(now called for the Evangelization of Peoples),
which entrusted not-yet-Christianized territories
to religious congregations or missionary institutes
and delegated them to convert their inhabitants
to Christianity and to ‘implant the Church’ there.
Thus ‘the missions’ were generally identified with
territories subject to the authority of Propaganda
Fide.
Theologically, this juridical concept of ‘the missions’
had some serious limitations. Conversion was
often seen as the change of religion rather than an
encounter with the living Christ and discipleship.
The overt objective was really ‘Christianization’
rather than evangelization: the incorporation of
more and more peoples into a socio-political and
religious entity called ‘Christendom.’ The ‘missions’
were the responsibility of the ‘missionaries.’ It was
not imagined that the entire Church is missionary
by its nature or that all the faithful share in this
missionary responsibility. Ordinarily, this way of
seeing things also supposed that human groups
needed missionary activity simply because they
lived in certain geographical areas. It likewise
implied that areas inhabited by the Europeans
or their immigrants (Europe, North America
and Australia) simply needed ordinary pastoral
attention, teaching doctrines and administering the
sacraments to those who already were Catholic.
While Non-European/North American churches
in the Latin America, India, Philippines, Korea,
etc. (the so called local churches) started to
become actively missionary after the Vatican II
Council, the geographical and juridical criteria for
defining mission were criticized as being seriously
inadequate. Many of those in need of a primary
evangelization did not live in the ‘Propaganda
territories’ but in the established dioceses.3 It was
realized that people need missionary activity not
because they live in a certain type of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction or territory but because they have not
yet been evangelized in their cultural identity.
The deficiencies of defining mission primarily by
geography led to a ‘situational’ view of mission.
As I already mentioned, the New Testament
community mainly used the noun ‘Gospel’ and
the verb ‘evangelize’ (or announce the Gospel). In
the 18th century, when some Protestants started
to recognize the importance of missionary activity
(during the two centuries after Luther and Calvin,
Protestant churches did not send missionaries),
they coined the noun ‘evangelization,’ in order to
retain the spirit of ‘sola scriptura.’ Until 1955 this
word was scarcely found in Catholic theological
literature; since it was a ‘Protestant term,’ it was
perhaps simply avoided. It was rediscovered in the
Catholic catechetical renewal of the 1950’s and
60’s which emphasized that the teaching of the
faith should have a ‘kerygmatic’ dynamism, one
that emphasized the ‘good news’ of the Gospel4.
At that time, evangelization was distinguished
from catechesis. Evangelization was considered
the first proclamation of the good news, and
catechesis, the progressive formation in the faith
of those who were already evangelized. In Asia,
some missionaries and missiologists even spoke of
a process of ‘pre-evangelization,’ an announcing
of how non-Christians are prepared for the explicit
Gospel message. Thus the word ‘evangelization’
was ready to be used in the Second Vatican Council
SINCE AD GENTES MISSIONARY
ACTIVITY IN THE SPECIFIC SENSE IS AN
EVANGELIZATION OF GROUPS THAT
DO NOT BELIEVE IN CHRIST AND DO
NOT BELONG TO THE VISIBLE CHURCH,
- IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER THESE
GROUPS ARE ‘NOT YET CHRISTIANS’
OR ‘NO LONGER CHRISTIANS’ - SUCH
MINISTRY CAN BE CALLED AS AD
GENTES MISSION ITSELF.
fifty years ago. In the documents of the Council, the
words ‘evangelization’ and ‘evangelize’ are used
normally in the sense of a first announcing of the
Gospel to those who do not yet know Christ.
The Council dramatically transformed the
understanding of mission. As Stephen Bevans
observes, the initial document ‘On the Missions’
became the Decree on ‘Missionary Activity.’ The
3 Gorski, “From Mission to New Evangelization,” 99.
4 Gorski, “From Mission to New Evangelization,” 104.
SANTHOME MISSION
07