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Evangelizer by nature, the Church always begins by evangelizing herself. Disciple of the Lord Jesus, she listens to His Word, from which she draws the reasons for the hope that does not disappoint, because it is founded on the grace of the Holy Spirit (cf. Romans 5:5). Only in this way is she able to preserve her freshness and apostolic impetus. The Conciliar Decree Ad Gentes and the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, on which you inspired this Plenary, state that “it is from the mission of the Son and from the mission of the Holy Spirit that the Church, in keeping with God the Father’s plan, derives her origin” (Ad Gentes, 2). The mission does not respond, in the first place, to human initiatives; the protagonist is the Holy Spirit, it is His project (cf. Redemptoris Missio, 21). And the Church is servant of the mission. It is not the Church that makes the mission, but the mission that makes the Church. Therefore, the mission is not the instrument, but the point of departure and the end.

In the past months, your Dicastery carried out an inquiry on the vitality of the young Churches, to understand how to render the work of the Missio ad Gentes more effective, also considering the ambiguity to which the experience of faith is exposed sometimes today. The secularized world, in fact, even when it is receptive of the evangelical values of love, of justice, of peace and of sobriety, does not show the same willingness to the person of Jesus: it does not regard Him as Messiah or Son of God. At most it considers Him an enlightened man. Therefore, it separates the message of the Messenger and the gift of the Donor. In this situation of detachment, the Missio ad Gentes acts as engine and horizon of the faith. It is vital that in the present moment “the Church succeed in proclaiming the Gospel to all, in all places, on all occasions, without delay, without repulsions and without fear” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 23). In fact, the mission is a force capable of transforming the interior of the Church herself even before the life of peoples and of cultures. Therefore, every parish should make its ow
n the style of the Missio ad Gentes. In this way, the Holy Spirit will transform habitual faithful into disciples, disaffected disciples into missionaries, drawing them out of fears and closures and projecting them in every direction, to the ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8). May the kerigmatic approach to the faith, so familiar among the young Churches, also find space among those of ancient tradition.

Paul and Barnabas did not have a missionary Dicastery behind them. Yet, they proclaimed the Word, gave life to several communities and shed their blood for the Gospel. Over time complexities grew, and the need for a special connection between the Churches of recent foundation and the universal Church. Therefore, four centuries ago, Pope Gregory XV instituted the Congregation De Propaganda Fide, which since 1967 assumed the name Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. It is evident that in this phase of history “a simple administration [of the existing reality] is not useful. Let us constitute ourselves in all the regions of the earth in a permanent state of mission” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 25): it is a paradigm. Saint John Paul II specified the way, affirming: “Every renewal in the Church must have the mission as its purpose so as not to fall prey to a sort of ecclesial introversion” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Oceania, 19).  “To go” is inherent in Baptism, and its ends are those of the world. Therefore, continue to be committed so that the spirit of the Missio ad Gentesanimates the path of the Church, and that she is always able to hear the cry of the poor and the estranged, to encounter all and to proclaim the joy of the Gospel.

I thank you for your work of missionary animation and cooperation, with which you remember all the Churches that, if constrained in their own horizons, run the danger of being atrophied and of dying out. The Church lives and grows by being “outgoing,” taking the initiative and making herself close. Therefore, you must encourage the Communities to be generous even in moments of vocational crises. “The Mission, in fact, renews the Church, reinvigorates the faith and the Christian identity and gives new enthusiasm and motivations” (Redemptoris Missio.2).               

Visible already in many areas of the Mission ad Gentes is the dawn of a new day, as the fact demonstrates that the young Churches are able to give, not only receive. The first fruits are their willingness to give their priests to Sister Churches of the same nation, of the same Continent, or to serve needy Churches in other areas of the world. Cooperation is no longer along the north-south axis. There is also an inverse movement of restitution of the good received from the first missionaries. These are also signs of an attained maturity.

Brothers and sisters let us pray and work so that the Church is ever more in keeping with the model of the Acts of the Apostles. Let us allow ourselves to be driven by the force of the Gospel and of the Holy Spirit; let us come out of our enclosures, let us emigrate from the territories in which we are sometimes tempted to close ourselves. Thus we will be able to walk and sow beyond, a little further. May Mary Most Holy, Mother of God, Saint Francis Xavier, today, and Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, Patrons of the Missions, illumine our steps in the service of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. I accompany you with my Blessing and, please, I ask you to pray for me. Thank you.

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Text of Pope’s Interview With Italian Jubilee Publication ‘Credere’

«We are all sinners, we all bear interior burdens. I felt that Jesus wishes to open the door of His heart, that the Father wishes to show his deepest mercy, and therefore sends us the Spirit» 

Here is a ZENIT translation of the Holy Father’s interview with Catholic weekly magazine, ‘Credere,’ an official Jubilee publication.

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–Q: Holy Father, now that we are about to begin the Jubilee, can you explain what movement of the heart drove you to highlight precisely the subject of mercy? What urgency do you perceive in this regard, in the present situation of the world and of the Church?

–Pope Francis: The theme of mercy has been strongly accentuated in the life of the Church, since Pope Paul VI. John Paul II stressed it strongly with Dives in Misericordia, the canonization of Saint Faustina and the institution of the Feast of Divine Mercy on the Octave of Easter. In line with this, I felt that it is somewhat a desire of the Lord to show His mercy to humanity. Therefore, it didn’t come to my mind, but rather the relatively renet renewal of a tradition that has however always existed.

My first Angelus as Pope was on God’s mercy and, on that occasion, I also spoke of a book on mercy which was given to me by Cardinal Walter Kasper during the conclave; also, in my first homily as Pope, on Sunday, March 17, I spoke of mercy in the parish of Saint Anne. It wasn’t a strategy; it came to me from within: the Holy Spirit wills something. It’s obvious that today’s world is in need of mercy, it is in need of compassion, or to begin with . We are used to bad news, to cruel news and to the greatest atrocities that offend the name and life of God. The world is in need of discovering that God is Father, that there is mercy, that cruelty isn’t the way, that condemnation isn’t the way, because the Church herself sometimes follows a hard line, she falls into the temptation of following a hard line, into the temptation of stressing only the moral rules, many people are excluded.

There, came to my mind that image of the Church as a field hospital after a battle; it’s true, how many people are wounded and destroyed! The wounded are taken care of, helped and healed, not subjected to analyses for cholesterol. I believe this is the moment of mercy. We are all sinners, we all bear interior burdens. I felt that Jesus wishes to open the door of His heart, that the Father wishes to show his deepest mercy, and therefore sends us the Spirit: to move us and to deter us. It is the year of forgiveness, the year of reconciliation. On one had we see the arms trade, the production of arms that kill, the murder of innocents in the most cruel possible way, the exploitation of persons, minors, children: a sacrilege – permit me the term – is being carried out against humanity, because man is sacred, he is the image of the living God. See, the Father says: stop and come to me.” This is what I see in the world.

–Q: You have said that, as all believers, you feel yourself a sinner, needy of God’s mercy. In your journey as priest and bishop, what importance has divine mercy had? Do you remember, in particular, a moment in which you felt in a transparent way, the merciful look of the Lord on your life?

–Pope Francis: I am a sinner, I feel myself a sinner, I’m sure of being so. I am a sinner upon whom the Lord has looked with mercy. I am, as I said to prisoners in Bolivia, a forgiven man. I am a forgiven man. God has looked upon me with mercy and He has forgiven me. Even now I commit errors and sins, and I go to Confession every fifteen to twenty days. And if I go to Confession, it’s because I am in need of feeling that God’s mercy is again upon me.

I remember – I have already said this many times – when the Lord looked upon me with mercy. I’ve always had the sensation that He took care of me in a special way, but the most significant moment was verified on September 21, 1953, when I was 17. It was the day of the celebration of Spring and of the Student in Argentina, and I would have spent it with the other students. I was a practicing Catholic, I went
to Mass on Sundays, but no more … I was in Catholic Action but I didn’t do anything; I was only a practicing Catholic. Along the way to the train station of Flores, I passed close to the parish I frequented and I felt compelled to enter. I went in and I saw a priest coming down one side, whom I didn’t know. I don’t know what happened to me at that moment, but I realized my need to go to Confession, in the first Confessional on the left – many people went to pray there. And I don’t know what happened, but I came out different, changed. I returned home with the certainty of having to consecrate myself to the Lord and this priest accompanied me for almost a year. He was a priest from Corrientes, Father Carlos Benito Duarte Ibarra, who lived in the Clergy’s House in Flores. He had leukemia and was being taken care of in hospital. He died the following year. After the funeral I wept bitterly, I felt totally lost, as if the fear of God had abandoned me.

This was the moment I met with God’s mercy and it is very connected to my episcopal motto: September 21 is the day of Saint Matthew and, speaking of Matthew’s conversion, Bede the Venerable says that Jesus looked at Matthew “miserando atque eligendo.” It’s an expression that can’t be translated, because in Italian one of the two verbs has no gerund, not even in Spanish. The literal translation would be ”having mercy and choosing,” almost as craftwork. “Had mercy on him”: this is the literal translation of the text. When years later, while reciting the Latin Breviary, I discovered this reading, I realized that the Lord had crafted me with His mercy. Every time I came to Rome, because I lodged in via della Scrofa, I went to the Church of Saint Louis of the French to pray before Caravaggio’s painting, in fact the Vocation of Saint Matthew.

–Q: According to the Bible, the place where God’s mercy dwells is the womb, the maternal insides of God, which are moved to the point of forgiving sin. Can the Jubilee of Mercy be an occasion to rediscover God’s ”maternity”? Is there also a more “feminine” aspect of the Church to appreciate?

–Pope Francis: Yes, He himself affirms it when He says in Isaiah that perhaps a mother can forget her child, a mother can also forget her child … “I, instead, will never forget you.” Here God’s maternal dimension is seen. Not everyone understands when there is talk of “God’s maternity,” it’s not a popular language – in the good sense of the word – it seems a language that is somewhat chosen. Therefore, I prefer to use tenderness, proper to a mother, the tenderness of God, tenderness born from the paternal insides. God is Father and Mother.

–Q: Always with reference to the Bible, mercy makes us know a more “emotive” God than that which we sometimes imagine. Can the discovery of a God who is moved and has compassion for man also change our attitude towards brothers?

–Pope Francis: To discover it will lead us to have a more tolerant, more patient, more tender attitude. In 1994, during the Synod, in a meeting of groups. it was said that a revolution of tenderness should be established, and a Synodal Father  — a good man, whom I respect and love – then very elderly, said that it wasn’t appropriate to use this language and he gave me reasonable explanations, from an intelligent man, but I continue to say that today the revolution is that of tenderness because justice stems from here as does all the rest. If a businessman who takes on an employee from September to July, says to him, with a new contract from September to July, thus the worker has no right to identity, or to a pension, or to social security. He has no right to anything. The businessman doesn’t show tenderness, but treats the employee as an object – so much to give an example of where there is no tenderness. If one puts oneself in the shoes of that person, instead of thinking of one’s need for a bit more money, then things change. The revolution of tenderness is what we have to cultivate today as the fruit of this Year of Mercy: God’s tenderness towards each one of us. Each one of us must say: “I am an unfortunate man, but God loves me thus, so I must also love others in the same way.”

–Q: John XXIII’s “address to the moon” is famous when, one evening, he greeted the faithful saying: “Give a caress to your children.” That image became an icon of the Church of tenderness. In what way will the subject of mercy be able to help our Christian communities to be converted and renewed?

–Pope Francis: When I see the sick, the elderly, a caress comes spontaneously to me. A caress is a gesture that can be interpreted ambiguously, but the first gesture that a mother or father does with the newborn child, is the gesture of “I wish you well,” “I love you,” “I want you to get ahead.”

–Q: Can you anticipate to us a gesture you intend to make during the Jubilee to give testimony of God’s mercy?

–Pope Francis: So many gestures will be made, but on a Friday of every month I will make a different gesture.

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Poor Welcomed Into Vatican for Debut of ‘Call Me Francis’

Film on Life of Pope Francis Before Election Premiered Today in Italian Theatres

 “What am I doing in Rome?” asks an elderly Jorge Mario Bergoglio at the beginning of the film “Call Me Francis,” which is out in Italian cinemas today. The Archbishop of Buenos Aires looks from a terrace at Saint Peter’s Basilica, as he prepares to enter the Conclave, which would then elect him to be Successor of Peter. With a thought-provoking sunset in the background, he reflects: “At my age people retire …”

Weighing on the shoulders of the future Pope, however, is not his age, but rather the anxieties, risks, and battles faced in the course of his life,  especially in Argentina, during the Videla dictatorship and also, ten years later, the obstinate operation of “discarding” the weak and poor.

Scenes that the film, produced by Taodue with Mediaset, show with great intensity, offering a coherent stroke of all that happened in the last 50 years in the life of the Argentine Pope.

The film’s direction had an almost saint-like figure of Bergoglio emerge, who seemed like an Argentine Schindler who,– in the dark years of the military dictatorship (1976-1983), while the people were disappearing, being arrested, tortured, killed – sometimes with the complicit silence of the Church herself –, hid seminarians in his college, defended a judge to the point of hiding her in the baggage compartment of his beetle, had priests liberated, and procured false documents for them to flee to Brazil and Uruguay.

Within very little time, he had climbed the ranks and gained recognition as a national hero.

Side of Jesus

The film clarifies well on what side Bergoglio is. Neither on the right or the left, as he himself clarifies several times in the film, but on “the side of Jesus.” Far from being a political struggle, his was a concrete application of the Gospel. In virtue of which he does not bat an eyelid when, as Provincial, he is sent to Cordoba to be a priest, to “confess between swine and chickens.” In fact in 1992, Cardinal Quarracino came to fetch him there and to communicate to him John Paul II’s decision to appoint him Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, “Delegate” for the priests of the periphery. So, the film recounts his commitment as pastor in favor of the poor and the disinherited, his struggles against the Buenos Aires municipality, which for economic reasons wished to leave hundreds
of families homeless.

Bergoglio was always there in the front line, to “fight” with the shantytown priests and their poor, to pull the reluctant Cardinal’s cassock to put his face in front of the television cameras and make him celebrate Mass in the shacks, poor and cops all together.

And also when he has his bag in hand, ready to leave for Rome for the Conclave after Ratzinger’s renunciation, he finds the time to celebrate a marriage in the “periphery.”

“Rome can wait,” he says. “But from Rome, you might never return,” replies the secretary.

It was moving to see, in the last strands of the film the ready fans before the TV that exult with the announcement of Cardinal Tauran of the new Pope’s name. They knew it, they felt in in their heart. “He’s done it!”, exclaims between tears his old collaborator of San Miguel. And then the CTV scene with that historic “Brothers and sisters, good evening!”

Overall, “Call Me Francis” is a moving film. The applause broke out at the close of the film, especially by the 7,000 poor and homeless invited by the Pontiff, accompanied by volunteers and several Roman charitable realities and received by the Papal Almoner, Monsignor Konrad Krajewski.

Distributed to them at the exit was a small bag of provisions. The Musical Band of the Papal Swiss Guard, which usually gives concerts only twice a year – for the oath taking and for Christmas – wished to honor them by performing four musical pieces. Also, a group of Eritreans raised a giant placard in the Hall, between flags of the whole world, which read “Thank you Pope Francis.”

Argentine actor Rodrigo De La Serna, who plays the young Bergoglio (the other is Sergio Hernandez), between various selfies and autograph requests, was able to say to ZENIT: “It’s truly a dream, an indescribable, honorific sensation. I never imagined I would be in the Vatican, much less so interpreting a person that I admire as I do Pope Francis.” 

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Imam Joins Dominican Friar in Fight Against Christian Persecution in Pakistan

Decry together the country’s blasphemy laws

This report is contributed by Harold Fickett of Aid to the Church in Need.

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In taking interreligious dialogue to the next level, they make a unique pair: Imam Syed Muhammad Abdul Khabir Azad, who heads the second largest mosque in Pakistan, with room for 100,000 worshippers—the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore—and Father James Channan, OP, the director of Lahore’s Peace Center. Side-by-side, they are actively fighting the discrimination and persecution of Christians in Pakistan.

Example: when suicide bombers attacked the Youhanabad Christian neighborhood in Lahore—one of the largest Christian communities in South East Asia—and killed 22 people, the imam visited the neighborhood to declare his solidarity, before organizing a massive rally in front of the Badshahi mosque to signal opposition to terrorism, while calling for peace and harmony among different faiths. 

As Father Channan is active organizing Christian-Muslim dialogue throughout the country, the imam focuses on rural Islamic clerics, who are often the instigators of religious violence. In 2004, Imam Abdul Khabir Azad even organized an interfaith conference inside the Badshahi mosque—it was the first time Christians had been invited to speak in the mosque in its 350-year history. 

One of the biggest issues facing Christians in Pakistan is the country’s blasphemy law. The imam and the friar are jointly pushing for reform of the law, so that abuse of the law—to settle personal scores or gain business advantages, with more Muslims than Christians ending up as victims—will be vigorously prosecuted. 

All too often, alleged Christian offenses against the Quran or the Prophet Mohammed trigger mob violence. In one of the worst recent incidents a couple was burned alive in a brick kiln, after the wife was accused of desecrating the Muslim holy book. Both Father Channan and the imam condemned the murders as “barbaric.”

‘My misison’

It is dangerous to speak out against such abuses, but Imam Khabir Azad does so regularly.  “I have received threats for the work that I am doing, but I am not going to give up. It is the need of the hour, and it is my mission,” he told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The imam takes inspiration from Jesus as the “Prince of Peace,” which he referred to as his favorite image of Christ. 

Father Channan calls evangelization and interreligious dialogue the “two tracks on which the train of Catholicism runs.” Unlike the goal of evangelization, the aim of interreligious dialogue, the friar explained, is not to convert non-Christians, but to work with those of other faiths for the common good and for the promotion of peaceful co-existence and respect for all faiths. Father Channan, the former Vice-Provinicial for the Dominican order in Pakistan, believes that this process can bring about a “conversion of heart” so that Muslims come to recognize Christians as worthy fellow citizens. 

Father Channan has served as Consultor for both the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (1985-1995) and the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (1999-2004). Father Channan, whom the Pakistani government calls on regularly for advice in religious maters, travels widely as a lecturer on interreligious dialogue. 

The friar has seen many Islamic leaders in Pakistan from a stance of refusing to even share a meal with Christians to one of real friendship—the kind of bond exemplified by the unique relationship of Imam Abdul Khabir Azad and Father Channan. 

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Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries. www.churchinneed.org (USA); www.acnuk.org (UK); www.aidtochurch.org (AUS); www.acnireland.org (IRL); www.acn-aed-ca.org (CAN) www.acnmalta.org (Malta)