MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 1970

To all who are Brothers in Christ We address Our word again this year on the occasion of Mission Sunday. We cannot keep silent about it, even if it tells you nothing new; but the missionary cause is so vital for the Church and so important for the world, that it obliges us to intervene on this anniversary with all the strength of our voice.

Mission Sunday has become an event worthy of great importance in the life of the Church. It engages Our apostolic ministry in a direct and primary way; it is the Lord’s mandate that obliges us to feel, on this occasion, how serious and how great is our office as preachers of the Gospel, not only within the Church, but also beyond its community and geographical boundaries; and we cannot overlook the opportunity to make the Church itself feel this missionary vocation to our brothers in the episcopate, to the clergy, to men and women religious, to every Catholic.

After the Council, the duty to contribute to the spread of the Faith imposed itself on everyone, albeit in different ways and to different extents, with greater urgency, because it was taught, with profound theological insight, that “the pilgrim Church is by her nature missionary” (Ad gentes divinitus, 2 ) ; she is the sign and instrument of God’s saving intention extended to all humanity ( Lumen gentium , 9); and whoever wants to live the Church must feel the inner urgency of this ontological dynamism of hers (Cf. Ad gentes divinitus , 1, 2, 6), of this innate effusive drive of hers, of this intrinsic responsibility of hers to communicate the Faith to all men (Cf. ibid ., 28 ) .
This is the mission of the Church as such. But now we are thinking of those particular institutions in which, according to the specific traditional sense, the effort is made to broaden the human area of ​​the proclamation of the Gospel on earth, and to which we give the blessed name of Catholic missions (cf. ibid., 6 ) .

We want to reconfirm to them the apostolic mandate, which qualifies them and which invests them with the power of the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of their incomparable work; and we want those who consecrate their lives to it and those who pray, work and suffer for the Missions to know that they enjoy, in a special way, Our affection and Our gratitude.

Why this preference? Because to the duty, to the need to spread the Word of salvation, particular circumstances are added today, which seem to Us “signs of the times” for a vigorous recovery of renewed missionary activity. The word of Jesus to the disciples comes to Our lips: «. . . I say to you: lift up your eyes and look at the fields, which are already golden with the harvest” ( I. 4, 35). There are circumstances that facilitate communication between men: the earth is open and explored, transport is faster and more widespread everywhere, commerce, culture, international relations tend towards contacts between different civilizations and aim at the unification of the world. . . But at what level? On a practical level, yes; at the civilian level, yes; but do we not see that this same process of bringing men closer to one another denounces deficiencies which can become threats of new and more serious conflicts, and does it not also seem to look forward to that affirmation of principles, that outpouring of spiritual energies, that solution of discordant ideologies in a single and superior fraternal truth, which only from Christ can the world also derive in the temporal order? (Cf. Lumen gentium, 13)

A New Hour

A new hour has come for the Missions. New difficulties and new eases are in the paths of those who, in the name of Christ, “bring the news of good things” ( Rom . 10, 15); but this present state of mind and of things offers an immensely wider field, more inviting, but certainly not easier for the wise and magnanimous daring of the pioneers of the Gospel. Today more than ever we would like to echo Christ’s compelling word: “Follow me; and I will make you fishers of men” ( Matt. 4, 19). Let us not linger in corrosive criticism; let us not let this historic moment pass, which to us seems decisive for the future orientations of humanity, and which offers the genius and courage of young people the opportunity to be subjects and instruments of new exciting charisms of faith and charity.

This means that missionary activity must be conceived with broad and modern views. A new planning is required: in theological principles, in propaganda, in recruitment, in preparation, in methods, in works, in organization. It is a revision which We know is underway, on a large scale, by those with experience and expertise in the matter, and through the promotion and guidance of the central missionary body of the Church, Our valiant Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Two Conceptions

In this review of the missionary vocation of the Church, one question dominates the others by comparing two different conceptions relating to the general orientation of missionary activity, which are defined and distinguished by two names: evangelization and development. By evangelization we mean properly religious action, understood as the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, of the Gospel as the revelation of the saving plan in Christ the Lord, through the action of the Holy Spirit, who finds his vehicle in the ministry of the Church and his purpose in the building up of the Church and his end in the glory of God: this is the traditional doctrine, to which the Council gave its authoritative suffrage. And by development we mean the human, civil, temporal promotion of those peoples who,Ad gentes divinitus , 11).

The gravity of this question, which compares these two conceptions, derives from two dangers: that of making them exclusive, one with respect to the other; and that of inaccurately establishing the relationships that must intercede between them.

We want to believe that this confrontation cannot be posed as a dilemma, which excludes coordination, complementarity, a synthesis between evangelization and development. For us believers, it would be inconceivable that missionary activity would make earthly realities its sole or principal purpose and lose sight of its essential purpose: to bring the light of faith to all men, to regenerate them through baptism, to associate them with the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, to educate them in the Christian life, to open to them the hope of the afterlife. Just as it is unacceptable that the missionary action of the Church is insensitive to the needs and aspirations of developing peoples, and that its religious purposes prescind from the fundamental duties of human charity; we cannot forget the solemn lesson of the Gospel on the love of suffering and needy neighbor (Matthew . 25, 31-46), repeated by the apostolic teaching (cf. 1 Io . 4, 20; Iac . 2, 14-18) and confirmed by the whole missionary tradition of the Church. In our Encyclical Populorum Progressio , we ourselves made the object of the duty to resolutely and wisely promote the increase in the economic, cultural, social and spiritual well-being of peoples, and especially those of the so-called “third world”, where missionary activity finds the widest field for the implementation of its program (cf. Ad gentes divinitus, 12 ) .

Dilemma need not be. The question rather concerns the priority of ends and the priority of intentions and duties; and there is no doubt that missionary activity is directed above all to evangelization, and that it must maintain this priority both in the conception that inspires it and in the ways in which it is organized and exercised. Missionary activity would fail in its raison d’être if it moved away from the religious axis that governs it: the Kingdom of God, before anything else; the Kingdom of God understood in its vertical, theological, religious sense, which frees man from sin, proposes to him the love of God as the supreme mandate, and eternal life as the ultimate destiny. That is the Kerygma, the Word of Christ, the Gospel, faith, grace, prayer, the cross, the Christian custom. And we must be convinced that fidelity to this primary program of missionary activity can generate great difficulties, sometimes precluding its implementation and expansion: “Foolishness and scandal” (cf. 1 Cor 1, 18 ff. ) is our mission. But is it today, no less than at the beginning of Christian preaching, this its strength, this its wisdom? Even today, in practice, what forms an obstacle to evangelization in the earthly economy, that is, its spiritual character, can become its freedom from the material shackles of the economy, from the suspicion of colonialism, from the inefficiency of naturalism in the dialogue with the different civilizations.

Pre-Evangelization and Service

The question of dualism: evangelization, development, arises rather on the method; should precede evangelism or development? The answer cannot be unequivocal, but must be dictated by experience, by possibility, by vigilant and patient empiricism, in conformity with the apostolic genius and the needs of the various situations, always with a view to the efficacy and holiness of missionary activity (cf. Ad gentes divinitus, 6). We can envisage three moments: before, during, after evangelization, which always retains its essential and intentional priority, development, that is, the use of means of a temporal order, can have its own pastoral priority. We speak of pre-evangelization, that is, the approach of future Christians through charity, help, example, coexistence, presence. Then we talk about service: where the Gospel arrives, charity arrives; it is a testimony, simultaneous to evangelization, of its human validity: here are the schools, hospitals, social assistance, professional education; it is the prize that ultimately comes after evangelization, that is, the new art of living well.

To conclude, we will observe that, if the question of the dualism “evangelization and development” arises on the doctrinal level, in the comparison of the respective ends and in the hierarchy of intentions relating to them, it finds its answer in the definition of the conciliar Decree: “The proper end of missionary activity is evangelization and the establishment of the Church” ( Ad gentes divinitus , 6; cf. Fidei donum: AAS 49 (1957), p . 236 ) .
But on the practical level, those who have taken on the missionary commitment must be convinced that evangelization is also accomplished through activities aimed at the temporal and human development of the peoples to whom it is addressed. These activities can merge with evangelization when, elevated to the level of charity, they too have reason for the end, and also when, having reason as means, they can, in an executive way, precede and even complete the evangelizing work. This is what, referring especially to the laity, acquires great importance, called, as they are, to “seek the Kingdom of God by dealing with temporal things” ( Lumen gentium , 31), and since they can and must, “even when they are occupied with temporal affairs. . . exercise a precious action for the evangelization of the world” ( ibid., 35).

Need for Coordination

It then happens that the activity for development, coordinated with that of evangelization, also radiates a light of Christ, that of the concept of human dignity, of human rights, of freedom, of responsibility, of duty, of work, of social coexistence, of the good use of every value, even temporal; it illuminates the human scene and reveals its beauty, richness, honesty. And it also reveals the insufficiencies, the injustices, the ailments. .., that the new man, the Christian, now knows how to judge and how to remedy it. And development then takes advantage of it for progress, for unity, for justice and for peace (Cf. Ad gentes divinitus , 12, etc 627).

This is missionary activity: it proclaims the Gospel and opens the way to human development.

Should we spend more words now to recommend it to your prayers, to your generosity? Known, it makes itself an apology for it; but We, in the name of Christ our Lord, entrust it to your human and Christian intelligence, to your charity.
And to all of you, Missionaries and Friends of the Missions, We send Our Apostolic Blessing as wide as the horizon of the world.

From the Vatican, June 5, 1970

PAUL VI

Credit: Dicastery for Communication, to the Holy See