Pope Reaffirms Missionary Nature of Church

(17 May 08 -RV) In remarks to participants in the meeting of the Superior Council of the Pontifical Missionary Works today, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Church’s duty to spread the Gospel. We have this report... The Pontifical Missionary Works is the name of the consortium created to support the work of evangelization in non-Christian regions.

Involving the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, Pontifical Society of St. Peter the Apostle, Pontifical Society of the Holy Childhood and the Pontifical Missionary Union, the Works are dedicated to fostering cooperation in missionary work, serving both the local and universal Church.

The group works with local Church officials under the direction of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

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On Saturday, Pope Benedict told the participants in the meeting of the group’s Superior Council that Mission is a taska and a duty for all the particular Churches, on the nature and mission of which the Second Vatican Council profoundly reflected, recognizing their full dignity and missionary responsibility.

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Pope Benedict said the Pontifical Missionary Works are inserted into the new paradigms of evangelization and the new ecclesiological model of communion among the Churches. They are, said the Pope, the specific, privileged and principal instrument of education in the universal missionary spirit, for inter-ecclesial communion and co-operation in the service of the proclamation of the Gospel.

Saying it is love that must drive us to announce the truth that saves with courage and frankness to all humanity, since all humanity in fact yearns for Christ, Pope Benedict went on to cite Christ’s command to the apostles: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

The Holy Father said these words continue to be an obligatory mandate for the whole Church and for every single one of Christ’s faithful.

This apostolic commitment, said Pope Benedict, is a duty and also a right that no one may renounce, an expression of each person’s religious liberty, which has corresponding ethical-social and ethical-political dimensions.

I’m Chris Altieri.