THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION PERSPECTIVES

IN THE POST-VATICAN II PERIOD

1. Introduction
In 1959 Pope John XXIII made the surprising declaration of an ecumenical council. 1 He called
the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church together for the first time since Vatican I, which was
held about a hundred years earlier. “His convocation of this council reflected his genuine desire
to update and renew church life, and in particular to raise the question of the central mission of
the Church.”2 The Council’s four sessions included two-month convocations in the Vatican with
more than 2500 bishops participating.

The missionary encyclicals of the 20th century prior to the Second Vatican Council displayed the
first cautious steps toward a missionary understanding of the church. On the eve of the Council
the situation was however, rather confused; Salvationist, Ecclesiocentric, Sacramentalist and
Eschatological (Y. Congar) interpretations of mission remained unintegrated. Contributions of
French theologians such as Yves Congar became catalytic in opening the way toward an
essentially new understanding of church and mission.3

2. The Vatican Council and Mission

The early drafts on the Decree of Mission were prepared by representatives of the Congregatio
de Propaganda Fide, which revealed a very traditional posture. To this, the African and Asian
Bishops objected; they would rather go without a decree on mission than subscribe to one that
refused to break new ground. Consequently the decree was completely rewritten.

Sixteen documents of uneven importance surfaced from the council and a wide consensus of
observers and interpreters recognizes six of those in a special way. Many scholars think that
perhaps the most helpful observation of the council at this point in history is to understand the
tension during the council between theological conservatives and progressives. And the winds of
change were most obvious in the dialogue among the bishops relative to the meaning of the
church and the gospel mandate “to make disciples of all nations.”
The six documents, which relate directly to world mission are as follows:
1. Lumen Gentium (“The Light of the Nations”), The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church;
2. Dei Verbum (“The Word of God”), The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.
3. Guadium et Spes (“The Joys and Hopes”). The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in
the Modern World.
4. Ad Gentes (“To All Nations”), The Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church
5. Unitatis Redintegratio (“Restoration of Unity”), The Decree on Ecumenism; and
6. Nostra Aetate (“In Our Times”), The Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to
Non Christian Religions. A seventh document on religious freedom (Dignitatis
Humanae) is also significant.

3. Changes in Roman Catholic Attitudes toward Proselytism and Mission

1 ?
“Ecumenical” in the then Roman Catholic sense of the term. It included participants from all over the world, but
it was strictly Roman Catholic in terms of participation, though there were observers from other churches as well.
2 ?
A. Scott Moreau, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions (Michigan: Baker Book House, 2000), 863
3 ?
David Bosch, Transforming Mission (Bangalore: Centre for Contemporary Christianity, 2006), 464

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Since Vatican II some dramatic shifts took place. While Roman Catholics still saw their form of
communion as the best manifestation of the church of Jesus Christ, it was no longer to be
considered the sole or the complete manifestation of that church. The other Christian churches
were accorded a new respect, a respect extended to other forms of religious faith as well
especially to Judaism. And that respect went further than general esteem; these religions were
seen as possible ways to salvation preached heretofore as the exclusive property of Catholicism.

There are at least three major developments, which in their own way define the tensions that
were to surround Catholic understandings of mission in the following two decades. The three
elements are4:
i) A Trinitarian locus for the origin of mission
ii) An expanded understanding of the church; and
iii) A new understanding of the nature of other religions.

i) A Trinitarian locus for the Origin of Mission: The first part of the “Decree on
Missionary Activity in the Church” known by its opening words in Latin, Ad Gentes, locates the
origins of missionary activity in the Trinity itself, in God’s eternal plan of salvation for all, seen
in the sending of the Son and the Holy Spirit into the world. The implications is that while one
can continue to define certain activities of the church as specifically missionary, on a more
fundamental level the church has to see itself as missionary by its very nature. Thus, the church
goes from “having missions” to “being missionary”. 5 This was to be the most fundamental shift
that theology of mission and proselytism was to experience in the Vatican II. For this reason,
Roman Catholic theologies of mission since that time tend to speak of missionary activity as
“mission” (in the singular) rather than “missions” (in the plural), to emphasize the unity of
mission in the Trinity- albeit in the plural usage does survive in some official usages.

Perhaps the most significant implication has been a change in the metaphors used to describe
missionary activity. Prior to this shift, Roman Catholic missiological language had a fondness for
military metaphors. Referring to Mt.28 as “the great commission” is already indicative of that.
To be sure, some of the more military language remains, but the tone of confrontation with the
non-believer moves away from conquest to invitation, dialogue and sharing. Effective
proselytism then, is not so much marked by conquest and submission, but is a more complex
process that acknowledges the work of the Holy Spirit already active in the life of the potential
convert long before he or she actually hears the Gospel.

ii) An Expanded Understanding of the Church: This shift is best seen in another document
of the Council, the “Constitution of the church”, known as Lumen Gentium. The dominant
image of this understanding of church (like in Vatican 1) was that it was a societas perfecta or
“perfect society”, mirroring the celestial society surrounding the throne of God. Contrast to this
understanding of the church, we see in the second chapter of Lumen Gentium the presentation of
the church as the pilgrim people of God. Instead of being an already perfected society, the church
as the pilgrim people of God saw itself perhaps as the forerunner of that perfect society, but in

4
James A. Scherer & Stephen B.Bevans, ed. New Directions in Mission and Evangelization-2, (Orbis Books,
?

New York, 1994), 116.

5 ?
Ibid.

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highly modest and provisional terms. The image of the pilgrim people was dominated by the
story of the Exodus, of a people indeed liberated from their captivity, yet far from the Promised
Land. The image came to evoke for many the idea of the church as a collection of people
engaged in a common quest for the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. No longer could the
church be identified as the Kingdom of God; it would be seen rather as pointing to that kingdom.
The real charter for mapping out the implications of this shift was to be the “Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World” Gaudium et Spes. This document, like no other in the history of
Catholic Church, called for a positive and constructive dialogue with the world (or, more
specifically, with the industrialized and secularized West).6

Most notably, it had a profound effect on one of the two great motives of mission, the plantatio
ecclesiae. The establishment of the church, although still important, no longer in and of itself
was the be-all and end-all of mission. And the reason was that the church itself was but a herald,
an envoy of the kingdom of God, not the kingdom itself. That would be only realized in heaven,
when the church as such would pass away.

iii) A New Understanding of the Nature of Other Religions: As the text goes to great pains to
show, its understanding of other religious traditions was rooted in patristic thinking and a
theology of creation. Since the Patristic period there had been a strain of thought which held that
there were indeed noble elements in non–Christian religion that served as a praeparatio
evangelica, a preparation for the reception of the gospel.7

The catalyst here was yet another Council document, the “Declaration on the Relation of the
church to Non-Christian Religions” Nostra Aetate. Originally intended to address Catholic
relations with the Jews, it was extended to include all the great religious traditions. Nostra Aetate
goes to great pains to reaffirm the positive value of Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam,
noting the parallels in these traditions to Christian faith. And the point of dialogue with other
religious traditions was not only to come to understand those traditions better; its purpose was
also to come to learn religiously from them about pathways of God. The stance of the Christian
believer in approaching people of other faiths was to be one of humility and hospitality rather
than superiority.

Concerning Salvation it continued to affirm that all people were redeemed in Christ, but the way
the question of other religious traditions was raised carried with it the possible implication that
the church was not the sole agency through which that salvation might be realized. Not only is
the church seen as a provisional sign of the coming Kingdom of God, the very nature or purpose
of the church is also challenged by this new relationship to other religions.

4. The Eschatological Aspect of Mission

The changes in perspectives of the Catholic Church since Vatican II resulted in the immediate
aftermath “a period of missionary crises”. 8 A landmark attempt to deal with these dilemmas 9
occurred early in 1969 in a conference sponsored by SEDOS, an association of mission-sending
orders of men and women.
6 ?
Ibid., 118.
7 ?
Ibid., 119.
8 ?
To use the words of James A. Scherer & Stephen B.Bevans, Ibid. 120.
9 ?
Like for e.g. the exodus of missionaries from the field

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The most cohesive and persuasive paper in this conference was that of Johannes Schutte.10 The
very title of his paper set forth the question: “Why engage in Mission Work?” Put simply, the
idea is that if God wishes the salvation of all and Christ is the source of that salvation and if
those who live uprightly according to the best dictates of their conscience do therefore
experience that salvation, they are Christians, although “anonymously”.11

What Schutte does is develop the eschatological aspect of mission: that is, following the early
Christian vision that all things are ultimately to be brought together in Christ (Eph.1: 10), the
task of mission is to help build up that pleroma or plentitude of Christ. This is to be achieved by
continuing to proclaim that Christ stands at the center of human history. Secondly, the task of
mission is to carry further the incarnation of Christ into every culture. And thirdly, the task of
mission is to work toward peace and reconciliation, since such peace and reconciliation are to be
signs of the imminent return of Christ and the establishment of his sovereignty. The
eschatological argument for establishing the motivation of mission remains probably the most
effective one available to Catholics to this day.

5. Some Later Roman Catholic Statements on Mission

i) Third General Conference of the Latin American Bishops (Puebla, 1979)12
It was held while many conservative bishops were panicking about the startling influence of
liberation theology on mission. While such conservative opinions found some place in the
conference, there was an unmistakable emphasis on the preferential option for the poor. It turned
out to be a conference, which sanctioned liberation theology’s deepest concerns.
ii) Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation (Rome, 1986)13
In 1984 a document named Libertatis Nuntius was published, which dealt with “Certain
aspects of the Theology of Liberation.” It was met with strong protests from liberation
theologians as it tried to restrict them. So in 1986 the new document “Instruction on Christian
Freedom and Liberation” was published. It was more balanced and was more favorable to the
various liberation movements and the theology, which was emerging from them.
iii) Redemptoris Missio (Rome, 1990)14
The Latin title of Vatican Council’s document Ad Gentes (“to all peoples”) is the major them
here. The Pope sharply distinguishes the missionary activity, pastoral care and the re-
evangelization of those who no longer consider themselves members of the church. Only the
mission Ad Gentes is missionary activity proper and it consists in proclaiming Christ as the only
Savior and working toward the establishment of the church in all parts of the world. Though
followers of other religions can find salvation, such salvation is found finally and fully in Christ
and his church. But Christians need to work for peace, development, liberation, human rights,
and ecological wholeness within contemporary scientific and secular realities. Dialogue is
recommended with caution and it is indeed “part of Church’s evangelizing mission”.

10 ?
The man responsible for the final draft of the Ad Gentes
11 ?
To use Karl Rahner’s phrase
12 ?
The Second Conference at Medellin held in 1968 had shocked the world by embracing liberation as church’s
mission. It had focused on social and structural nature of sin, the imperative of siding with the poor and the political
involvement as an essential component of Christian existence.
13 ?
Issued by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
14 ?
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Vatican Second’s Decree on Missionary Activity, John Paul II
published this encyclical.

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 iv) Dialogue and Proclamation (Rome, 1991)15
The document makes it clear that even if dialogue is treated first, it has no priority over
proclamation; rather dialogue represents an essential but not exclusive aspect of missionary
proclamation of the gospel.

Conclusion:
Since Vatican II some dramatic shifts took place in Roman Catholic Attitudes toward Mission.
The winds of change were in the dialogue among the bishops relative to the meaning of the
church and the gospel mandate “to make disciples of all nations.” Roman Catholic theologies of
mission tend to speak of missionary activity as “mission” (in the singular) rather than
“missions.” Relationship with other religion and the concept of church also changed. No longer
could the church be identified as the Kingdom of God; it would be seen rather as pointing to that
kingdom.

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15 ?
Issued by Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.