Movements in the Church Laity Today

PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE LAITY Laity Today Movements in the Church Laity Today A Series of Studies edited by the Pontificial Council for the Laity PONTIFICIUM CONSILIUM PRO LAICIS Movements in the Church Proceedings of the World Congress of the Ecclesial Movements Rome, 27-29 May 1998 VATICAN CITY 1999 Cover illustration: Anna Formaggio (G&C srl, Milan), Logo of the Holy Father’s Meeting with the ecclesial movements and the new communities. Rome, 30 May 1998 4 FOREWORD n May 1998 the Pontifical Council for the Laity convened the World I Congress of the Ecclesial Movements (the proceedings of which are being published here), with the aim of promoting a better knowledge of these organizations that in various ways are enriching the life of the Church today. On the one hand, the Congress was intended to deepen theological reflection on the specific nature of these aggregations of the faithful. On the other, it was intended to foster an exchange of experi- ences between the representatives of the various movements and between them and some Bishops and other participants engaged in dif- ferent forms of life and of Christian witness. This was a way of respond- ing to the invitation of John Paul II, who had asked the movements to make a gesture of “joint witness” in the year dedicated to the Holy Spirit. The Congress turned out, in practice, to be an event that surpassed the expectations even of those who had helped to prepare it. The days during which it was held were days full of surprises, culminating in the great surprise of the meeting of the Pope with the movements on the Vigil of Pentecost. There has been something very special about this week. Mother Teresa might have described it as “something beautiful for God”. Surprises are, in fact, a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has again schown himself to be infinite freedom and infinite love. We have experienced in a singular way the Spirit blows where he will, the Spirit of absolute love. The days of the Congress revealed the various movements to each other, and to the whole Church, in a new way. What is striking in the ecclesial movements is above all the per- ception they have of the cultural ambience at the end of this century and their capacity to operate in it. An American novelist and essayist, 5 James Francis Card. Stafford Walker Percy, was musing about an old story concerning novelists. He says that people are always asking, why don’t you write about pleasant things and normal people? Why all the neurosis and violence? There are many nice things in the world. The reader is offended, when one replies, “yes, it’s time; in fact there seen to be more nice people around than ever before, but somehow as the world grows micer it also grows more violent”. That description, “as the world grows nicer it also grows more violent”, is the ambience of our century. It captures the velvet violence which surrounds us. The tri- umphant secular world of the twentieth century seems to have the nicest people ever, but the world has never before seen anything like the terrible tragedies that have marked our century. So, we are clos- ing a very violent 20th chapter of the Christian era and are about to open not only a new chapter, but a wholly new millennium. Can the ecclesial movements born in this century help to ensure that the new millennium takes the road towards what John Paul II has called the ‘civilization of love’”? I do not underestimate the challenge of secularity. I know that secularity is a quick and deadly corrosive of community, of personal event, of truth, of communitment to mission, of faith in God. But it is precisely where we have heard that the new lay communities have great strength. Where the parish and diocesan Rite of Christian Imitiation of Adults is weakest, in the period of the mys- tagogia, i.e. in followup through community, mission and apostolic spirit, the movements are strongest. During the Congress it was repeatedly emphasised that the vocation of the movements is missionary. One of the speakers said: “When the charism is tied to mission, everything else is fine”. The report of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, on the other hand, showed how closely the movements are tied with the universal mission of the Church. In this sense a deeper consciousness of the one common vocation that links them all is developing among the movements: the vocation of proclaiming the Gospel to all mankind. Communion and mission in the life of the movements are so closely linked as to be identified with each other, as 6 Foreword to form one thing, just as the being of Jesus is identified with his mission as to be inseparable from the trinitarian mission of being sent by the Father. Perhaps we can develop this missionary identily further. If “the Church is asle to be said to be in a certain sense ‘a movement’”, as Pope John Paul II indicated, the implications are that the new associative realities draw their “being a movement” from the Church. Conse- quently, these new realities are not simply movements in the Church, but above all from the Church. They are dynamic realities born from the dynamism of the Church, in a movement born from the Church as movement. This Congress has helped us to deepen the notion of “movements being from the Church”: the “from the Church” expresses not simply the reality of their nature and being, but their becoming. Thus the movements are “particular events” arising from the Holy Spirit, the soul of the Church, the agent of the new evangelization, the inspirer of the actual forms of the missionary activity of the Church. Reflecting on the phenomenon of the movements may help us to rediscover the reality itself of the Church—which could not be herself without the ever new initiative of the Spirit. John Paul II recalled this in his message to the Congress: “I have often had occasion to stress that there is no conflict or opposition between the institutional dimension and the charismatic dimension, of which movements are a significant expression. Both are co-essential to the divine constitution of the Church founded by Jesus, because they both help to make the mystery of Christ and his saving work present in the world”. These words of the Holy Father are a direct echo of the Vatican Council’s rediscovery of the charismatic dimension of the Church. In his address during the Meeting in St. Peter’s Square John Paul II explicitly recalled the con- ciliar teaching, showing that the movements are a concrete realization of it. On that occasion the Pope also said that the time of “ecclesial maturity” has now come for the movements. In the life of man and in the life of the Church the time of maturity is the time of full and uncon- ditional dedication to the task assigned to us. The Pope explicitly said 7 James Francis Card. Stafford so: what he now expects from the movements are “the ‘ripe’ fruits of communion and commitment”. The appeal to “ecclesial maturity” became for each of those present a passionate (and inspiring) appeal to renew their own commitment to the mission that Christ assigns to his disciples. This volume is naturally addressed in the first instance to the mem- bers of the movements. The contributions presented in these pages might also be read with interest by the Pastors of the Church who have the responsibility to accompany and guide the movements: they may find in them valuable guidance on the nature of the movements and on the place they have in the Church. The publication of the proceedings of the Congress that preceded the great meeting of the Pope with the movements is also intended to assist all those who still do not suffi- ciently know the movements and who—perhaps after the great rally of 30 May 1998—wish to gain a better knowledge of this phenomenon that has emerged in the life of the Church over the last few decades. John Paul II’s message to the Congress and his address in St. Peter’s Square offer the most authoritative teaching in this sense. In fact, the contributions presented to the Congress, and published below, now appear, in the light of these interventions by the Holy Father and after the Meeting of 30 May, almost as an anticipation of a reflection that needs to be further developed on the basis of these words and that event. It is hoped that the present volume may also represent a stimu- lus in this direction. President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity 8 EDITORIAL NOTE he present volume gathers together the various contributions pre- T sented to the World Congress of the Ecclesial Movements, held in Rome from 27 to 29 May 1998. The Congress derived its origin from an invitation that the Holy Father had addressed to the movements two years earlier. In his homily on the Vigil of Pentecost, on 25 May 1996, John Paul II had dwelt on the reality of the movements: “One of the gifts of the Spirit to our time—he said—is undoubtedly the flourishing of the ecclesial movements which right from the beginning of my pontificate I have contin- ued to indicate as a source of hope for the Church and for man.” Going on to recall that in the itinerary of preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the year 1998 was the year dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the Pope had said he was counting in a particular way “on the joint witness and on the collaboration of the movements” for this year.

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