Evangelii Nuntiandi 51: Many Means To One End

The proclamation of the Gospel isn’t about the gifts, abilities, or even the opinions of the evangelist. The focus is not on the minister, but on the hearers, or those potentially open to hearing about Jesus. Pope Paul first alludes to the Acts of the Apostles, in which people were drawn to Christ by innumerable methods. It should be a clue that some methods, which worked for some listeners, were utter failures in other locations. Rather than blame seekers, believers could use their brains, assessing what message is likely to take root.

51. To reveal Jesus Christ and His Gospel to those who do not know them has been, ever since the morning of Pentecost, the fundamental program which the Church has taken on as received from her Founder. The whole of the New Testament, and in a special way the Acts of the Apostles, bears witness to a privileged and in a sense exemplary moment of this missionary effort which will subsequently leave its mark on the whole history of the Church.

She carries out this first proclamation of Jesus Christ by a complex and diversified activity which is sometimes termed “pre-evangelization” but which is already evangelization in a true sense, although at its initial and still incomplete stage. An almost indefinite range of means can be used for this purpose: explicit preaching, of course, but also art, the scientific approach, philosophical research and legitimate recourse to the sentiments of the human heart.

On a parish level, but at least on a diocesan level, those serious about evangelization must be prepared to use all these means. A good measuring stick for the “new” evangelization is how a diocese or other entity employs art, science, philosophy, and emotion. Other factors not mentioned here: psychology, diplomacy, family connections, the new media. The Holy Father was right: the range of means is very wide indeed. All will be needed, as people are open to God in many different ways, some of which we may have very little expertise to offer.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 50: Obstacles to Evangelization

Three main problems: narrow vision from within the Church, resistance to the message, and secular persecution. Despite what many Catholics are saying these days, the American problem is more the first than either of the others.

50. In the course of twenty centuries of history, the generations of Christians have periodically faced various obstacles to this universal mission. On the one hand, on the part of the evangelizers themselves, there has been the temptation for various reasons to narrow down the field of their missionary activity. On the other hand, there has been the often humanly insurmountable resistance of the people being addressed by the evangelizer. Furthermore, we must note with sadness that the evangelizing work of the Church is strongly opposed, if not prevented, by certain public powers. Even in our own day it happens that preachers of God’s Word are deprived of their rights, persecuted, threatened or eliminated solely for preaching Jesus Christ and His Gospel. But we are confident that despite these painful trials the activity of these apostles will never meet final failure in any part of the world.

A rather frank admission that barriers to evangelization are often thrown up by believers themselves. This is one of my worries with the “new” evangelization: an intentional narrowing of the scope, and a patting on the back for a job that was poorly done from the start. It’s also important to realize what actual Christian persecution is and what it is not. Being confronted with impolite ideological opponents is not persecution.

Despite such adversities, the Church constantly renews her deepest inspiration, that which comes to her directly from the Lord: To the whole world! To all creation! Right to the ends of the earth! She did this once more at the last Synod, as an appeal not to imprison the proclamation of the Gospel by limiting it to one sector of mankind or to one class of people or to a single type of civilization. Some examples are revealing.

And those examples are touched upon in sections 51-58, which we’ll examine more closely in the coming week of posts.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 49: New Testament Universality

Are there boundaries which we may not cross? Apparently not, according to the Gospel and the bishops:

49. Jesus’ last words in St. Mark’s Gospel confer on the evangelization which the Lord entrusts to His apostles a limitless universality: “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation.”[Mk 16:15]

The Twelve and the first generation of Christians understood well the lesson of this text and other similar ones; they made them into a program of action. Even persecution, by scattering the apostles, helped to spread the Word and to establish the Church in ever more distant regions. The admission of Paul to the rank of the apostles and his charism as the preacher to the pagans (the non Jews) of Jesus’ Coming underlined this universality still more.

As the “new” evangelization invites us, perhaps, to something of a penitential outreach to inactive or indifferent believers, it is good to keep in mind that the Lord urged the Church forward. This would not negate the need for believers to seek out and inquire about those missing from the Sunday assembly. But let’s not lose track that we were once called to higher things, in even more dangerous times.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 48: Popular Religiosity

The matter of “popular religiosity” could touch on a lot of things: devotions, movements, hero-worship. And more.

48. Here we touch upon an aspect of evangelization which cannot leave us insensitive. We wish to speak about what today is often called popular religiosity.

One finds among the people particular expressions of the search for God and for faith, both in the regions where the Church has been established for centuries and where she is in the course of becoming established. These expressions were for a long time regarded as less pure and were sometimes despised, but today they are almost everywhere being rediscovered. During the last Synod the bishops studied their significance with remarkable pastoral realism and zeal.

Popular religiosity, of course, certainly has its limits. It is often subject to penetration by many distortions of religion and even superstitions. It frequently remains at the level of forms of worship not involving a true acceptance by faith. It can even lead to the creation of sects and endanger the true ecclesial community.

But if it is well oriented, above all by a pedagogy of evangelization, it is rich in values. It manifests a thirst for God which only the simple and poor can know. It makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question of manifesting belief. It involves an acute awareness of profound attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence. It engenders interior attitudes rarely observed to the same degree elsewhere: patience, the sense of the cross in daily life, detachment, openness to others, devotion. By reason of these aspects, we readily call it “popular piety,” that is, religion of the people, rather than religiosity.

Pastoral charity must dictate to all those whom the Lord has placed as leaders of the ecclesial communities the proper attitude in regard to this reality, which is at the same time so rich and so vulnerable. Above all one must be sensitive to it, know how to perceive its interior dimensions and undeniable values, be ready to help it to overcome its risks of deviation. When it is well oriented, this popular religiosity call be more and more for multitudes of our people a true encounter with God in Jesus Christ.

I’m not comfortable equating piety with religion for the poor and simple. Many wealthy and educated people fall into one or more of the traps listed above.

And on the good side, popular piety engages people where they are, and not through the lens of institution. As such, it has many more connections with seekers and non-believers, meeting them where they are: where they find their friends engaged in religion.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 47: Intercommunication

An interesting choice in the third paragraph below: intercommunication.

47. Yet, one can never sufficiently stress the fact that evangelization does not consist only of the preaching and teaching of a doctrine. For evangelization must touch life: the natural life to which it gives a new meaning, thanks to the evangelical perspectives that it reveals; and the supernatural life, which is not the negation but the purification and elevation of the natural life.

This supernatural life finds its living expression in the seven sacraments and in the admirable radiation of grace and holiness which they possess.

Evangelization thus exercises its full capacity when it achieves the most intimate relationship, or better still, a permanent and unbroken intercommunication, between the Word and the sacraments. In a certain sense it is a mistake to make a contrast between evangelization and sacramentalization, as is sometimes done. It is indeed true that a certain way of administering the sacraments, without the solid support of catechesis regarding these same sacraments and a global catechesis, could end up by depriving them of their effectiveness to a great extent. The role of evangelization is precisely to educate people in the faith in such a way as to lead each individual Christian to live the sacraments as true sacraments of faith- and not to receive them passively or reluctantly.

There is a lot here. I can only begin to comment …

Evangelization, to be fruitful and effective, must touch people in their lives, their natural lives, where they are. What is sought is not a denial of their natural life, but instead an “elevation” of it. RCIA speaks of this during the period of purification and enlightenment, in the purpose of the scrutinies:

The scrutinies are meant to uncover, then heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the elect; to bring out, then strengthen all that is upright, strong, and good. (RCIA 141)

Evangelization implies a twofold mission: healing and strengthening. This occurs with the support of formation, which I would define as the corporate assembly of both education and apprenticeship in the faith, as describes also in the RCIA. RCIA 78 describes five qualities in “instruction,” and they are:

• enlightens faith,
• directs the heart toward God,
• fosters participation in the liturgy,
• inspires apostolic activity,
• and nurtures a life completely in accord with the spirit of Christ.

We should be careful about ensuring the spiritual and personal qualities of education/instruction/formation are not overshadowed by academic structures, concerns, and expectations.

What do you make of the “intercommunication” between Word and Sacrament? Is that essential for sacraments traditionally detached from the Word, like Penance? Do believers themselves have a strong enough sense of the Word to allow it to “inform” their sacramental participation more deeply?

What does it mean to live the sacraments? Do people have a strong enough sense of “living” that celebration as well as that presence of Christ?

There’s still a lot to discuss on EN 47. Anything you’re seeing?

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 46: Person-To-Person Evangelization

A most effective way of transmitting the Gospel …

46. For this reason, side by side with the collective proclamation of the Gospel, the other form of transmission, the person-to-person one, remains valid and important. The Lord often used it (for example, with Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, the Samaritan woman, Simon the Pharisee), and so did the apostles. In the long run, is there any other way of handing on the Gospel than by transmitting to another person one’s personal experience of faith? It must not happen that the pressing need to proclaim the Good News to the multitudes should cause us to forget this form of proclamation whereby an individual’s personal conscience is reached and touched by an entirely unique word that he receives from someone else. We can never sufficiently praise those priests who through the sacrament of Penance or through pastoral dialogue show their readiness to guide people in the ways of the Gospel, to support them in their efforts, to raise them up if they have fallen, and always to assist them with discernment and availability.

The priest example is useful, but it still betrays an institutional focus. How often do priests (or other institutional persons) only engage one-on-one when the person is not involved in a sacrament? I’ll be posting on this a little more in the days to come, but this individual approach is one of the more useful tools in the Catholic evangelist’s box. Regular lay people looking for a more effective and fruitful ministry among the unchurched might well consider it. The sharing of faith in the personal setting has an undeniable impact. And less in institutional settings, more in the places where people may be found: workplaces, schools, coffeehouses, bars, parks, and such–wherever people are to be found.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 45: Social Communication

The meaning of “social communication” has totally changed in the last four decades. But adapting to new modes of communication is an issue even more critical today.

45. Our century is characterized by the mass media or means of social communication, and the first proclamation, catechesis or the further deepening of faith cannot do without these means, as we have already emphasized.

In 1975, it was television and radio. Today, it is the explosion of online formats.

When they are put at the service of the Gospel, they are capable of increasing almost indefinitely the area in which the Word of God is heard; they enable the Good News to reach millions of people. The Church would feel guilty before the Lord if she did not utilize these powerful means that human skill is daily rendering more perfect. It is through them that she proclaims “from the housetops”[Cf. Mt 10:27; Lk 12:3] the message of which she is the depositary. In them she finds a modern and effective version of the pulpit. Thanks to them she succeeds in speaking to the multitudes.

Nevertheless the use of the means of social communication for evangelization presents a challenge: through them the evangelical message should reach vast numbers of people, but with the capacity of piercing the conscience of each individual, of implanting itself in his heart as though he were the only person being addressed, with all his most individual and personal qualities, and evoke an entirely personal adherence and commitment.

I think the personal adherence and commitment only comes with the personal relationship between the seeker and the believer. It is impossible to expect impersonal (though far-reaching) methods to pierce every heart. Modern social communication does not absolve every (!) individual believer of the responsibility to witness to the Gospel at least through the minimum of personal example.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 44: Catechetical Instruction

Most Catholics identify “catechetical instruction” as the main part of evangelization. Knowledge about God and faith is important:

44. A means of evangelization that must not be neglected is that of catechetical instruction. The intelligence, especially that of children and young people, needs to learn through systematic religious instruction the fundamental teachings, the living content of the truth which God has wished to convey to us and which the Church has sought to express in an ever richer fashion during the course of her long history. No one will deny that this instruction must be given to form patterns of Christian living and not to remain only notional. Truly the effort for evangelization will profit greatly- at the level of catechetical instruction given at church, in the schools, where this is possible, and in every case in Christian homes- if those giving catechetical instruction have suitable texts, updated with wisdom and competence, under the authority of the bishops. The methods must be adapted to the age, culture and aptitude of the persons concerned, they must seek always to fix in the memory, intelligence and heart the essential truths that must impregnate all of life. It is necessary above all to prepare good instructors- parochial catechists, teachers, parents- who are desirous of perfecting themselves in this superior art, which is indispensable and requires religious instruction. Moreover, without neglecting in any way the training of children, one sees that present conditions render ever more urgent catechetical instruction, under the form of the catechumenate, for innumerable young people and adults who, touched by grace, discover little by little the face of Christ and feel the need of giving themselves to Him.

This is a big area to cover. I’m glad the Church as a whole does not lack competent catechists. Getting those people to the nexus between the leadership/institution/staff and those hungry for knowledge remains a challenge. Pope Paul VI also acknowledged that adult catechesis was an “urgent” consideration in 1975. I don’t think the reality of that message has ever been thoroughly absorbed in the US. I think we give it lip service. I think we talk the ideal of parents as first catechists. But really, we are hampered on two fronts.

The graduation meme in sacramental preparation works against expectations. Consider infant baptisms. For parents of several children: do we invite them to return to catechesis for a second, third child’s baptism? Do we move people into leadership and catechist roles themselves? Or do we give them a pass because we assume they absorbed the necessary information the first time around?

Consider the Catholic school system also. Do schools promote lifelong learning as an alternative to graduation? I don’t think Catholic schools, even the high-achieving academic ones, are much more than college prep academies with the addition of religion classes. A thoroughly academic/social culture. Which is not a bad thing. In the light of the Church’s evangelical mission, it’s just inadequate and incomplete.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 43: Preaching

The importance of preaching is high, especially the liturgical homily.

43. This evangelizing preaching takes on many forms, and zeal will inspire the reshaping of them almost indefinitely. In fact there are innumerable events in life and human situations which offer the opportunity for a discreet but incisive statement of what the Lord has to say in this or that particular circumstance. It suffices to have true spiritual sensitivity for reading God’s message in events. But at a time when the liturgy renewed by the Council has given greatly increased value to the Liturgy of the Word, it would be a mistake not to see in the homily an important and very adaptable instrument of evangelization. Of course it is necessary to know and put to good use the exigencies and the possibilities of the homily, so that it can acquire all its pastoral effectiveness. But above all it is necessary to be convinced of this and to devote oneself to it with love. This preaching, inserted in a unique way into the Eucharistic celebration, from which it receives special force and vigor, certainly has a particular role in evangelization, to the extent that it expresses the profound faith of the sacred minister and is impregnated with love. The faithful assembled as a Paschal Church, celebrating the feast of the Lord present in their midst, expect much from this preaching, and will greatly benefit from it provided that it is simple, clear, direct, well-adapted, profoundly dependent on Gospel teaching and faithful to the magisterium, animated by a balanced apostolic ardor coming from its own characteristic nature, full of hope, fostering belief, and productive of peace and unity. Many parochial or other communities live and are held together thanks to the Sunday homily, when it possesses these qualities.

Let us add that, thanks to the same liturgical renewal, the Eucharistic celebration is not the only appropriate moment for the homily. The homily has a place and must not be neglected in the celebration of all the sacraments, at paraliturgies, and in assemblies of the faithful. It will always be a privileged occasion for communicating the Word of the Lord.

I think preachers and liturgists can see the homily operating on several levels. Or needing to. We have seekers coming to the Sunday (and other) assemblies. How much preaching is geared to first-time hearers of the Word?

The next basic level is acknowledging the message is for a “Paschal Church.” That means a message moving out of the preconciliar emphasis on the Good Friday salvific aspect and expanding to the whole Paschal Mystery. The Eucharistic Prayers help with this orientation, but preaching can also direct and guide believers as well.

For communities without a priest, it would seem that some message based on the Scriptures is vital, even if the fussbudgets among us are disinclined to call it a homily.

Whatever term we use, the basic effort is to connect the Word of God proclaimed and preached to the daily life of people. It’s important to consider that some of this effort should be directed to those who are new to the faith, those who have yet to hear the full evangelical message of Christ.

Anything any of you are seeing in EN 43? Feel free to comment.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 42: Verbal Proclamation

Somebody has to speak up …

42. Secondly, it is not superfluous to emphasize the importance and necessity of preaching. “And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?… So faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.”[Rom 10:14, 17] This law once laid down by the Apostle Paul maintains its full force today.

Preaching, the verbal proclamation of a message, is indeed always indispensable. We are well aware that modern man is sated by talk; he is obviously often tired of listening and, what is worse, impervious to words. We are also aware that many psychologists and sociologists express the view that modern man has passed beyond the civilization of the word, which is now ineffective and useless, and that today he lives in the civilization of the image. These facts should certainly impel us to employ, for the purpose of transmitting the Gospel message, the modern means which this civilization has produced. Very positive efforts have in fact already been made in this sphere. We cannot but praise them and encourage their further development. The fatigue produced these days by so much empty talk and the relevance of many other forms of communication must not however diminish the permanent power of the word, or cause a loss of confidence in it. The word remains ever relevant, especially when it is the bearer of the power of God.[Cf. 1 Cor 2:1-5] This is why St. Paul’s axiom, “Faith comes from what is heard,”[Rom 10:17] also retains its relevance: it is the Word that is heard which leads to belief.

I think I see where Pope Paul VI was going with this. I might take exception to a narrow view of history. In the illiterate West, the “civilization of the image” has long been a part of the Christian tradition. Architecture, iconography, and the art of glass, marble, wood, and illuminations have long been intertwined with the written or preached word. The written for those who could read. The oral tradition, of course, stretches back to the mists of prehistory.

The key to effective preaching was touched on in yesterday’s post on Evangelii Nuntiandi 41. The way to cut through the incessant noise of western culture is with a witness of sanctity. Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II were able to do that. In the generation prior, Fulton Sheen, to be sure. Today, we have many, many voices, especially on the internet. These many Catholic voices compete with one another for “ear” time among the faithful. The competition and the at-times questionable witness often dilutes the pure message of the Gospel. Today’s fatigue is still with us. And for Catholic preachers it is tied up with the selling of product, the globe-trotting bishops, and the slick use of video technology–things pervasive to the point where a person can pick and choose which celebrity, which Name, with which to align themselves.

Witnessing has never been more important.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 41: Witness of Sanctity

Show the faith–it’s a more important first step than teaching it:

41. Without repeating everything that we have already mentioned, it is appropriate first of all to emphasize the following point: for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one’s neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently to a group of lay people, “Modern (woman or) man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if (she or) he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”[Pope Paul VI, Address to the Members of the Consilium de Laicis (2 October 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 568] St. Peter expressed this well when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word.[Cf. 1 Pt 3:1] It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity.

This observation, which I believe to be even more accurate today, has always been true to a great degree. It’s been true among believers (What would be the proportion of those devoted to Pope John Paul II who admired the man for his public witness over his particular writings?) and non-believers alike. It’s the essence of the writer’s maxim: show don’t tell.

The importance of the witness of personal sanctity is something perhaps lost on many modern bishops. It is their way out of the collective shame and scandal in which they are buried. It is the only way people will listen.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 40: How To Evangelize

Let’s get bakc on a daily schedule for Pope Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation following the 1974 synod on evangelization. Some of you may have been tapping your feet on the primarily Third World concerns of liberation these past several days. Now that we are nearly halfway through the document, we get to the “how-to” of the matter.

40. The obvious importance of the content of evangelization must not overshadow the importance of the ways and means.

This question of “how to evangelize” is permanently relevant, because the methods of evangelizing vary according to the different circumstances of time, place and culture, and because they thereby present a certain challenge to our capacity for discovery and adaptation.

On us particularly, the pastors of the Church, rests the responsibility for reshaping with boldness and wisdom, but in complete fidelity to the content of evangelization, the means that are most suitable and effective for communicating the Gospel message to the men and women of our times.

Let it suffice, in this meditation, to mention a number of methods which, for one reason or another, have a fundamental importance.

Fairly basic and logical:

The way to evangelize is always up for discussion, as the optimal means of communicating the Gospel will change depending on innumerable human factors of both the recipients and the communicators.

Bishops bear the primary responsibility for leadership, especially the assessment on how to reach people.

Other comments?

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 39: Last Thoughts on Liberation and Evangelization

What they were saying about the religious liberty of Christians in the 1970′s: 

39. The necessity of ensuring fundamental human rights cannot be separated from this just liberation which is bound up with evangelization and which endeavors to secure structures safeguarding human freedoms. Among these fundamental human rights, religious liberty occupies a place of primary importance. We recently spoke of the relevance of this matter, emphasizing “how many Christians still today, because they are Christians, because they are Catholics, live oppressed by systematic persecution! The drama of fidelity to Christ and of the freedom of religion continues, even if it is disguised by categorical declarations in favor of the rights of the person and of life in society!”[Address given on 15 October 1975: L'Osservatore Romano (17 October 1975).]

It is good to recall that in the 1970′s there was a stronger sesen of the mission apostolate as taking place in the Third World. While aware of the issues of inactive believers in the Christian West, I’d have to say this document seems greatly concerned with reaching those who do not know Christ.

I’m also aware than many of my sister and brother believers in the US perceive a sense of religious persecution or have been convinced by ideologues that such a persecution exists. What Pope Paul VI speaks of in this section would not be this modern sense of persecution. What American or European Christians perceive is much more the natural conflict between Christian and non-Christian values as lived out in the world. My sense is that one factor is the general mob suspicion of non-conformity. Christians are singled out much in the same way a milk drinker is taken notice of in a school lunchroom where everyone else is sipping soda.

Believers make choices. Choices have consequences. In the West, those consequences are almost always minimal in comparison to places where Christians die for the faith. Better not to insult the memory of martyrs unless one is actually becoming one.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 38: A Brighter Diagnosis on Liberation

The pope strikes a positive note as he reached the end of his section on liberation. He seems confident the arc of the Church in the 1970′s was a good one, becoming more associated with the thrust of Catholic social teaching rather than political ideology:

38. Having said this, we rejoice that the Church is becoming ever more conscious of the proper manner and strictly evangelical means that she possesses in order to collaborate in the liberation of many. And what is she doing? She is trying more and more to encourage large numbers of Christians to devote themselves to the liberation of (people). She is providing these Christian “liberators” with the inspiration of faith, the motivation of fraternal love, a social teaching which the true Christian cannot ignore and which (she or) he must make the foundation of (their) wisdom and of (their) experience in order to translate it concretely into forms of action, participation and commitment. All this must characterize the spirit of a committed Christian, without confusion with tactical attitudes or with the service of a political system. The Church strives always to insert the Christian struggle for liberation into the universal plan of salvation which she herself proclaims.

What we have just recalled comes out more than once in the Synod debates. In fact we devoted to this theme a few clarifying words in our address to the Fathers at the end of the assembly.[Paul VI, Address for the closing of the Third General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (26 October 1974); AAS 66 (1974), p. 637]

It is to be hoped that all these considerations will help to remove the ambiguity which the word “liberation” very often takes on in ideologies, political systems or groups. The liberation which evangelization proclaims and prepares is the one which Christ Himself announced and gave to (humankind) by His sacrifice.

I’m not sure the pope of today would agree with this optimism. The pushback against liberation theology in the 80′s suggests the institution was not at all pleased with a perceived lack of separation between political ideology and both the words and actions of those in mission lands. It doesn’t seem to me that the “ambiguity” over the word liberation has been at all removed. If anything, it is more suspect than ever in conservative quarters.

As a gameplayer, I’m struck by the suggestion of abandoning “tactics,” and simply presenting the Gospel message. I certainly agree. I’m inclined to think the unabashed presentation of Christ is vital, and we let human reactions work themselves out in the community, in politics, and in the lives of individuals.

Other thoughts on this? We wrap up the subtopic of liberation tomorrow.

 

Evangelii Nuntiandi 37: Violence Rejected

A careful aside in Paul VI’s narrative, which seems to go without saying:

37. The Church cannot accept violence, especially the force of arms- which is uncontrollable once it is let loose- and indiscriminate death as the path to liberation, because she knows that violence always provokes violence and irresistibly engenders new forms of oppression and enslavement which are often harder to bear than those from which they claimed to bring freedom. We said this clearly during our journey in Colombia: “We exhort you not to place your trust in violence and revolution: that is contrary to the Christian spirit, and it can also delay instead of advancing that social uplifting to which you lawfully aspire.”[ Paul VI Address to the Campesinos of Colombia (23 August 1968): AAS 60 (1968), p. 623] “We must say and reaffirm that violence is not in accord with the Gospel, that it is not Christian; and that sudden or violent changes of structures would be deceitful, ineffective of themselves, and certainly not in conformity with the dignity of the people.”[ Paul VI, Address for the Day of Development at Bogota (23 August 1968): AAS 60 (1968), p. 627; Cf. Saint Augustine, Epistola 229, 2: PL 33, 1020]

I confess I’m at a loss as to the inclusion of this. Not that I disagree with the pope’s assessment of violence as an uncontrollable and fruitless tool for change. Perhaps the Church needs to burnish its opposition to anarchy. Anarchy itself, detached from violence, may not be as much of a problematic tool as one might think.