1974 and 2012: From Paul VI to Benedict XVI -
Two Synodal assemblies on evangelization
by UMBERTO FOLENA
October 27, 2010
The circle is closed. After 38 years, at the end of a journey of surprising consistency, the Church returns to a point of departure.
Not a defect, but an advantage.
The next General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod will be on "New evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith".
In 1974, the bishops of the world held their third Synodal general assembly on a near-identical theme: "Evangelization in the modern world".
[NB: The Bishops' Synod was established by Vatican-II as a vehicle for collegial decisions in the Church.]
Thus, the Church returns to the essential - the center of the faith - with more insight, much more aware of the problem than before.
The number of observant Catholics in the Western world has fallen drastically, and various storms have shaken the barque of Peter. But the navigation through 38 years of synodal assemblies has been consistent and has touched at all the essential 'ports' of the faith and of pastoral work: catechesis (1977); family (1980); laity (1097); the priesthood (1990); religious orders (1994); bishops (2001); the Eucharist (2005); and the Word of God (2008).
Thus, the Word - heard, accepted and studied in catecheses, lived and witnessed to by families, laymen, priests, religious and bishops, all united around the Eucharist. It has been a logical route, touching on the major elements stresed by Vatican II.
[It would have been helpful to include the list of special Synodal assemblies as well.]
Looking back, there have been quite a few surprises. In the 1974 assembly, the moderators were Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Cracow, the then Archbishop fo Marseilles Roger Etchegaray, and Argentine Archbishop Pironio of Mar De Plata, who would be leading players in the Church during the next few decades.
Paul VI's post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Evangelii nuntiandi from 1975 had the unspoken premise that evangelization should always be 'new', because the context in which it is done is undergoing perennial changes.
Drawing from the assembly's propositions, Paul VI wrote that "the rupture between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt the tragedy of our time, as it has been in other times". We might add, other times in the past, as well as other times in the future.
He underscored "situations of de-Christianization... for multitudes who have been baptized but who nwo live completely outside Christian life". And he adds some concents of extraordinary relevance: "One must note in the heart of this contemporary world a phenomenon which is becoming almost like its most surprising characteristic: secularism".
He distinguishes secularism from secularization, describing 'true secularism' as a concept of the world in which the world is 'self-explanatory' without the need to refer to God, who becomes in this sense, superfluous and cumbersome.
"Such secularism, in setting forth the power and primacy of man, ends up with having no use for God and ultimately negating God". One seems to be reading Benedict XVI, underscoring yet again the close link between the two Popes.
[After all, Paul VI made Joseph Ratzinger cardinal before he turned 50, a rare honor for a theologian who had been an academic professor for a quarter century before being named Archbishop of one of Europe's largest and most prestigious dioceses.]
New forms of atheism, a man-centered atheism, no longer abstract and metaphysical but pragmatic, programmatic and militant - Paul VI continued - would follow from such secularism:
"This atheistic secularism is proposed to us everyday under the most diverse forms - the civiliztion of consumerism, hedonism elevated to be the supreme value, the will to power and dominance, discrimination of every kind".
And so, the circle closes. Today, we know so much more of secularism. We have experienced the inhumanity of this secularism that excludes God from its horizon, replacing him with ideologies or consumer goods ot pure and simple power.
The circle closes, and we begin anew.