Pope Francis And The Culture Of Encounter: From GaudiumetSpes To EvangeliiGaudium

 Cameroon Concord's Agbaw-Ebai Maurice Ashley (AMDG) presents the good, the better and the best of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

 A landmark metaphor that has emerged from the papacy of Pope Francis has been what Francis referred to as the culture of encounter. From his very first appearance at the balcony of St. Peter’s basilica on March 13^th 2013, Francis sought to enhance this culture of encounter in very significant gestures and words, such as his request for a blessing from the people of God gathered in the Piazza; his preference for the more accommodating title of Bishop of Rome; and his description of the relationship between bishop and people in terms of a communal pilgrimage. His choice to live at the DomusSanctaeMarthae was primarily motivated by his desire to encounter people, to live with people.

 One could view the actions and words of this first pope from the southern hemisphere and the Americas as a synthetic reconciliation of the ecclesiology of communion and the ecclesiology of the people of God, paradigms that need not be in dialectic tension but in an interesting relationship. Communion and People of God therefore serve as motivational forces for the culture of encounter, captured in these words of Francis: “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures.” (EG, 49). To realise this dream and vision needs solid principles of implementation, a challenge which this article takes up by critically putting forth principles that emerged out of the Second Vatican Council’s attempt at aggiornamento, a sharing with the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish, of the men and women of the modern world. 

 It is possible to observe that Francis symbolises a new reception of the spirit of Vatican II. Unlike his predecessors who participated at the Council, Francis received the Council as a local pastor and member of a continental conference of bishops that has been very active in meeting the needs of the poor, social injustice and exclusion, and rising evangelical Pentecostalism, rampant in the Latin America continent. Consequently, with specific reference to the question of dialogue and encounter, EvangeliiGaudium(EG) is Francis’ profound updating and post-modern aggiornamento of GaudiumetSpes (GS)

 EG is Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation of the Synod on the New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith, held in Rome from the 7^th to the 28^th of October 2012. Benedict XVI originally convoked this synod, in large part as an attempt at reinvigorating the faith that had grown cold in many parts of the ancient Western lands of Christianity. In its Final Propositions submitted to the Pope, the Synod participants short listed themes and challenges such as the Holy Trinity, source of the New Evangelization; the New Evangelization and Inculturation; the Proclamation of the Gospel; the New Evangelization as a permanent missionary dimension of the church; Witnessing in a secularized world; the Right to proclaim and to hear the gospel; et cetera.

 With the historic resignation of Benedict XVI on the 11^th of February 2013, these Propositions were taken over by Francis. What is new and unique about EG is the highly personalized way in which Francis puts forth the fruits of the Synod to the church and the world. One finds a great shift from the Roman style of documents, encountering in EG a pastor’s heart with a Latin America humour of images that captivate the mind. Humour also abounds in the document of Francis. In the final analysis, EG could very well be on the way to becoming the magna cartaof Francis’ papacy, with its central theological metaphor of the culture of encounter as the dominant pastoral hermeneutical principle

 As a side comment, one might remark that from Marcel Lefebvre to present, some have, and continue to give the impression that the Church after GS with its predominant Thomistic anthropological optimism was a betrayal of the mission and identity of the Church. Dialogue with the world came to be understood as conceding to the anti-Christian forces that were unleashed by the French Revolution and the Enlightenment. To “dialogue” with the world of Voltaire, Montesquieu, and the other philosophes was a triumph of the Tour Eiffel over the basilica of Notre Dame! It marked the triumph of the goddess of reason over the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel and Jesus of Nazareth.

 However, the Church of the twenty-first century is challenged not only to rediscover the dialogical model brought about by the GS and updated by Francis as the culture of encounter, but to reenergize it and bring it to bear in the new frontiers which socio-economic and even political factors have generated with often calamitous consequences in the world of today, for “until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence.”(EG, 59). What are some possible features of dialogue as brought out by EG?

 To Francis, Christian dialogue and the culture of encounter is primarily Christological, understood not in the sense of arguments from dogma, useful as that might be, but in that in Jesus Christ, we have experienced God’s love first, and because of that love of God in Christ, we are called to reach out to others (EG, 9). To Francis, we cannot fail to share the love that we have received. Love is another name for Christology, to Pope Francis.

 Furthermore, the culture of encounter and dialogue is basically evangelical in character, for the “gospel offers us the chance to live life on a higher plane, but with no less intensity (…) When the Church summons Christians to take up the task of evangelization, she is simply pointing to the source of authentic personal fulfilment.” (EG, 10). Such evangelical thrust is universal in orientation, bridging distances and calling on pastors to take on the “smell of the sheep” (EG, 24). It calls on the Church implies letting go of the securities of institutionalism and protectionism. It invites the Church to dare to enter into the zone of the unknown, into the periphery of insecurity, of the new, of the sufferings and brokenness of men and women, into the zones of pain, searching, wonder, frustration, fear, anxiety, at the same time, joy, hope, love, and community. Dialogue and encounter in this universalist outreach calls on the Church to be supportive especially of those who cannot standthemselves. It demands patience and the ability to endure from the Church, after the example of Jesus who was patient in seeking out the lost sheep (Mark 2:17).

 In addition, the culture of encounter is also about the primacy of the human person. This consciousness about the dignity of the human being also places the Church on the side of advocating for an end to all forms of slavery and human trafficking, especially of young girls and women who are turned into sexual commodities. The primacy of the human person as a path for the culture of encounter summons the Church to a leadership position in advocating for the emancipation of women and for the respect of the rights of women as equal partners to men, especially in many parts of Africa and Asia wherein women are treated as second-class persons. The primacy of the human person also challenges the Church to be at the forefront of advocating for the unborn, for as Pope Francis argues in EG, “this defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development.” (EG, 213). This commitment to the protection of the unborn also challenges the Church to see to it that concrete and substantial support is offered to women in crises pregnancies. It also invites the Church to advocate for the dignity of the elderly, the infirm, the mentally challenged and the disabled, especially in today’s throwaway culture mentality.

 Going further, Francis’ culture of encounter is about the structural transformation of the Church. A Church that goes out in dialogue and is eager to encounter the other is a Church that is willing to be transformed, that is opened to new ways to proceeding, thinking and acting. To engage in dialogue demands a willingness to be influenced by the other. Francis’ creation of an Economic Council for the Holy See; a Committee on the Protection of Children; and the imminent general overhauling of the Roman Curia, are positive steps of bringing the Church abreast with the times. As he says in an almost “I Have a Dream” tone of Martin Luther King Jr, “I dream of a ‘missionary option,’ that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than her self-preservation” (EG, 27). For this structural transformation to take place there must be in the Church the determination and readiness to embrace change, to allow the status quo to be challenged and transformed. It might demand also the giving up of certain privileges, systemicand individual benefits for the sake of the common good of the Church.

 The culture of encounter of Francis is also about communication, inviting the Church into a profound examination of the modes and manner of engagement on the part of the Church, with the world. As Pope Francis remarks, “in her on-going discernment, the Church can also come to see that certain customs not directly connected to the heart of the Gospel, even some of which have deep historical roots, are no longer properly understood and appreciated. Some of these customs may be beautiful, but they no longer serve as means of communicating the Gospel. We should therefore re-examine them” (EG, 43). While I am of the opinion that the novelty of interviews by Francis should include an active role by Fr. Lombardi in order to minimise certain embarrassing fall-outs, there is no doubt that this is a genuine contribution by Francis to the task of witnessing to the gospel of joy.

 Moreover, the culture of encounter is about confronting social injustices in society, for EG declares that “each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully part of society” (EG, 187). A culture of encounter calls the Church to be actively engaged in eliminating what Francis refers to in Chapter two of EG as an economy of exclusion and the idolatry of money, a financial system that rules instead of serving. Such a concrete engagement will constitute a meaningful proclamation of the gospel especially in a continent like Africa that is often excluded from the economic privileges of the world. Francis maintains that “until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence” (EG, 59). Dialogue and encounter with the world of economics and politics is an intrinsic part of the post-modern summons to a culture of encounter. If the Church does not participate actively in the struggle to eliminate economic and political exclusion through prophetic witnessing and encounter, it risk becoming an irrelevant social club without a moral and spiritual authority, a club that has atrophied its will.

 Likewise, the culture of encounter is about a spirituality of reconciliation in the internal life of the Church. What is said regarding the world applies likewise to the internal life of the church, for as Francis sadly remarks in EG, “it always pains me greatly to discover how some Christian communities, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, even to persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?” (EG, 99).

 More so, the culture of encounter is about ecclesial humility. The church engages the other because the church shares the world with the other, and so the other must be considered a serious and respectful interlocutor. The church engages the other because the church is aware that it cannot provide all the answers to the varied and complex situations and issues that plague humankind. The church is eager to encounter the other person or culture because the church is willing to learn from the experiences of the other. The church engages the other in dialogue because the church is aware that it has to take every culture and people seriously, in the vulnerable process of Inculturation. The church engages the other because the church is willing to embrace new paradigms and models, sometimes in the manner of organic development; other times, in a spirit of a genuine novelty and new beginning. Both ways of perceiving development and change have a space in the church.

 In recapitulation, the culture of encounter and dialogue demands no placing of any a priori conditions before engaging the other, after the example of Christ, who welcomed all who came to him and reached out to all, good and bad alike, is a model that has to be rediscovered and given a place of primacy and pre-eminence above all doctrinal securities.