love for the Church, which is, as the
Council states, a "sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God,
and of the unity of all mankind."(9)
4. Reference to Paul VI's First Encyclical
Precisely for this reason, the Church's consciousness must go with
universal openness, in order that all may be able to find in her "the
unsearchable riches of Christ"(10) spoken of by the Apostle of the
Gentiles. Such openness, organically joined with the awareness of her own
nature and certainty of her own truth, of which Christ said: "The word
which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me,"(11) is what
gives the Church her apostolic, or in other words her missionary,
dynamism, professing and proclaiming in its integrity the whole of the
truth transmitted by Christ. At the same time she must carry on the
dialogue that Paul VI, in his encyclical Ecclesiam Suam called "the
dialogue of salvation," distinguishing with precision the various circles
within which it was to be carried on.(12) In referring today to this
document that gave the program of Paul VI's pontificate, I keep thanking
God that this great predecessor of mine, who was also truly my father,
knew how to display ad extra, externally, the true countenance of the
Church, in spite of the various internal weaknesses that affected her in
the post-conciliar period. In this way much of the human family has
become, it seems, more aware, in all humanity's various spheres of
existence, of how really necessary the Church of Christ, her mission and
her service are to humanity. At times this awareness has proved stronger
than the various critical attitudes attacking ab intra, internally, the
Church, her institutions and structures, and ecclesiastics and their
activities. This growing criticism was certainly due to various causes and
we are furthermore sure that it was not always without sincere love for
the Church. Undoubtedly one of the tendencies it displayed was to overcome
what has been called triumphalism, about which there was frequent
discussion during the Council. While it is right that, in accordance with
the example of her Master, who is "humble in heart,"(13) the Church also
should have humility as her foundation, that she should have a critical
sense with regard to all that goes to make up her human character and
activity, and that she should always be very demanding on herself,
nevertheless criticism too should have its just limits. Otherwise it
ceases to be constructive and does not reveal truth, love and thankfulness
for the grace in which we become sharers principally and fully in and
through the Church. Furthermore such criticism does not express an
attitude of service but rather a wish to direct the opinion of others in
accordance with one's own, which is at times spread abroad in too
thoughtless a manner.
Gratitude is due to Paul VI because, while respecting every particle of
truth contained in the various human opinions, he preserved at the same
time the providential balance of the bark's helmsman.(14) The Church that
I -- through John Paul I -- have had entrusted to me almost immediately
after him is admittedly not free of internal difficulties and tension. At
the same time, however, she is internally more strengthened against the
excesses of self-criticism: she can be said to be more critical with
regard to the various thoughtless criticisms, more resistant with respect
to the various "novelties," more mature in her spirit of discerning,
better able to bring out of her everlasting treasure "what is new and what
is old,"(15) more intent on her own mystery, and because of all that more
serviceable for her mission of salvation for all: God "desires all men to
be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."(16)
5. Collegiality and Apostolate
In spite of all appearance, the Church is now more united in the
fellowship of service and in the awareness of apostolate. This unity
springs from the principle of collegiality, mentioned by the Second
Vatican Council. Christ Himself made this principle a living part of the
apostolic college of the Twelve with Peter at their head, and He is
continuously renewing it in the college of the bishops, which is growing
more and more over all the earth, remaining united with and under the
guidance of the successor of St. Peter. The Council did more than mention
the principle of collegiality: it gave it immense new life, by -- among
other things -- expressing the wish for a permanent organ of collegiality,
which Paul VI fonded by setting up the synod of the bishops, whose
activity not only gave a new dimension to his pontificate but was also
later clearly reflected in the pontificate of John Paul I and that of his
unworthy successor from the day they began.
The principle of collegiality showed itself particularly relevant in
the difficult post-conciliar period, when the shared unanimous position of
the college of the bishops -- which displayed, chiefly through the synod,
its union with Peter's successor -- helped to dissipate doubts and at the
same time indicated the correct ways for renewing the Church in her
universal dimension. Indeed, the synod was the source, among other things,
of that essential momentum for evangelization that found expression in the
Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi(17), which was so joyously
welcomed as a program for renewal which was both apostolic and also
pastoral. The same line was followed in the work of the last ordinary
session of the synod of the bishops, held about a year before the death of
Pope Paul VI and dedicated, as is known, to catechesis. The results of
this work have still to be arranged and enunciated by the Apostolic See.
As we are dealing with the evident development of the forms in which
episcopal collegiality is expressed, mention must be made at least of the
process of consolidation of National Episcopal Conferences throughout the
Church and of other collegial structures of an international or
continental character. Referring also to the centuries-old tradition of
the Church, attention should be directed to the activity of the various
diocesan, provincial and national synods. It was the Council's idea, an
idea consistently put into practice by Paul VI, that structures of this
kind, with their centuries of trial by the Church, and the other forms of
collegial collaboration by bishops, such as the metropolitan structure --
not to mention each individual diocese -- should pulsate in full awareness
of their own identity and, at the same time, of their own originality
within the universal unity of the Church. The same spirit of collaboration
and shared responsibility is spreading among priests also, as is confirmed
by the many Councils of Priests that have sprung up since the Council.
That spirit has extended also among the laity, not only strengthening the
already existing organizations for lay apostolate but also crating new
ones that often have a different outline and excellent dynamism.
Furthermore, lay people conscious of their responsibility for the Church
have willingly committed themselves to collaborating with the Pastors and
with the representatives of the Institutes of consecrated life, in the
spheres of the diocesan synods and of the pastoral Councils in the
parishes and dioceses.
I must keep all this in mind at the beginning of my pontificate as a
reason for giving thanks to God, for warmly encouraging all my brothers
and sisters and for recalling with heartfelt gratitude the work of the
Second Vatican Council and my great predecessors, who set in motion this
new surge of life for the Church, a movement that is much stronger than
the symptoms of doubt, collapse and crisis.
6. The Road to Christian Unity
What shall I say of all the initiatives that have sprung from the new
ecumenical orientation? The unforgettable Pope John XXIII set out the
problem of Christian unity with evangelical clarity as a simple
consequence of the will of Jesus Christ Himself, our Master, the will that
Jesus stated on several occasions but to which He gave expression in a
special way in His prayer in the Upper Room the night before He died: "I
pray...Father...that they may all be one."(18) The Second Vatican Council
responded concisely to this requirement with its Decree on ecumenism. Pope
Paul VI, availing himself of the activities of the Secretariat for
Promoting Christian Unity, began the first difficult steps on the road to
the attainment of that unity. Have we gone far along that road? Without
wishing to give a detailed reply, we can say that we have made real and
important advances. And one thing is certain: we have worked with
perseverance and consistency, and the representatives of other Christian
Churches and communities have also committed themselves together with us,
for which we are heartily grateful to them. It is also certain that in the
present historical situation of Christianity and the world the only
possibility we see of fulfilling the Church's universal mission, with
regard to ecumenical questions, is that of seeking sincerely,
perseveringly, humbly and also courageously the ways of drawing closer and
of union. Pope Paul VI gave us his personal example for this. We must
therefore seek unity without being discouraged at the difficulties that
can appear or accumulate along that road; otherwise we would be unfaithful
to the word of Christ, we would fail to accomplish His testament. Have we
the right to run this risk? There are people who in the face of the
difficulties or because they consider that the first ecumenical endeavors
have brought negative results would have liked to turn back. Some even
express the opinion that these efforts are harmful to the cause of the
Gospel, are leading to a further rupture in the Church, are causing
confusion of ideas in questions of faith and morals and are ending up with
a specific indifferentism. It is perhaps a good thing that the spokesmen
for these opinions should express their fears. However, in this respect
also, correct limits must be maintained. It is obvious that this new stage
in the Church's life demands of us a faith that is particularly aware,
profound and responsible. True ecumenical activity means openness, drawing
closer, availability for dialogue, and a shared investigation of the truth
in the full evangelical and Christian sense; but in no way does it or can
it mean giving up or in any way diminishing the treasures of divine truth
that the Church has constantly confessed and taught. To all who, for
whatever motive, would wish to dissuade the Church from seeking the
universal unity of Christians the question must once again be put: Have we
the right not to do it? Can we fail to have trust -- in spite of all human
weakness and all the faults of the past centuries -- in our Lord's grace
as revealed recently through what the Holy Spirit said and we heard during
the Council? If we were to do so, we would deny the truth concerning
ourselves that was so eloquently expressed by the Apostle: "By the grace
of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain."(19)
What we have just said must also be applied -- although in another way
and with the due differences -- to activity for coming closer together
with the representatives of the non-Christian religions, an activity
expressed through dialogue, contacts, prayer in common, investigation of
the treasures of human spirituality, in which, as we know well, the
members of these religions also are not lacking. Does it not sometimes
happen that the firm belief of the followers of the non-Christian
religions -- a belief that is also an effect of the Spirit of truth
operating outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body -- can make
Christians ashamed at being often themselves so disposed to doubt
concerning the truths revealed by God and proclaimed by the Church and so
prone to relax moral principles and open the way to ethical
permissiveness. It is a noble thing to have a predisposition for
understanding every person, analyzing ever system and recognizing what is
right; this does not at all mean losing certitude about one's own
faith(20) or weakening the principles of morality, the lack of which will
soon make itself felt in the life of whole societies, with deplorable
consequences besides.
II. The Mystery of Redemption
7. Within the Mystery of Christ
While the ways on which the Council of this century has set the Church
going, ways indicated by the late Pope Paul VI in his first encyclical,
will continue to be for a long time the ways that all of us must follow,
we can at the same time rightly ask at this new stage: How, in what manner
should we continue? What should we do, in order that this new advent of
the Church connected with the approaching end of the second millennium may
bring us closer to Him whom Sacred Scripture calls "Everlasting Father,"
Pater futuri saeculi?(21) This is the fundamental question that the new
Pope must put to himself on accepting in a spirit of obedience in faith
the call corresponding to the command that Christ gave Peter several
times: "Feed my lambs,"(22) meaning: Be the shepherd of my sheepfold, and
again: "And when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren."(23)
To this question, dear brothers, sons and daughters, a fundamental and
essential response must be given. Our response must be: Our spirit is set
in one direction, the only direction for our intellect, will and heart is
-- towards Christ our Redeemer, towards Christ, the Redeemer of man. We
wish to look towards Him -- because there is salvation in no one else but
Him, the Son of God -- repeating what Peter said: "Lord, to whom shall we
go? You have the words of eternal life."(24)
Through the Church's consciousness, which the Council considerably
developed, through all the fields of activity in which the Church
expresses, finds and confirms herself, we must constantly aim at Him "who
is the head,"(25) through whom are all things and through whom we
exist,"(26) who is both "the way, and the truth"(27) and " the
resurrection and the life,"(28) seeing whom, we see the Father(29), and
who had to go away from us(30) -- that is, by His death on the cross and
then by His ascension into heaven -- in order that the Counsellor should
come to us and should keep coming to us as the Spirit of truth.(31) In Him
are "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,"(32) and the Church is His
Body.(33) "By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of
sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity
of all mankind,"(34) and the source of this is He, He Himself, He the
Redeemer.
The Church does not cease to listen to His words. She rereads them
continually. With the greatest devotion she reconstructs every detail of
His life. These words are listened to also by non-Christians. The life of
Christ speaks, also, to many who are not capable of repeating with Peter:
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."(35) He, the Son of the
living God, speaks to people also as Man: it is His life that speaks, His
humanity, His fidelity to the truth, His all-embracing love. Furthermore,
His death on the cross speaks -- that is to say the inscrutable depth of
His suffering and abandonment. The Church never ceases to relive His death
on the cross and His resurrection, which constitute the content of the
Church's daily life. Indeed, it is by the command of Christ Himself, her
Master, that the Church unceasingly celebrates the Eucharist, finding in
it the "fountain of life and holiness,"(36) the efficacious sign of grace
and reconciliation with God, and the pledge of eternal life. The Church
lives His mystery, draws unwearyingly from it and continually seeks ways
of bringing this mystery of her Master and Lord to humanity -- to the
peoples, the nations, the succeeding generations, and every individual
human being -- as is she were ever repeating, as the Apostle did: "For I
decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him
crucified."(37) The Church stays within the sphere of the mystery of the
Redemption, which has become the fundamental principle of her life and
mission.
8. Redemption as a New Creation
The Redeemer of the world! In Him has been revealed in a new and more
wonderful way the fundamental truth concerning creation to which the Book
of Genesis gives witness when it repeats several times: "God saw that it
was good."(38) The good has its source in Wisdom and Love. In Jesus Christ
the visible world which God created for man(39) -- the world that, when
sin entered, "was subjected to futility"(40) -- recovers again its
original link with the divine source of Wisdom and Love. Indeed, "God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son."(41) As this link was broken in
the man Adam, so in the Man Christ it was reforged(42). Are we of the
twentieth century not convinced of the overpoweringly eloquent words of
the Apostle of the Gentiles concerning the "creation (that) has been
groaning in travail together until now"(43) and "waits with eager longing
for the revelation of the sons of God,"(44) the creation that "was
subjected to futility"? Does not the previously unknown immense progress
-- which has taken place especially in the course of this century -- in
the field of man's dominion over the world itself reveal -- to a
previously unknown degree -- that manifold subjection "to futility"? It is
enough to recall certain phenomena, such as the threat of pollution of the
natural environment in areas of rapid industrialization, or the armed
conflicts continually breaking out over and over again, or the
prospectives of self-destruction through the use of atomic, hydrogen,
neutron, an similar weapons, or the lack of respect for the life of the
unborn. The world of the new age, the world of space flights, the world of
the previously unattained conquests of science and technology -- is it not
also the world "groaning in travail"(45) that "waits with eager longing
for the revealing of the sons of God"?(46)
In its penetrating analysis of "the modern world," the Second Vatican
Council reached that most important point of the visible world that is
man, by penetrating like Christ the depth of human consciousness and by
making contact with the inward mystery of man, which in biblical and
non-biblical language is expressed by the word "heart." Christ, the
Redeemer of the world, is the one who penetrated in a unique, unrepeatable
way into the mystery of man and entered his "heart." Rightly therefore
does the Second Vatican Council teach: "The truth is that only in the
mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. for
Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come (Rom. 5:14), Christ
the Lord. Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of
the Father and His love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light
his most high calling." And the Council continues: "He who is the 'image
of the invisible God' (Col. 1:15), is Himself the perfect man who has
restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been
disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that
it was assumed, not absorbed, in Him, has been raised in us also to a
dignity beyond compare. For, by His Incarnation, He, the Son of God, in a
certain way united Himself with each man. He worked with human hands, He
thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human
heart He loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us,
like to us in all things except sin,"(47) He, the Redeemer of man.
9. The Divine Dimension of the Mystery of the Redemption
As we reflect again on this stupendous text from the Council's
teaching, we do not forget even for a moment that Jesus Christ, the Son of
the living God, became our reconciliation with the Father(48). He it was,
and He alone, who satisfied the Father's eternal love, that fatherhood
that from the beginning found expression in creating the world, giving man
all the riches of creation, and making him "little less than God,"(49) in
that he was created "in the image and after the likeness of God."(50) He
and He alone also satisfied that fatherhood of God and that love which man
in a way rejected by breaking the first Covenant(51) and the later
covenants that God "again and again offered to man."(52) The redemption of
the world -- this tremendous mystery of love in which creation is
renewed(53) -- is, at its deepest root, the fullness of justice in a human
heart -- the heart of the first-born Son -- in order that it may become
justice in the hearts of many human beings, predestined from eternity in
the first-born Son to be children of God(54) and called to grace, called
to love. The cross on Calvary, through which Jesus Christ -- a Man, the
Son of the Virgin Mary, thought to be the son of Joseph of Nazareth --
"leaves" this world, is also a fresh manifestation of the eternal
fatherhood of God, who in Him draws near again to humanity, to each human
being, giving Him the thrice holy "Spirit of truth."(55)
This revelation of the Father and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which
stamp an indelible seal on the mystery of the Redemption, explain the
meaning of the cross and death of Christ. The God of creation is revealed
as the God of redemption, as the God who is "faithful to himself,"(56) and
faithful to His love for man and the world, which He revealed on the day
of creation. His is love that does not draw back before anything that
justice requires in Him. Therefore "for our sake (God) made him (the Son)
to be sin who knew no sin."(57) If he "made to be sin" Him who was without
any sin whatever, it was to reveal the love that is always greater than
the whole of creation, the love that is He Himself, since "God is
love."(58) Above all, love is greater than sin, than weakness, than the
"futility of creation" (59); it is stronger than death; it is a love
always ready to raise up and forgive, always ready to go to meet the
prodigal son(60), always looking for "the revealing of the sons of
God,"(61) who are called "to the glory that is to be revealed."(62) This
revelation of love is also described as mercy(63); and in man's history
this revelation of love and mercy has taken a form and a name: that of
Jesus Christ.
10. The Human Dimension of the Mystery of the Redemption
Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is
incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not
revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience
it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This,
as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to
himself." If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the
mystery of the redemption. In this dimension man finds again the
greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery
of the redemption man becomes newly "expressed" and, in a way, is newly
created. He is newly created! "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all
one in Christ Jesus."(64) The man who wishes to understand himself
thoroughly -- and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often
superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being -- he
must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness,
with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter
into Him with all his own self, he must "appropriate" and assimilate the
whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find
himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears
fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself, How
precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he "gained so great a
Redeemer,"(65) and if God "gave his only Son" in order that man "should
not perish but have eternal life."(66)
In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man's worth and dignity
is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called
Christianity. This amazement determines the Church's mission in the world
and, perhaps even more so, "in the modern world." This amazement, which is
also a conviction and a certitude -- at its deepest root it is the
certainty of faith, but in a hidden and mysterious way it vivifies every
aspect of authentic humanism -- is closely connected with Christ. It also
fixes Christ's place -- so to speak, His particular right of citizenship
-- in the history of man and mankind. Unceasingly contemplating the whole
of Christ's mystery, the Church knows with all the certainty of faith that
the Redemption that took place through the cross has definitively restored
his dignity to man and given back meaning to his life in the world, a
meaning that was lost to a considerable extent because of sin. And for
that reason, the Redemption was accomplished in the paschal mystery,
leading through the cross and death to resurrection.
The Church's fundamental function in every age and particularly in ours
is to direct man's gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the
whole of humanity towards the mystery of God, to help all men to be
familiar with the profundity of the Redemption taking place in Christ
Jesus. At the same time man's deepest sphere is involved -- we mean the
sphere of human hearts, consciences and events.
11. The Mystery of Christ as the Basis of the Church's Mission and
of Christianity
The Second Vatican Council did immense work to form that full and
universal awareness by the Church of which Pope Paul VI wrote in his first
encyclical. This awareness -- or rather self-awareness by the Church is
formed "in dialogue": and before this dialogue becomes a conversation,
attention must be directed to "the other," that is to say: the person with
whom we wish to speak. The Ecumenical Council gave a fundamental impulse
to forming the Church's self-awareness by so adequately and competently
presenting to us a view of the terrestrial globe as a map of various
religions. It showed furthermore that this map of the world's religions
has superimposed on it, in previously unknown layers typical of our time,
the phenomenon of atheism in its various forms, beginning with the atheism
that is programmed, organized and structured as a political system.
With regard to religion, what is dealt with is in the first place
religion as a universal phenomenon linked with man's history from the
beginning, then the various non-Christian religions, and finally
Christianity itself. The Council document on non-Christian religions, in
particular, is filled with deep esteem for the great spiritual values,
indeed for the primacy of the spiritual, which in the life of mankind
finds expression in religion and then in morality, with direct effects on
the whole of culture. The Fathers of the Church rightly saw in the various
religions as it were so many reflections of the one truth, "seeds of the
Word,"(67) attesting that, though the routes taken may be different, there
is but a single goal to which is directed the deepest aspiration of the
human spirit as expressed in its quest for God and also in its quest,
through its tending towards God, for the full dimension of its humanity,
or in other words for the full meaning of human life. The Council gave
particular attention to the Jewish religion, recalling the great spiritual
heritage common to Christians and Jews. It also expressed its esteem for
the believers of Islam, whose faith also looks to Abraham.(68)
The opening made by the Second Vatican Council has enabled the Church
and all Christians to reach a more complete awareness of the mystery of
Christ, "the mystery hidden for ages"(69) in God, to be revealed in time
in the Man Jesus Christ, and to be revealed continually in every time. In
Christ and through Christ God has revealed Himself fully to mankind and
has definitively drawn close to it; at the same time, in Christ and
through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity, of the
heights to which he is raised, of the surpassing worth of his own
humanity, and of the meaning of his existence.
All of us who are Christ's followers must therefore meet and unite
around Him. This unity in the various fields of the life, tradition,
structures and discipline of the individual Christian Churches and
ecclesial communities cannot be brought about without effective work aimed
at getting to know each other and removing the obstacles blocking the way
to perfect unity. However, we can and must immediately reach and display
to the world our unity in proclaiming the mystery of Christ, in revealing
the divine dimension and also the human dimension of the Redemption, and
in struggling with unwearying perseverance for the dignity that each human
being has reached and can continually reach in Christ, namely the dignity
of both the grace of divine adoption and the inner truth of humanity, a
truth which -- if in the common awareness of the modern world it has been
given such fundamental importance -- for us is still clearer in the light
of the reality that is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the stable principle and fixed center of the mission
that God Himself has entrusted to man. We must all share in this mission
and concentrate all our forces on it, since it is more necessary than ever
for modern mankind. If this mission seems to encounter greater opposition
nowadays than ever before, this shows that today it is more necessary than
ever and, in spite of the opposition, more awaited than ever. Here we
touch indirectly on the mystery of the divine "economy" which linked
salvation and grace with the cross. It was not without reason that Christ
said that "the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of
violence take it by force"(70) and moreover that "the children of this
world are more astute...than are the children of light."(71) We gladly
accept this rebuke, that we may be like those "violent people of God" that
we have so often seen in the history of the Church and still see today,
and that we may consciously join in the great mission of revealing Christ
to the world, helping each person to find himself in Christ, and helping
the contemporary generations of our brothers and sisters, the peoples,
nations, states, mankind, developing countries and countries of opulence
-- in short, helping everyone to get to know "the unsearchable riches of
Christ,"(72) since these riches are for every individual and are
everybody's property.
12. The Church's Mission and Human Freedom
In this unity in mission, which is decided principally by Christ
Himself, all Christians must find what already unites them, even before
their full communion is achieved. This is apostolic and missionary unity,
missionary and apostolic unity. Thanks to this unity we can together come
close to the magnificent heritage of the human spirit that has been
manifested in all religions, as the Second Vatican Council's Declaration
Nostra Aetate(73) says. It also enables us to approach all cultures, all
ideological concepts, all people of good will. We approach them with the
esteem, respect and discernment that since the time of the apostles has
marked the missionary attitude, the attitude of the missionary. Suffice it
to mention St. Paul and, for instance, his address in the Areopagus at
Athens(74). The missionary attitude always begins with a feeling of deep
esteem for "what is in man,"(75) for what man has himself worked out in
the depths of his spirit concerning the most profound and important
problems. It is a question of respecting everything that has been brought
about in him by the Spirit, which "blows where it wills."(76) The mission
is never destruction, but instead is a taking up and fresh building, even
if in practice there has not always been full correspondence with this
high ideal. And we know well that the conversion that is begun by the
mission is a work of grace, in which man must fully find himself again.
For this reason the Church in our time attaches great importance to all
that is stated by the Second Vatican Council in its Declaration on
Religious Freedom, both the first and the second part of the document(77).
We perceive intimately that the truth revealed to us by God imposes on us
an obligation. We have, in particular, a great sense of responsibility for
this truth. By Christ's institution the Church is its guardian and
teacher, having been endowed with a unique assistance of the Holy Spirit
in order to guard and teach it in its most exact integrity(78). In
fulfilling this mission, we look towards Christ Himself, the first
evangelizer(79), and also towards His apostles, martyrs and confessors.
The Declaration on Religious Freedom shows us convincingly that, when
Christ and, after Him, His apostles proclaimed the truth that comes not
from men but from God ("My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me,"(80)
that is the Father's), they preserved, while acting with their full force
of spirit, a deep esteem for man, for his intellect, his will, his
conscience and his freedom(81). Thus the human person's dignity itself
becomes part of the content of that proclamation, being included not
necessarily in words but by an attitude towards it. This attitude seems to
fit the special needs of our times. Since man's true freedom is not found
in everything that the various systems and individuals see and propagate
as freedom, the Church, because of her divine mission, becomes all the
more the guardian of this freedom, which is the condition and basis for
the human person's true dignity.
Jesus Christ meets the man of every age, including our own, with the
same words: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you
free."(82) These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a
warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as
a condition for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of
illusory freedom, every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that
fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world. Today also,
even after two thousand years, we see Christ as the one who brings man
freedom based on truth, frees man from what curtails, diminishes and as it
were breaks off this freedom at its root, in man's soul, his heart and his
conscience. What a stupendous confirmation of this has been given and is
still being given by those who, thanks to Christ and in Christ, have
reached true freedom and have manifested it even in situations of external
constraint!
When Jesus Christ Himself appeared as a prisoner before Pilate's
tribunal and was interrogated by him about the accusation made against Him
by the representatives of the Sanhedrin, did He not answer: "For this I
was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the
truth"?(83) It was as if with these words spoken before the judge at the
deceive moment He was once more confirming what He has said earlier: "You
will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." In the course of
so many centuries, of so many generations, from the time of the apostles
on, is it not often Jesus Christ Himself that has made an appearance at
the side of people judged for the sake of the truth? And has He not gone
to death with people condemned for the sake of the truth? Does He ever
cease to be the continuous spokesman and advocate for the person who lives
"in spirit and truth"?(84) Just as He does not cease to be it before the
Father, He is it also with regard to the history of man. And in her turn
the Church, in spite of all the weaknesses that are part of her human
history, does not cease to follow Him who said: "The hour is coming, and
now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those
who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."(85)
III. Redeemed Man and His Situation in the
Modern World
13. Christ United Himself with Each Man
When we penetrate by means of the continually and rapidly increasing
experience of the human family into the mystery of Jesus Christ, we
understand with greater clarity that there is at the basis of all these
ways that the Church of our time must follow, in accordance with the
wisdom of Pope Paul VI,(86) one single way: it is the way that has stood
the test of centuries and it is also the way of the future. Christ the
Lord indicated this way especially, when, as the Council teaches, "by His
Incarnation, He, the Son of God, in a certain way united Himself with each
man."(87) The Church therefore sees its fundamental task in enabling that
union to be brought about and renewed continually. The Church wishes to
serve this single end: that each person may be able to find Christ, in
order that Christ may walk with each person the path of life, with the
power of the truth about man and the world that is contained in the
mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption and with the power of the
love that is radiated by that truth. Against a background of the ever
increasing historical processes, which seem at the present time to have
results especially within the spheres of various systems, ideological
concepts of the world and regimes, Jesus Christ becomes, in a way, newly
present, in spite of all His apparent absences, in spite of all the
limitations of the presence and of the institutional activity of the
Church. Jesus Christ becomes present with the power of the truth and the
love that are expressed in Him with unique, unrepeatable fullness in spite
of the shortness of His life on earth and the even greater shortness of
His public activity.
Jesus Christ is the chief way for the Church. He Himself is our way "to
the Father's house"(88) and is the way to each man. On this way leading
from Christ to man, on this way on which Christ unites Himself with each
man, nobody can halt the Church. This is an exigency of man's temporal
welfare and of his eternal welfare. Out of regard for Christ and in view
of the mystery that constitutes the Church's own life, the Church cannot
remain insensible to whatever serves man's true welfare, any more than she
can remain indifferent to what threatens it. In various passages in its
documents the Second Vatican Council has expressed the Church's
fundamental solicitude that life in "the world should conform more to
man's surpassing dignity"(89) in all its aspects, so as to make that life
"even more human."(90) This is the solicitude of Christ Himself, the good
Shepherd of all men. In the name of this solicitude, as we read in the
Council's Pastoral Constitution, "the Church must in no way be confused
with the political community, nor bound to any political system. She is at
once a sign and a safeguard of the transcendence of the human person."(91)
Accordingly, what is in question here is man in all his truth, in his
full magnitude. We are not dealing with the "abstract" man, but the real,
"concrete", "historical" man. We are dealing with "each" man, for each one
is included in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has
united Himself for ever through this mystery. Every man comes into the
world through being conceived in his mother's womb and being born of his
mother, and precisely on account of the mystery of Redemption is entrusted
to the solicitude of the Church. Her solicitude is about the whole man and
is focused on Him in an altogether special manner. The object of her care
is man in his unique unrepeatable human reality, which keeps intact the
image and likeness of God Himself.(92) The Council points out this very
fact when, speaking of that likeness, it recalls that "man is the only
creature on earth that God willed for itself."(93) Man as "willed" by God,
as "chosen" by Him from eternity and called, destined for grace and glory
-- this is "each" man, "the most concrete" man, "the most real"; this is
man in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in
Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million
human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he
is conceived beneath the heart of his mother.
14. For the Church All Ways Lead to Man
The Church cannot abandon man, for his "destiny," that is to say his
election, calling, birth and death, salvation or perdition, is so closely
and unbreakably linked with Christ. We are speaking precisely of each man
on this planet, this earth that the Creator gave to the first man, saying
to the man and the woman: "subdue it and have dominion".(94) Each man in
all the unrepeatable reality of what he is and what he does, of his
intellect and will, of his conscience and heart. Man who in his reality
has, because he is a "person", a history of his life that is his own and,
most important, a history of his soul that is his own. Man who, in keeping
with the openness of his spirit within and also with the many diverse
needs of his body and his existence in time, writes this personal history
of his through numerous bonds, contact, situations, and social structures
linking him with other men, beginning to do so from the first moment of
his existence on earth, from the moment of his conception and birth. Man
in the full truth of his existence, of his personal being and also of his
community and social being -- in the sphere of his own family, in the
sphere of society and very diverse contexts, in the sphere of his own
nation or people (perhaps still only that of his clan or tribe), and in
the sphere of the whole of mankind -- this man is the primary route that
the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission: he is the primary and
fundamental way for the Church, the way traced out by Christ Himself, the
way that leads invariably through the mystery of the Incarnation and
Redemption.
It was precisely this man in all the truth of his life, in his
conscience, in his continual inclination to sin and at the same time in
his continual aspiration to truth, the good, the beautiful, justice and
love that the Second Vatican Council had before its eyes when, in
outlining his situation in the modern world, it always passed from the
external elements of this situation to the truth within humanity: "In man
himself many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on the one hand, as
a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways. On the
other, he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a
higher life. Pulled by manifold attractions, he is constantly forced to
choose among them and to renounce some. Indeed, as a weak and sinful
being, he often does what he would not, and fails to do what he would.
Hence he suffers from internal divisions, and from these flow so many and
such great discords in society."(95)
This man is the way for the Church -- a way that, in a sense, is the
basis of all the other ways that the Church must walk -- because man --
every man without any exception whatever -- has been redeemed by Christ,
and because with man -- with each man without any exception whatever --
Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: "Christ, who
died and was raised up for all, provides man" -- each man and every man --
"with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme
calling."(96)
Since this man is the way for the Church, the way for her daily life
and experience, for her mission and toil, the Church of today must be
aware in an always new manner of man's "situation". That means that she
must be aware of his possibilities, which keep returning to their proper
bearings and thus revealing themselves. She must likewise be aware of the
threats to man and of all that seems to oppose the endeavor "to make human
life ever more human"(97) and make every element of this life correspond
to man's true dignity -- in a word, she must be aware of all that is
opposed to that process.
15. What Modern Man is Afraid of
Accordingly, while keeping alive in our memory the picture that was so
perspicaciously and authoritatively traced by the Second Vatican Council,
we shall try once more to adapt it to the "signs of the times," and to the
demands of the situation, which is continually changing and evolving in
certain directions.
The man of today seems ever to be under threat from what he produces,
that is to say from the result of the work of his intellect and the
tendencies of his will. All too soon, and often in an unforeseeable way,
what this manifold activity of man yields is not subjected to
"alienation", in the sense that it is simply taken away from the person
who produces it, but rather it turns against man himself, at least in
part, through the indirect consequences of its effects returning on
himself. It is or can be directed against him. This seems to make up the
main chapter of the drama of present-day human existence in its broadest
and universal dimension. Man therefore lives increasingly in fear. He is
afraid that what he produces -- not all of it, of course, or even most of
it, but part of it and precisely that part that contains a special share
of his genius and initiative -- can radically turn against himself; he is
afraid that it can become the means and instrument for an unimaginable
self-destruction, compared with which all the cataclysms and catastrophes
of history known to us seem to fade away. This gives rise to a question:
Why is it that the power given to man from the beginning by which he was
to subdue the earth(98) turns against himself, producing an understandable
state of disquiet, of conscious or unconscious fear and of menace, which
in various ways is being communicated to the whole of the present-day
human family and is manifesting itself under various aspects?
This state of menace for man from what he produces shows itself in
various directions and various degrees of intensity. We seem to be
increasingly aware of the fact that the exploitation of the earth, the
planet on which we are living, demands rational and honest planning. At
the same time, exploitation of the earth, not only for industrial but also
for military purposes and the uncontrolled development of technology
outside the framework of a long-range authentically humanistic plan often
bring with them a threat to man's natural environment, alienate him in his
relations with nature and remove him from nature. Man often seems to see
no other meaning in his natural environment than what serves for immediate
use and consumption. Yet it was the Creator's will that man should
communicate with nature as an intelligent and noble "master" and
"guardian", not as a heedless "exploiter" and "destroyer".
The development of technology and the development of contemporary
civilization, which is marked by the ascendancy of technology, demand a
proportional development of morals and ethics. For the present, this last
development seems unfortunately to be always left behind. Accordingly, in
spite of the marvel of this progress, in which it is difficult not to see
also authentic signs of man's greatness, signs that in their creative
seeds were revealed to us in the pages of the book of Genesis, as early as
where it describes man's creation,(99) this progress cannot fail to give
rise to disquiet on many counts. The first reason for disquiet concerns
the essential and fundamental question: Does this progress, which has man
for its author and promoter, make human life on earth "more human" in
every aspect of that life? Does it make it more "worthy of man"? There can
be no doubt that in various aspects it does. But the question keeps coming
back with regard to what is most essential -- whether in the context of
this progress man, as man, is becoming truly better, that is to say more
mature spiritually, more aware of the dignity of his humanity, more
responsible, more open to others, especially the neediest and the weakest,
and readier to give and to aid all.
This question must be put by Christians, precisely because Jesus Christ
has made them so universally sensitive about the problem of man. The same
question must be asked by all men, especially those belonging to the
social groups that are dedicating themselves actively to development and
progress today. As we observe and take part in these processes we cannot
let ourselves be taken over merely by euphoria or be carried away by
one-sided enthusiasm for our conquests, but we must all ask ourselves,
with absolute honest, objectivity and a sense of moral responsibility, the
essential questions concerning man's situation today and in the future. Do
all the conquests attained until now and those projected for the future
for technology accord with man's moral and spiritual progress? In this
context is man, as man, developing and progressing or is he regressing and
being degraded in his humanity? In men and "in man's world", which in
itself is a world of moral good and evil, does good prevail or evil? In
men and among men is there a growth of social love, of respect for the
rights of others -- for every man, nation and people -- or on the contrary
is there an increase of various degrees of selfishness, exaggerated
nationalism instead of authentic love of country, and also the propensity
to dominate others beyond the limits of one's legitimate rights and merits
and the propensity to exploit the whole of material progress and that in
the technology of production for the exclusive purpose of dominating
others or of favoring this or that imperialism?
These are the essential questions that the Church is bound to ask
herself, since they are being asked with greater or less explicitness by
the thousands of millions of people now living in the world. The subject
of development and progress is on everybody's lips and appears in the
columns of all the newspapers and other publications in all the languages
of the modern world. Let us not forget however that this subject contains
not only affirmations and certainties but also questions and points of
anguished disquiet. The latter are no less important than the former. They
fit in with the dialectical nature of human knowledge and even more with
the fundamental need for solicitude by man for man, for his humanity, and
for the future of people on earth. Inspired by eschatological faith, the
Church considers an essential, unbreakably united element of her mission
this solicitude for man, for his humanity, for the future of men on earth
and therefore also for the course set for the whole development and
progress. She finds the principle of this solicitude in Jesus Christ
Himself, as the Gospels witness. This is why she wishes to make it grow
continually through her relationship with Christ, reading man's situation
in the modern world in accordance with the most important signs of our
time.
16. Progress or Threat
If, therefore, our time, the time of our generation, the time that is
approaching the end of the second millennium of the Christian era, shows
itself a time of great progress, it is also seen as a threat in many forms
for man. The Church must speak of this threat to all people of good will
and must always carry on a dialogue with them about it. Man's situation in
the modern world seems indeed to be far removed from the objective demands
of the moral order, from the requirements of justice, and even more of
social love. We are dealing here only with that which found expression in
the Creator's first message to man at the moment in which He was giving
him the earth, to "subdue" it.(100) This first message was confirmed by
Christ the Lord in the mystery of the Redemption. This is expressed by the
Second Vatican Council in these beautiful chapters of its teaching that
concern man's "kingship", that is to say his call to share in the kingly
function -- the munus regale -- of Christ Himself.(101) The essential
meaning of this "kingship" and "dominion" of man over the visible world,
which the Creator Himself gave man for his task, consists in the priority
of ethics over technology, in the primacy of the person over things, and
in the superiority of spirit over matter.
This is why all phases of present-day progress must be followed
attentively. Each stage of that progress must, so to speak, be x-rayed
from this point of view. What is in question is the advancement of
persons, not just the multiplying of things that people can use. It is a
matter -- as a contemporary philosopher has said and as the Council has
stated -- not so much of "having more" as of "being more."(102) Indeed
there is already a real perceptible danger that, while man's dominion over
the world of things is making enormous advances, he should lose the
essential threads of his dominion and in various ways let his humanity be
subjected to the world and become himself something subject to
manipulation in many ways -- even if the manipulation is often not
perceptible directly -- through the whole of the organization of community
life, through the production system and through pressure from the means of
social communication. Man cannot relinquish himself or the place in the
visible world that belongs to him; he cannot become the slave of things,
the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his
own products. A civilization purely materialistic in outline condemns man
to such slavery, even if at times, no doubt, this occurs contrary to the
intentions and the very premises of its pioneers. The present solicitude
for man certainly has at its root this problem. It is not a matter here
merely of giving an abstract answer to the question: Who is man? It is a
matter of the meaningfulness of the various initiatives of everyday life
and also of the premises for many civilization programs, political
programs, economic ones, social ones, state ones, and many others.
If we make bold to describe man's situation in the modern world as far
removed from the objective demands of the moral order, from the exigencies
of justice, and still more from social love, we do so because this is
confirmed by the well-known facts and comparisons that have already on
various occasions found an echo in the pages of statements by the Popes,
the Council and the synod.(103) Man's situation today is certainly not
uniform but marked with numerous differences. These differences have
causes in history, but they also have strong ethical effects. Indeed
everyone is familiar with the picture of the consumer civilization, which
consists in a certain surplus of goods necessary for man and for entire
societies -- and we are dealing precisely with the rich, highly developed
societies -- while the remaining societies -- at least broad sectors of
them -- are suffering from hunger, with many people dying each day of
starvation and malnutrition . Hand in hand go a certain abuse of freedom
by one group -- an abuse linked precisely with a consumer attitude
uncontrolled by ethics -- and a limitation by it of the freedom of the
others, that is to say those suffering marked shortages and being driven
to conditions of even worse misery and destitution.
This pattern, which is familiar to all, and the contrast referred to,
in the documents giving their teaching, by the Popes of this century, most
recently by John XXIII and by Paul VI,(104) represent, as it were, the
gigantic development of the parable in the Bible of the rich banqueter and
the poor man Lazarus.(105) So widespread is the phenomenon that it brings
into question the financial, monetary, production and commercial
mechanisms that, resting on various political pressures, support the world
economy. These are proving incapable either of remedying the unjust social
situations inherited from the past or of dealing with the urgent
challenges and ethical demands of the present. By submitting man to
tensions created by himself, dilapidating at an accelerated pace material
and energy resources, and compromising the geophysical environment, these
structures unceasingly make the areas of misery spread, accompanied by
anguish, frustration and bitterness.(106)
We have before us here a great drama that can leave nobody indifferent.
The person who, on the one hand, is trying to draw the maximum profit and,
on the other hand, is paying the price in damage and injury is always man.
The drama is made still worse by the presence close at hand of the
privileged social classes and of the rich countries, which accumulate
goods to an excessive degree and the misuse of whose riches very often
becomes the cause of various ills. Add to this the fever of inflation and
the plague of unemployment -- these are further symptoms of the moral
disorder that is being noticed in the world situation and therefore
requires daring creative resolves in keeping with man's authentic
dignity.(107)
Such a task is not an impossible one. The principle of solidarity, in a
wide sense, must inspire the effective search for appropriate institutions
and mechanisms, whether in the sector of trade, where the laws of healthy
competition must be allowed to lead the way, or on the level of a wider
and more immediate redistribution of riches and of control over them, in
order that the economically developing peoples may be able not only to
satisfy their essential needs but also to advance gradually and
effectively.
This difficult road of the indispensable transformation of the
structures of economic life is one on which it will not be easy to go
forward without the intervention of a true conversion of mind, will and
heart. The task requires resolute commitment by individuals and peoples
that are free and linked in solidarity. All too often freedom is confused
with the instinct for individual or collective interest or with the
instinct for combat and domination, whatever be the ideological colors
with which they are covered. Obviously these instincts exist and are
operative, but no truly human economy will be possible unless they are
taken up, directed and dominated by the deepest powers in man, which
decide the true culture of peoples. These are the very sources for the
effort which will express man's true freedom and which will be capable of
ensuring it in the economic field also. Economic development, with every
factor in its adequate functioning, must be constantly programmed and
realized within a perspective of universal joint development of each
individual and people, as was convincingly recalled by my predecessor Paul
VI in Populorum Progressio. Otherwise, the category of "economic progress"
becomes in isolation a superior category subordinating the whole of human
existence to its partial demands, suffocating man, breaking up society,
and ending by entangling itself in its own tensions and excesses.
It is possible to undertake this duty. This is testified by the certain
facts and the results, which it would be difficult to mention more
analytically here. However, one thing is certain: at the basis of this
gigantic sector it is necessary to establish, accept and deepen the sense
of moral responsibility, which man must undertake. Again and always man.
This responsibility becomes especially evident for us Christians when
we recall -- and we should always recall it -- the scene of the last
judgement according to the words of Christ related in Matthew's
Gospel.(108)
This eschatological scene must always be "applied" to man's history; it
must always be made the "measure" for human acts as an essential outline
for an examination of conscience by each and every one: "I was hungry and
you gave me no food...naked and you did not clothe me...in prison and you
did not visit me."(109) These words become charged with even stronger
warning, when we think that, instead of bread and cultural aid, the new
states and nations awakening to independent life are being offered,
sometimes in abundance, modern weapons and means of destruction placed at
the service of armed conflicts and wars that are not so much a requirement
for defending their just rights and their sovereignty but rather a form of
chauvinism, imperialism, and neocolonialism of one kind or another. We all
know well that the areas of misery and hunger on our globe could have been
made fertile in a short time, if the gigantic investments for armaments at
the service of war and destruction had been changed into investments for
food at the service of life.
This consideration will perhaps remain in part an "abstract" one. It
will perhaps offer both "sides" an occasion for mutual accusation, each
forgetting its own faults. It will perhaps provoke new accusations against
the Church. The Church, however, which has no weapons at her disposal
apart from those of the spirit, of the word and of love, cannot renounce
her proclamation of "the word...in season and out of season."(110) For
this reason she does not cease to implore each side of the two and to beg
everybody in the name of God and in the name of man: Do not kill! Do not
prepare destruction and extermination for men! Think of your brothers and
sisters who are suffering hunger and misery! Respect each one's dignity
and freedom!
17. Human Rights: "Letter" or "Spirit"
This century has so far been a century of great calamities for man, of
great devastations, not only material ones but also moral ones, indeed,
perhaps above all, moral ones. Admittedly, it is not easy to compare one
age or century with another under this aspect, since that depends also on
changing historical standards. Nevertheless, without applying these
comparisons, one still cannot fail to see that this century has so far
been one in which people have provided many injustices and sufferings for
themselves. Has this process been decisively curbed? In any case, we
cannot fail to recall at this point, with esteem and profound hope for the
future, the magnificent effort made to give life to the United Nations
Organization, an effort conducive to the definition and establishment of
man's objective and inviolable rights, with the member states obligating
each other to observe them rigorously. This commitment has been accepted
and ratified by almost all present-day states, and this should constitute
a guarantee that human rights will become throughout the world a
fundamental principle of work for man's welfare.
There is no need for the Church to confirm how closely this problem is
linked with her mission in the modern world. Indeed it is at the very
basis of social and international peace, as has been declared by John
XXIII, the Second Vatican Council, and later Paul VI, in detailed
documents. After all, peace comes down to respect for man's inviolable
rights -- Opus iustitiae pax -- while war springs from the violation of
these rights and brings with it still graver violations of them. If human
rights are violated in time of peace, this is particularly painful and
from the point of view of progress it represents an incomprehensible
manifestation of activity directed against man, which can in no way be
reconciled with any program that describes itself as "humanistic". And
what social, economic, political or cultural program could renounce this
description? We are firmly convinced that there is no program in today's
world in which man is not invariably brought to the fore, even when the
platforms of the programs are made up of conflicting ideologies concerning
the way of conceiving the world.
If, in spite of these premises, human rights are being violated in
various ways, if in practice we see before us concentration camps,
violence, torture, terrorism, and discrimination in many forms, this must
then be the consequence of the other premises, undermining and often
almost annihilating the effectiveness of the humanistic premises of these
modern programs and systems. This necessarily imposes the duty to submit
these programs to continual revision from the point of view of the
objective and inviolable rights of man.
The Declaration of Human Rights linked with the setting up of the
United Nations Organization certainly had as its aim not only to depart
from the horrible experiences of the last World War but also to create the
basis for continual revision of programs, systems and regimes precisely
from this single fundamental point of view, namely the welfare of man --
or, let us say, of the person in the community -- which must, as a
fundamental factor in the common good, constitute the essential criterion
for all programs, systems and regimes. If the opposite happens, human life
is, even in time of peace, condemned to various sufferings and, along with
these sufferings, there is a development of various forms of domination,
totalitarianism, neocolonialism and imperialism, which are a threat also
to the harmonious living together of the nations. Indeed, it is a
significant fact, repeatedly confirmed by the experiences of history, that
violation of rights of man goes hand in hand with violation of the rights
of the nation, with which man is united by organic links as with a larger
family.
Already in the first half of this century, when various state
totalitarianisms were developing, which, as is well known, led to the
horrible catastrophe of war, the Church clearly outlined her position with
regard to these regimes that to all appearances were acting for a higher
good, namely the good of the state, while history was to show instead that
the good in question was only that of a certain party, which had been
identified with the state.(111) In reality, those regimes had restricted
the rights of the citizens, denying them recognition precisely of those
inviolable human rights that have reached formulation on the international
level in the middle of our century. While sharing the joy of all people of
good will, of all people who truly love justice and peace, at this
conquest, the Church, aware that the "letter" on its own can kill, while
only "the spirit gives life,"(112) must continually ask, together with
these people of good will, whether the Declaration of Human Rights and the
acceptance of their "letter" mean everywhere also the actualization of
their "spirit." Indeed, well-founded fears arise that very often we are
still far from this actualization and that at times the spirit of social
and public life is painfully opposed to the declared "letter" of human
rights. This state of things, which is burdensome for the societies
concerned, would place special responsibility towards these societies and
the history of man on those contributing to its establishment.
The essential sense of the state, as a political community, consists in
that the society and people composing it are master and sovereign of their
own destiny. This sense remains unrealized if, instead of the exercise of
power with the moral participation of the society or people, what we see
is the imposition of power by a certain group upon all the other members
of the society. This is essential in the present age, with its enormous
increase in people's social awareness and the accompanying need for the
citizens to have a right share in the political life of the community,
while taking account of the real conditions of each people and the
necessary vigor of public authority.(113) These therefore are questions of
primary importance from the point of view of the progress of man himself
and the overall development of his humanity.
The Church has always taught the duty to act for the common good and,
in so doing, has likewise educated good citizens for each state.
Furthermore, she has always taught that the fundamental duty of power is
solicitude for the common good of society; this is what gives power its
fundamental rights. Precisely in the name of these premises of the
objective ethical order, the rights of power can only be understood on the
basis of respect for the objective and inviolable rights of man. The
common good that authority in the state serves is brought to full
realization only when all the citizens are sure of opposition by citizens
to authority, or a situation of oppression, intimidation, violence, and
terrorism, of which many examples have been provided by the
totalitarianisms of this century. Thus the principle of human rights is of
profound concern to the area of social justice and is the measure by which
it can be tested in the life of political bodies.
These rights are rightly reckoned to include the right to religious
freedom together with the right to freedom of conscience. The Second
Vatican Council considered especially necessary the preparation of a
fairly long declaration on this subject. This is the document called
Dignitatis Humanae,(114) in which is expressed not only the theological
concept of the question but also the concept reached from the point of
view of natural law, that is to say from the "purely human" position, on
the basis of the premises given by man's own experience, his reason and
his sense of human dignity. Certainly the curtailment of the religious
freedom of individuals and communities is not only a painful experience
but it is above all an attack on man's very dignity, independently of the
religion professed or of the concept of the world which these individuals
and communities have. The curtailment and violation of religious freedom
are in contrast with man's dignity and his objective rights. The Council
document mentioned above states clearly enough what that curtailment or
violation of religious freedom is. In this case we are undoubtedly
confronted with a radical injustice with regard to what is particularly
deep within man, what is authentically human. Indeed, even the phenomenon
of unbelief, a -- religiousness and atheism, as a human phenomenon, is
understood only in relation to the phenomenon of religion and faith. It is
therefore difficult, even from a "purely human" point of view, to accept a
position that gives only atheism the right of citizenship in public and
social life, while believers are, as though by principle, barely tolerated
or are treated as second-class citizens or are even -- and this has
already happened -- entirely deprived of the rights of citizenship.
Even if briefly, this subject must also be dealt with, because it too
enters into the complex of man's situations in the present-day world and
because it too gives evidence of the degree to which this situation is
overburdened by prejudices and injustices of various kinds. If we refrain
from entering into details in this field in which we would have a special
right and duty to do so, it is above all because, together with all those
who are suffering the torments of discrimination and persecution for the
name of God, we are guided by faith in the redeeming power of the cross of
Christ. However, because of my office, I appeal in the name of all
believers throughout the world to those on whom the organization of social
and public life in some way depends, earnestly requesting them to respect
the rights of religion and of the Church's activity. No privilege is asked
for, but only respect for an elementary right. Actuation of this right is
one of the fundamental tests of man's authentic progress in any regime, in
any society, system or milieu.
IV. The Church's Mission and Man's Destiny
18. The Church as Concerned for Man's Vocation in Christ
This necessarily brief look at man's situation in the modern world
makes us direct our thoughts and our hearts to Jesus Christ, and to the
mystery of the Redemption, in which the question of man is inscribed with
a special vigor of truth and love. If Christ "united Himself with each
man,"(115) the Church lives more profoundly her own nature and mission by
penetrating into the depths of this mystery and into its rich universal
language. It was not without reason that the Apostle speaks of Christ's
Body, the Church.(116) If this Mystical Body of Christ is God's People --
as the Second Vatican Council was to say later, on the basis of the whole
of the biblical and patristic tradition -- this means that in it each man
receives within himself that breath of life that comes from Christ. In
this way, turning to man and his real problems, his hopes and sufferings,
his achievements and falls -- this too also makes the Church as a body, an
organism, a social unit perceive the same divine influences, the light and
strength of the Spirit that comes from the crucified and risen Christ, and
it is for this very reason that she lives her life. The Church has only
one life: that which is given her by her Spouse and Lord. Indeed,
precisely because Christ united Himself with her in His mystery of
Redemption, the Church must be strongly united with each man.
This union of Christ with man is in itself a mystery. From the mystery
is born "the new man," called to become a partaker of God's life,(117) and
newly created in Christ for the fullness of grace and truth.(118) Christ's
union with man is power and the source of power, as St. John stated so
incisively in the prologue of his Gospel: (The Word) gave power to become
children of God."(119) Man is transformed inwardly by this power as the
source of a new life that does not disappear and pass away but lasts to
eternal life.(120) This life, which the Father has promised and offered to
each man is Jesus Christ, His eternal and only Son, who, "when the time
had fully come,"(121) became incarnate and was born of the Virgin Mary, is
the final fulfillment of man's vocation. It is in a way the fulfillment of
the "destiny" that God has prepared for him from eternity. This "divine
destiny" is advancing, in spite of all the enigmas, the unsolved riddles,
the twists and turns of "human destiny" in the world of time. Indeed,
while all this, in spite of all the riches of life in time, necessarily
and inevitably leads to the frontier of death and the goal of the
destruction of the human body, beyond that goal we see Christ. "I am the
resurrection and the life, he who believes in me...shall never die."(122)
In Jesus Christ, who was crucified and laid in the tomb and then rose
again, "our hope of resurrection dawned...the bright promise of
immortality,"(123) on the way to which man, through the death of the body,
shares with the whole of visible creation the necessity to which matter is
subject. We intend and are trying to fathom ever more deeply the language
of the truth that man's Redeemer enshrined in the phrase "It is the spirit
that gives life, the flesh is of no avail."(124) In spite of appearances,
these words express the highest affirmation of man -- the affirmation of
the body given life by the Spirit.
The Church lives these realities; she lives by this truth about man,
which enables him to go beyond the bounds of temporariness and at the same
time to think with particular love and solicitude of everything within the
dimensions of this temporariness that affect man's life and the life of
the human spirit, in which is expressed that never-ending restlessness
referred to in the words of St. Augustine: "You made us Yourself, Lord,
and our heart is restless until it rests in You."(125) In this creative
restlessness beats and pulsates what is most deeply human -- the search
for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia
for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience. Seeking to see man as it
were with "the eyes of Christ Himself," the Church becomes more and more
aware that she is the guardian of a great treasure, which she may not
waste but must continually increase. Indeed, the Lord Jesus said: "He who
does not gather with me scatters."(126) This treasure of humanity enriched
by the inexpressible mystery of divine filiation(127) and by the grace of
"adoption as sons"(128) in the only Son of God, through whom we call God
"Abba, Father,"(129) is also a powerful force unifying the Church above
all inwardly and giving meaning to all her activity. Through this force
the Church is united with the Spirit of Christ, that Holy Spirit promised
and continually communicated by the Redeemer and whose descent, which was
revealed on the day of Pentecost, endures for ever. Thus the powers of the
Spirit,(130) the gifts of the Spirit,(131) and the fruits of the Holy
Spirit(132) are revealed in men. The present-day Church seems to repeat
with ever greater fevor and with holy insistence: "Come Holy Spirit!"
Come! Come! "Heal our wounds, our strength renew; On our dryness pour Your
dew; Wash the stains of guilt away; Bend the stubborn heart and will; Melt
the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go astray."(133)
This appeal to the Spirit, intended precisely to obtain the Spirit, is
the answer to all the "materialisms" of our age. It is these materialisms
that give birth to so many forms of insatiability in the human heart. This
appeal is making itself heard on various sides and seems to be bearing
fruit also in different ways. Can it be said that the Church is not alone
in making this appeal? Yes it can, because the "need" for what is
spiritual is expressed also by people who are outside the visible confines
of the Church.(134) Is not this confirmed by the truth concerning the
Church that the recent Council so acutely emphasized at the point in the
Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium where it teaches that the Church is a
"sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity
of all mankind"?(135) This invocation addressed to the Spirit to obtain
the Spirit is really a constant self-insertion into the full magnitude of
the mystery of the Redemption, in which Christ, united with the Father and
with each man, continually communicates to us the Spirit who places within
us the sentiments of the Son and directs us towards the Father.(136) This
is why the Church of our time -- a time particularly hungry for the
Spirit, because it is hungry for justice, peace, love, goodness,
fortitude, responsibility, and human dignity -- must concentrate and
gather around that Mystery, finding it in the light and the strength that
are indispensable for her mission. For if, as was already said, man is the
way for the Church's daily life, the Church must be always aware of the
dignity of the divine adoption received by man in Christ through the grace
of the Holy Spirit(137) and of his destination to grace and glory.(138) By
reflecting ever anew on all this, and by accepting it with a faith that is
more and more aware and a love that is more and more firm, the Church also
makes herself better fitted for the service to man to which Christ the
Lord calls her when He says: "The Son of man came not to be served by to
serve."(139) The Church performs this ministry by sharing in the "triple
office" belonging to her Master and Redeemer. This teaching, with its
biblical foundation, was brought fully to the fore by the Second Vatican
Council, the great advantage of the Church's life. For when we become
aware that we share in Christ's triple mission, His triple office as
priest, as prophet and as king,(140) we also become more aware of what
must receive service from the whole of the Church as the society and
community of the People of God on earth, and we likewise understand how
each one of us must share in this mission and service.
19. The Church as Responsible for Truth
In the light of the sacred teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the
Church thus appears before us as the social subject of responsibility for
divine truth. With deep emotion we hear Christ Himself saying: "The word
which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me."(141) In this
affirmation by our Master do we not notice responsibility for the revealed
truth, which is the "property" of God Himself, since even He, "the only
Son," who lives "in the bosom of the Father,"(142) when transmitting that
truth as a prophet and teacher, feels the need to stress that He is acting
in full fidelity to its divine source? The same fidelity must be a
constitutive quality of the Church's faith, both when she is teaching it
and when she is professing it. Faith as a specific supernatural virtue
infused into the human spirit makes us sharers in knowledge of God as a
response to His revealed Word. Therefore, it is required, when the Church
professes and teaches the faith, that she should adhere strictly to divine
truth,(143) and should translate it into living attitudes of "obedience in
harmony with reason."(144) Christ Himself, concerned for this fidelity to
divine truth, promised the Church the special assistance of the Spirit of
truth, gave the gift of infallibility(145) to those whom He entrusted with
the mandate of transmitting and teaching that truth(146) -- as has besides
been clearly defined by the First Vatican Council(147) and has then been
repeated by the Second Vatican Council(148) -- and He furthermore endowed
the whole of the People of God with a special sense of the faith.(149)
Consequently, we have become sharers in this mission of the prophet
Christ, and in virtue of that mission we together with Him are serving
divine truth in the Church. Being responsible for that truth also means
loving it and seeking the most exact understanding of it, in order to
bring it closer to ourselves and others in all its saving power, its
splendor and its profudity joined with simplicity. This love and this
aspiration to understand the truth must go hand in hand, as is confirmed
by the histories of the saints in the Church. These received most brightly
the authentic light that illuminates divine truth and brings close God's
very reality, because they approached this truth with veneration and love
-- love in the first place for Christ, the living Word of divine truth,
and then love for His human expression in the Gospel, tradition and
theology. Today we still need above all that understanding and
interpretation of God's Word; we need that theology. Theology has always
had and continues to have great importance for the Church, the People of
God, to be able to share creatively and fruitfully in Christ's mission as
prophet. Therefore, when theologians, as servants of divine truth,
dedicate their studies and labors to even deeper understanding of that
truth, they can never lose sight of the meaning of their service in the
Church, which is enshrined in the concept intellectus fidei. This concept
has, so to speak, a two-way function, in line with St. Augustine's
expression: intellege, ut credas -- crede, ut intellegas,(150) and it
functions correctly when they seek to serve the magisterium, which in the
Church is entrusted to the bishops joined by the bond of hierarchical
communion with Peter's successor, when they place themselves at the
service of their solicitude in teaching and giving pastoral care, and when
they place themselves at the service of the apostolic commitments of the
whole of the People of God.
As in preceding ages, and perhaps more than in preceding ages,
theologians and all men of learning in the Church are today called to
unite faith with learning and wisdom, in order to help them combine with
each other, as we read in the prayer in the liturgy of the memorial of St.
Albert, Doctor of the Church. This task has grown enormously today because
of the advance of human learning, its methodology, and the achievements in
knowledge of the world and of man. This concerns both the exact sciences
and the human sciences, as well as philosophy, which, as the Second
Vatican Council recalled is closely linked with theology.(151)
In this field of human knowledge, which is continually being broadened
and yet differentiated, faith too must be investigated deeply, manifesting
the magnitude of revealed mystery and tending towards an understanding of
truth, which has in God its one supreme source. If it is permissible and
even desirable that the enormous work to be done in this direction should
take into consideration a certain pluralism of methodology, the work
cannot however depart from the fundamental unity in the teaching of faith
and morals which is that work's end. Accordingly, close collaboration by
theology with the magisterium is indispensable. Every theologian must be
particularly aware of being in close union with the mission of teaching
truth for which the Church is responsible.
The sharing in the prophetic office of Christ Himself shapes the life
of the whole of the Church in her fundamental dimension. A particular
share in this office belongs to the pastors of the Church, who teach and
continually and in various ways proclaim and transmit the doctrine
concerning the Christian faith and morals. This teaching, both in its
missionary and its ordinary aspect, helps to assemble the People of God
around Christ, prepares for participation in the Eucharist and points out
the ways for sacramental life. In 1977 the synod of the bishops dedicated
special attention to catechesis in the modern world, and the mature
results of its deliberations, experiences and suggestions will shortly
find expression -- in keeping with the proposal made by the participants
in the synod -- in a special papal document. Catechesis certainly
constitutes a permanent and also fundamental form of activity by the
Church, one in which her prophetic charism is manifested: witnessing and
teaching go hand in hand. And although here we are speaking in the first
place of priests, it is however impossible not to mention also the great
number of men and women religious dedicating themselves to catechetical
activity for love of the divine Master. Finally, it would be difficult not
to mention the many lay people who find expression in this activity for
their faith and their apostolic responsibility.
Furthermore, increasing care must be taken that the various forms of
catechesis and its various fields -- beginning with the fundamental field,
family catechesis, that is the catechesis by parents of their children --
should give evidence of the universal sharing by the whole of the People
of God in the prophetic office of Christ Himself. Linked with this fact,
the Chruch's responsibility for divine truth must be increasingly shared
in various ways by all. What shall we say at this point with regard to the
specialists in the various disciplines, those who represent the natural
sciences and letters, doctors, jurists, artists and technicians, teachers
at various levels and with different specializations? As members of the
People of God, they all have their own part to play in Christ's prophetic
mission and service of divine truth, among other ways by an honest
attitude towards truth, whatever field it may belong to, while educating
others in truth and teaching them to mature in love and justice. Thus, a
sense of responsibility for truth is one of the fundamental points of
encounter between the Church and each man and also one of the fundamental
demands determining man's vocation in the community of the Church. The
present-day Church, guided by a sense of responsibility for truth, must
persevere in fidelity to her own nature, which involves the prophetic
mission that comes from Christ Himself: "As the Father has sent me, even
so I send you...Receive the Holy Spirit."(152)
20. Eucharist and Penance
In the mystery of the Redemption, that is to say in Jesus Christ's
saving work, the Church not only shares in the Gospel of her Master
through fidelity to the word and service of truth, but she also shares,
through a submission filled with hope and love, in the power of His
redeeming action expressed and enshrined by Him in a sacramental form,
especially in the Eucharist.(154) The Eucharist is the center and summit
of the whole of sacramental life, through which each Christian receives
the saving power of the Redemption, beginning with the mystery of Baptism,
in which we are buried into the death of Christ, in order to become
sharers in His resurrection,(155) as the Apostle teaches. In the light of
this teaching, we see still more clearly the reason why the entire
sacramental life of the Church and of each Christian reaches its summit
and fullness in the Eucharist. For by Christ's will there is in this
sacrament a continual renewing of the mystery of the sacrifice of Himself
that Christ offered to the Father on the altar of the cross, a sacrifice
that the Father accepted, giving, in return for this total self-giving by
His Son, who "became obedient unto death,"(156) His own paternal gift,
that is to say the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection, since
the Father is the first source and the giver of life from the beginning.
That new life, which involves the bodily glorification of the crucified
Christ, became an efficacious sign of the new gift granted to humanity,
the gift that is the Holy Spirit, through whom the divine life that the
Father has in Himself and gives to His Son(157) is communicated to all men
who are united with Christ.
The Eucharist is the most perfect sacrament of this union. By
celebrating and also partaking of the Eucharist we unite ourselves with
Christ on earth and in heaven who intercedes for us with the Father(158)
but we always do so through the redeeming act of His sacrifice, through
which He has redeemed us, so that we have been "bought with a price."(159)
The "price" of our redemption is likewise a further proof of the value
that God Himself sets on man and of our dignity in Christ. For by becoming
"children of God,"(160) adopted sons,(161) we also become in His likeness
"a kingdom and priests" and obtain "a royal priesthood,"(162) that is to
say we share in that unique and irreversible restoration of man and the
world to the Father that was carried out once for all by Him, who is both
the eternal Son(163) and also true Man. The Eucharist is the sacrament in
which our new being is most completely expressed and in which Christ
Himself unceasingly and in an ever new manner "bears witness" in the Holy
Spirit to our spirit(164) that each of us, as a sharer in the mystery of
the Redemption, has access to the fruits of the filial reconciliation with
God(165) that He Himself actuated and continually actuates among us by
means of the Church's ministry.
It is an essential truth, not only of doctrine but also of life, that
the Eucharist builds the Church,(166) building it as the authentic
community of the People of God, as the assembly of the faithful, bearing
the same mark of unity that was shared by the apostles and the first
disciples of the Lord. The Eucharist builds ever anew this community and
unity, ever building and regenerating it on the basis of the sacrifice of
Christ, since it commemorates His death on the cross,(167) the price by
which He redeemed us. Accordingly, in the Eucharist we touch in a way the
very mystery of the body and blood of the Lord, as is attested by the very
words used at its institution, the words that, because of that
institution, have become the words with which those called to this
ministry in the Church unceasingly celebrate the Eucharist.
The Church lives by the Eucharist, by the fullness of this sacrament,
the stupendous content and meaning of which have often been expressed in
the Church's magisterium from the most distant times down to our own
days.(168) However, we can say with certainty that, although this teaching
is sustained by the acuteness of theologians, by men of deep faith and
prayer, and by ascetics and mystics, in complete fidelity to the
Eucharistic mystery, it still reaches no more than the threshold, since it
is incapable of grasping and translating into words what the Eucharist is
in all its fullness, what is expressed by it and what is actuated by it.
Indeed, the Eucharist is the ineffable sacrament! The essential commitment
and, above all, the visible grace and source of supernatural strength for
the Church as the People of God is to persevere and advance constantly in
the Eucharistic life and Eucharistic piety and to develop spiritually in
the climate of the Eucharist. With all the greater reason, then, it is not
permissible for us, in thought, life or action, to take away from this
truly most holy sacrament its full magnitude and its essential meaning. It
is at one and the same time a sacrifice-sacrament, a communion-sacrament,
and a presence-sacrament. And, although it is true that the Eucharist
always was and must continue to be the most profound revelation of the
human brotherhood of Christ's disciples and confessors, it cannot be
treated merely as an "occasion" for manifesting this brotherhood. When
celebrating the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, the full
magnitude of the divine mystery must be respected, as must the full
meaning of this sacramental sign in which Christ is really present and is
received, the soul is filled with grace and the pledge of future glory is
given.(169) This is the source of the duty to carry out rigorously the
liturgical rules and everything that is a manifestation of community
worship offered to God Himself, all the more so because in this
sacramental sign He entrusts Himself to us with limitless trust, as if not
taking into consideration our human weakness, our unworthiness, the force
of habit, routine, or even the possibility of insult. Every member of the
Church, especially bishops and priests, must be vigilant in seeing that
this sacrament of love shall be at the center of the life of the People of
God, so that through all the manifestations of worship due to it Christ
shall be given back "love for love" and truly become "the life of our
souls."(170) Nor can we, on the other hand, ever forget the following
words of St. Paul: "Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and
drink of the cup."(171)
This call by the Apostle indicates at least indirectly the close link
between the Eucharist and Penance. Indeed, if the first word of Christ's
teaching, the first phrase of the Gospel Good News, was "Repent, and
believe in the gospel" (Metanoeite),(172) the sacrament of the passion,
cross and resurrection seems to strengthen and consolidate in an
altogether special way this call in our souls. The Eucharist and Penance
thus become in a sense two closely connected dimensions of authentic life
in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel, of truly Christian life. The
Christ who calls to the Eucharistic banquet is always the same Christ who
exhorts us to penance and repeats His "Repent."(172) Without this constant
ever renewed endeavor for conversion, partaking of the Eucharist would
lack its full redeeming effectiveness and there would be a loss or at
least a weakening of the special readiness to offer God the spiritual
sacrifice(174) in which our sharing in the priesthood of Christ is
expressed in an essential and universal manner. In Christ, priesthood is
linked with His sacrifice, His self-giving to the Father; and, precisely
because it is without limit, that self-giving gives rise in us human
beings subject to numerous limitations to the need to turn to God in an
ever more mature way and with a constant, ever more profound, conversion.
In the last years much has been done to highlight in the Church's
practice -- in conformity with the most ancient tradition of the Church --
the community aspect of penance and especially of the sacrament of
Penance. We cannot however forget that conversion is a particularly
profound inward act in which the individual cannot be replaced by others
and cannot make the community be a substitute for him. Although the
participation by the fraternal community of the faithful in the
penitential celebration is a great help for the act of personal
conversion, nevertheless, in the final analysis, it is necessary that in
this act there should be a pronouncement by the individual himself with
the whole depth of his conscience and with the whole of his sense of guilt
and of trust in God, placing himself like the Psalmist before God to
confess: "Against you...have I sinned."(175) In faithfully observing the
centuries-old practice of the sacrament of Penance -- the practice of
individual confession with a personal act of sorrow and the intention to
amend and make satisfaction -- the Church is therefore defending the human
soul's individual right: man's right to a more personal encounter with the
crucified forgiving Christ, with Christ saying, through the minister of
the sacrament of reconciliation: "Your sins are forgiven"(176); "Go, and
do not sin again."(177) As is evident, this is also a right on Christ's
part with regard to every human being redeemed by Him: His right to meet
each one of us in that key moment in the soul's life constituted by the
moment of conversion and forgiveness. By guarding the sacrament of
Penance, the Church expressly affirms her faith in the mystery of the
Redemption as a living and life-giving reality that fits in with man's
inward truth, with human guilt and also with the desires of the human
conscience. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied."(178) The sacrament of Penance is the means
to satisfy man with the righteousness that comes from the Redeemer
Himself.
In the Church, gathering particularly today in a special way around the
Eucharist and desiring that the authentic Eucharistic community should
become a sign of the gradually maturing unity for all Christians, there
must be a lively-felt need for penance, both in its sacramental
aspect,(179) and in what concerns penance as a virtue. This second aspect
was expressed by Paul VI in the Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini.(180)
One of the Church's tasks is to put into practice the teaching Paenitemini
contains; this subject must be investigated more deeply by us in common
reflection, and many more decisions must be made about it in a spirit of
pastoral collegiality and with respect for the different traditions in
this regard and the different cir |
