ECCLESIA IN ASIA World Mission Sunday, seen from India

Tomorrow, Sunday, the Church celebrates throughout the world a day whose center is the proclamation of the Gospel to those who do not yet know Jesus. The reflection of the director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in India: “What is missionary conversion today, in the midst of the wounds of our scandals and the hostility of fundamentalists?”.

New Delhi () – On October 23, churches around the world celebrate World Mission Sunday. For this quote, Pope Francis spread a message entitled “So that you may be my witnesses” (Acts 1,8), which belongs in the first person to the Churches of Asia. According to data from the Statistical Dossier, which, like every year, is released by Agenzia Fides on the eve of Mission Day, Asia is by far the continent with the lowest percentage of Catholics: 151,867,000 out of 4,450 million inhabitants, that is, only 3.34% of the population. But it is interesting that Asia has a very high number of priests in relation to its inhabitants: on the continent there is one priest for every 2,138 Catholics; the only continent that has more is Europe (one for every 1,746 Catholics) but the average age of the clergy is much higher.

This is one of the elements on the basis of which the Churches of Asia question how to relaunch their missionary witness. In this sense, we propose below a reflection that, on the occasion of World Mission Day, has been sent to us by Father Ambrose Pitchaimuthu, director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in India. The text addresses what it means today to live in the perspective of a missionary conversion, particularly for the Indian Church, which deals with the intolerance of Hindu fundamentalism to all forms of Christian witness, but also with some challenges within the Christian community.

The Church exists as long as the mission exists. The Church is called to be a continuation of the mission of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The great task that the Risen One entrusts to his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19) is a fundamental, vital and perennial element of the Church.

In Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis revolutionizes the vision of mission, emphasizing that each one of us not only “has” a mission, but is a mission. The Holy Father shifts the focus from the functionality (doing) to the ontology (being) of the Christian.

We thus understand that the mission of the Church is to respond to the realities of life with the joy of the Gospel, through dialogue and works of mercy, to build the kingdom of God.

The challenges facing the Church in India today are internal and external, and this also means rethinking mission.

Internal challenges:

– The lack of missionary models: the faithful sometimes do not see credible role models among priests and consecrated persons who can challenge and inspire them to announce the joy of the Gospel to others. Recent scandals in some parts of our country have terribly tarnished the image of the Church in India, especially for people of other faiths who may already view its mission as suspect.

– The scandalous commercialization of our institutions: there is an erosion of credibility among some priests and consecrated persons because some of our institutions (educational, medical, etc.) can seem like companies focused on making money and seeking academic excellence at the expense of Christian values. Inadvertently or not, some Christian institutions find themselves trapped in a competitive arena where only success counts and not means.

– The wounds of the past: certain wounds such as discrimination based on caste, tribalism, the distinction between ethnic groups, the supremacy of rituals (even among Christian traditions), create a kind of mental block for those who seek Christ and for those who look at us from the outside, making our approach to the propagation of the faith something animated by the same intentions. This has negative effects, and leads to the suspicion of bad faith during our awareness programs.

External challenges:

– Persecution of the Christian minority: the increasing episodes of violence and attacks on priests and religious, churches and institutes, have today created a psychosis of fear among Christians. Sometimes parents are afraid to send their children to mission territories in our country. The growing intolerance calls into question the fundamental values ​​of the Indian Constitution and democratic traditions.

– Religious fundamentalism: Many have reduced our great spiritual heritage of religious tolerance to fundamentalist ideologies, to manipulate reality according to their own whims and fantasies, deceiving simple people who fall prey to them. The Hindu Rashtra built by Hindutva, Hindu nationalism and Islamist states are clear examples of these attempts.

– Planned efforts to tarnish the image of the Church: There have been planned efforts to tarnish the good image of love and service of the Church and church personnel. Situations are sometimes created to drag priests and religious into controversial debates and their opinions are used to accuse them in discussions. Other times, they are drawn into anti-Christian and anti-Catholic movements that misunderstand their humanitarian enthusiasm. Even small mistakes can prove fatal when magnified by traditional media or social media.

Faced with all this, the great challenge that lies ahead is to transform a pastoral Church into a missionary Church. The Church for the poor and of the poor invoked by Pope Francis would be the most powerful witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. We need new people like Mother Teresa, who quietly but tangibly translated the message of Christ into action, versus many others who tried to affirm the uniqueness and nobility of the Christian message through a purely intellectual exercise.

The mission can no longer be conceived as before. It is necessary to understand the mission in a new dimension, taking into account this context. We cannot deny that the Church has faced all these challenges at different times. However, it is about continuing the path of transformation of the Catholic Church into a missionary Church.

As Pope Francis writes in Evangelii Gaudium (nº 27) a “missionary option” is necessary, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the traditions, the ways of doing things, the times and schedules, the languages ​​and the very structures of the Church can be duly channeled for the evangelization of the current world and not for its conservation.

* National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in India

(with the collaboration of Nirmala Carvalho)

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