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Pope Benedict on popular piety
and the new evangelization
in Latin America
April 8, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI received the participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Vatican today.
The commission held its anual assembly in Rome to discuss the impact of popular piety in the process of evangelization of Latin America – a theme Pope Benedict said directly addresses one of the most important aspects for the missionary task to which Latin American local churches are committed.
Here is a translation of his address which the Pope delivered in Spanish:
Dear Cardinals,
Beloved brothers in the Episcopate:
1. I affectionately greet the advisers and members of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America who have met in Rome for your Plenary Assembly.
I especially greet Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of this Commission, and thank him sincerely for the words he addressed to me in your behalf and for presenting the results of your days of study and reflection.
2. The theme chosen for this meeting, “The incidence of popular piety in the process of evangelization in Latin America”, directly addresses one of the most important aspects in the missionary task undertaken by the local churches in that great continent.
The bishops who met in Aparecida for the Fifth General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops, which I had the pleasure of opening during my visit to Brazil in May 2007, presented popular piety as a space for encounter with Jesus Christ and a form of expressing the faith.
Therefore, it cannot be considered as something secondary in Christian life because that would be “to forget the primacy of the action of the Spirit and the freely given initiative of God’s love" (Concluding Document, Aparecida, n. 263).
This simple expression of the faith has its roots at the very start of evangelization in those lands. In effect, to the degree that the saving message of Christ was illuminating and inspiring the cultures of the continent, a rich and profound popular religiosity was being woven which characterizes the liveliness of the faith among Latin American peoples, which, as I said in the inaugural address to the Aparecida conference, constitutes “the precious treasure of the Catholic Church in Latin America, which she should protect, promote, and where necessary, purify” (No. 1).
3. To achieve the new evangelization in Latin America, within a process that permeates the entire being and doing of Christians, one cannot set aside the multiple demonstrations of popular piety. All of them, well-channelled and appropriately accompanied, favor a fruitful encounter with God, an intense veneration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, an appealing devotion to the Virgin Mary, a cultivation of affection for the Successor of Peter, and an awareness of belonging to the Church.
May all of this also serve to evangelize, to communicate the faith, to bring the faithful closer to the Sacraments, to strengthen the bonds of friendship and of familial as well as communitarian union, and to increase solidarity and the practice of charity.
Consequently, the faith must be the principal source of popular piety so that it does not get reduced to the mere cultural expression of a given region. Furthermore, it must be in close relation to sacred liturgy, which cannot be replaced by any other form of religious expression.
In this respect, it must not be forgotten what the Directory on popular piety and liturgy says, published by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, that
Liturgy and popular piety are two expressions of worship (cultual) that must be in a mutual and fruitful relationship: in any case, the Liturgy must constitute the reference point for ‘channelling with lucidity and prudence the (popular) yearning for prayer and for a charismatic life'.
For its part, popular piety, with its symbolic and expressive values, can contribute some references to Liturgy for a genuine inculturation as well as stimuli for creative and effective dynamism” (No. 58).
4. In popular piety we encounter many expressions of faith linked to the major celebrations of the liturgical year, by which the simple folk reaffirm the love they feel for Jesus Christ, in whom they encounter the manifestation of God’s closeness, his compassion and mercy.
There are countless shrines dedicated to the contemplation of the infancy, Passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, to which multitudes come to place their joys and sufferings in the hands of the Lord, while asking him for copious graces and imploring forgiveness for their sins.
Also intimately bound to Jesus is the devotion of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. From the dawn of evangelization, she has accompanied her Son in that land, and has been, for her peoples, an inexhaustible spring of hope. That is why they go to her as Mother of the Savior to feel her loving protection constantly under so many different advocations.
Likewise, the saints have been like luminous stars in the hearts of the faithful of those lands, edifying them with their example and protecting them with their intercession.
5. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that there are certain deviant forms of popular religiosity that, far from promoting active participation in the Church, create confusion, and could lead to religious practice that is merely external and detached from a faith that is well rooted and alive interiorly.
In this respect, I wish to recall what I wrote to seminarians last year: “Certainly, popular piety tends towards the irrational, and can at times be somewhat superficial. Yet it would be quite wrong to dismiss it. Through that piety, the faith has entered human hearts and become part of the common patrimony of sentiments and customs, shaping the life and emotions of the community. Popular piety is thus one of the Church’s great treasures. The faith has taken on flesh and blood. Certainly popular piety always needs to be purified and refocused, yet it is worthy of our love and it truly makes us into the “People of God” (Letter to seminarians, Oct. 18, 2010, No. 4).
6. During the meetings I have had in the past few years on the occasion of their ad limina visits, the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean have kept me abreast of what is happening in their respective ecclesiastical jurisdictions in order to promote and encourage the continental mission with which the Latin-American episcopate had wished to re-launch the new evangelization after the Aparecida conference, inviting all the members of the Church to place themselves in a permanent state of mission.
It is an option of great transcendent significance, because it aims to return to a fundamental aspect of the Church’s work, namely, to give primacy to the Word of God so it may be permanent nourishment for Christian life and the axis of all pastoral activity.
This encounter with the divine Word should lead to a profound life change, to a radical identification with the Lord and his Gospel, to be fully aware that it is necessary to be solidly bound to Christ, in the knowledge that “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction (Deus caritas est, No. 1).
In this sense, I am glad to learn that in Latin America, the practice of lectio divina has been growing in the parishes and small church communities, as a regular way to nourish prayer, and thus give solidity to the spiritual life of the faithful, since “in the words of the Bible, popular piety will find an inexhaustible source of inspiration, insurpassable models of prayer, and fruitful proposals on different topics” (Directory on popular piety and liturgy, No. 87).
7. Dear brothers, I thank you for your valuable contributions to protect, promote and purify everything that is related to the expressions of popular piety in Latin America. To achieve this objective, it will be of great value to continue energizing the continental mission, within which there must be a space fir everything that refers to this pastoral sector, which constitutes a special way for the faith to be welcomed and to dwell in the heart of the people, to touch the most profound human sentiments, and to be manifested vigorously through charity (cf Gal 5,6).
8. At the conclusion of this joyful encounter, as I invoke the gracious name of the Most Blessed Mary, perfect disciple and pedagogue of evangelization, I impart the Apostolic Blessing from the heart, as a token of divine goodness.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/04/2011 00:19] |