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OBJECTIVE: to share with Catholics who are engaged or interested in various fields of society life a proposal that we believe offer an outlet for their sometimes unspoken commitment to be agents of transformation-renewal in their specific spheres of activity.
For Catholics interested or committed in:
POLITICS
EDUCATION
HEALTH
COMMUNICATION MEDIA
1. WHY THIS PROJECT
By its very nature, the Church is related to the world. It is intrinsic to it to serve so that the world might be renewed in the spirit of the beatitudes and be marked by the Reign of God and its demands: truth, justice, peace and love. This relationship was expressed in a more incarnated way in the Middle Ages, so much so that temporal power became identified with spiritual power. Then in the face of the protestant schism, the Church emphasised its institutional character and related with the world as a society parallel to the State.The Second Vatican Council restated the Church’s reason for being in the world and therefore its role of serving the fulfilment of humankind in their vocation to universal sister/brotherhood.
So the Christian community as such must give a prophetic witness of the brotherly/sisterly communion to which society is called. And the hierarchy, besides proclaiming the social teaching, is called to provide the opportunity for lay persons engaged in the various fields of society to put it into practice and renew society according to the values of the Reign of God. This is political prophecy
With this in mind, the Community Animation Service has identified four spheres mentioned above as having a particular impact in the life of society. These can then serve as model for other fields of action. We have worked out four pastoral “projects” that we present in their essentials.
2. ADDRESSEES OF THE PROPOSAL
The proposal is addressed to those who, directly or indirectly, are connected or interested in one or other of these sectors.
We are talking about Catholics who, regardless of their political persuasion, want to come together in the name of faith. So in the name of their common faith, they look together at the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church, to discover possible guidelines for action, even if diversified. As we know, choices for the common good made in truth and honesty can be many. (Cfr GS 43; ChFL 42)
3. POSING THE PROBLEM
Except for notable exceptions, in general there is not a great deal of official activity of the Church for Catholics and other persons of good will working in the sectors indicated. Perhaps this is because the Church recognises the autonomy of these temporal spheres but perhaps also becasue it has not found the way to be present, other than with its teaching.
In these times the Church finds its official opportunities very limited in these fields. And its teaching, though very valid, reaches very few. Its documents remain unread and not brought to the life of society. At times it gives the impression that it is satisfied with having proclaimed the doctrine, leaving it to others to seek the ways to apply that doctrine in the specific situation. Therefore we have formulated a first appreciation of the problem in this way: The official Church expects that the Catholics engaged in the various social spheres should apply the moral principles and criteria of the Church but it does not feel obliged to help them to carry out their role in society in accordance with the Gospel.
4. WHAT KIND OF PASTORAL ACTION IS REQUIRED?
We are taking for granted here the general and specific criteria of Christian anthropology and the vision of the world expressed by Vatican Council II in “Gaudium et Spes – the Church in the modern world’, as well as later Church teaching. It seems to us that the pastoral action in these sectors must be carried out around certain ideas: a) the function must be to provide the opportunity or space of encounter and prophecy, in the specific field, at the service of the human community;
b) the basic characteristic of the pastoral care should be that it creates a dynamism – not an association – that involves all the Catholics and other persons of good will who sincerely desire an improvement of society and of the world;
c) the fundamental value of this dynamism is human dignity, understood holisticallyd) the activity through which to promote this dynamism revolves around four aspects:
• reflection on the scientific-technical innovations, their impact in that sphere, and the structures that make them possible;
• spiritual attention to the persons and spiritual formation to enable them to discover and deepen their appreciation of the spirituality of that field;
• formation of the collective conscience of the Christian and human community regarding the field in question;
• the seervices of prophecy in that spere, in terms of announcing and denouncing, including mini-projects that demostrate the validity of their proposals.
e) the basic organisation needed to awaken the dynamism mentioned above is based on two crucial components:
• a group of persons who promote and accompany the dynamism or movement that has been created and keep it moving along;
• a network of groups that carry out the activities and organise themselves for that purpose.
f) the aim of this dynamism or movement is that those involved witness to their faith in their professional environment;
g) the final objective is to be able to count on a generalised dynamism, territorially promoted by a “network of centres” of renewal of society.
The movement that emerge are promoted either by the local Churches or by the Community Animation Service. In this latter case, we carry out a service of awakening, promoting and animating these movements so that at the opportune time they will be taken up by the local or national Church.
5. ANALYSIS AND DIAGNOSIS To awaken a movement in a particular place it is necessary to analyse the situation of the sector in question, in the context of the Church and society. Then the situation must be interpreted in faith, or diagnosed.
a) The analysis proposed is a functional one, similar to that of a doctor:
• it starts from the symptoms or dissatisfactions so as to arrive at a first appreciation of the fundamental problem;
• then comes the analysis of the various conditioning factors , in order to verify the starting point;
• this being done, the next step is to analyse the historical factors that played a part in generating the problem;
• then the prognosis is formulated, analysing the possible ways of acting and the possible futures that would result from these;
b) the diagnosis, as in the case of the doctor, emerges from a comparison between the desired and intentional ideal and the reality that needs to be transformed because it is unsatisfactory. In the light of ideal, the present situation is interpreted in order to identify:
• the obstacles that impede the attainment of the ideal;
• the potentialities in the reality that are a stepping stone for achieving the ideal.
c) the treatment needed or, in other words, the planning or process of action in each field of action.
6. STRATEGY OF ACTION
The question is how to put these projects into operation. That depends on whether it is taken up as part of the pastoral activity of the local Church or initially proposed and animated by the Community Animation Service.In any case, as a starting point, there would have to be:
• a first step of an encounter of those engaged in each of these sectors with members of the Community Animation Service to study the proposed projects, to evaluate them and discern and establish the initial strategy for beginning. • an initial accompaniment for the promotion of the movement in the different professional sectors and the composition and formation of the first promoters of it;
CONCLUSION
The Church, especially in the person of the laity, has the mission of serving the renewal-transformation of the world. No doubt there are many instruments for this purpose. We believe that what we propose is also valid.
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