Analysis A vision for the Americas: familiar themes, new details
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff
In terms of the big picture, John
Paul IIs vision statement for the Americas, officially unveiled during a
Jan. 23 Mass in Mexico City, offered few surprises. Some new and interesting
images emerged, however, in the details.
According to the statement, capitalism shorn of conscience, a
culture of death, and elements of disunity inside the church loom
as major challenges to the new evangelization the pontiff
seeks.
John Paul again emphasized his view of North, Central and South
America as one continent, calling on Catholics to surmount differences to
spread the gospel across borders.
In perhaps his most striking new touch, the pope distanced himself
from earlier demands for immediate Third World debt relief. He cited criticisms
from the synod that such demands were simplistic and unfairly placed blame for
the debt crisis entirely on First World lending agencies and their
neoliberal policies.
On inculturation, or how to adapt Christianity to different
cultures, John Paul suggested that the faithful themselves should shape church
policy. He also endorsed small Christian communities as a pastoral strategy for
sprawling urban parishes.
Presenting this 30,000 word Post Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation in Mexico City was the official purpose of John Pauls
January visit. The document is the popes synthesis -- some might suggest
his selective editing -- of themes that arose in 1997s Synod for America,
a gathering of the continents bishops in Rome.
The pope welcomed the growth of Eastern-rite Catholicism in the
Americas. He urged Eastern Catholics to maintain their traditions but did not
say whether this invitation might extend to the controversial practice of
ordaining married men. The Ruthenians, an Eastern-rite church from the Ukraine
with 167,000 members in North America, recently voted to begin ordaining
married men again. Rome asked for a delay in implementing the decision so it
could be studied.
Returning to familiar concerns, the pope criticized abortion and
euthanasia as symptoms of a culture that does not adequately protect the
marginalized. He also called for greater respect for immigrants, including
recognition of the natural right to move within ones country
and across national borders. He applauded the vast Catholic school system in
the Americas -- as long as there is a will to impart a truly Catholic
education.
In a comment sure to raise eyebrows both in traditional Latin
American circles where the ethos of machismo remains strong and among Catholics
dubious of the popes unyielding stance on womens ordination, John
Paul denounced all forms of male domination. He lamented the
disproportionate impact of poverty on women in the Americas and called for the
empowerment of women.
Though some Latin American Protestants may wince at his use of the
term sects to describe evangelical movements currently drawing
Catholic converts, the pope called ecumenical dialogue especially
urgent. He acknowledged that Americas Christian identity is
not synonymous with its Catholic identity. He complained that some
evangelical movements were using techniques to convert Catholics that involve
coercion.
The document offered scant evidence of any of the dissenting notes
on church policy sounded at the Synod for America. The only allusion to
proposals for ordaining married men as priests in the Latin rite, for example,
came in the popes instruction that American seminarians must be fit
to embrace celibacy.
There was likewise no overt reference to suggestions for a
decentralized approach to church governance voiced at the synod, especially by
several Canadian bishops. Instead, the document stressed the authority of the
bishops and the pope.
In most ways, economic concerns -- capitalism, globalization, work
and debt -- dominated. The pope identified rollbacks in public services,
environmental degradation and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor as
negative results of globalization.
One of the questions being raised as the pope set out on this trip
was the extent to which old wounds surrounding liberation theology might be
reopened -- especially given the tensions surrounding Bishop Samuel Ruiz
García and Catholics in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico, where
many have voiced sympathy for the ongoing Zapatista uprising.
During an in-flight news conference en route to Mexico, John Paul
warned indigenous peoples against adopting a Marxist vision, in
tones reminiscent of the Vatican campaign against liberation theology in the
1980s. Some commentators interpreted the popes remarks as an indirect
rebuke to Ruiz.
In his document, however, the pope picked up some of the language
of liberation theology, affirming repeatedly the preferential option for
the poor -- though he added that this option must not be
exclusive and called for greater efforts to evangelize the upper
strata of society as well. The pope argued that individual acts of charity must
be matched by uncovering the roots of evil and proposing initiatives to
make social, political and economic structures more just and
fraternal.
The pontiff endorsed suggestions from the synod for the church to
produce a catechism of social justice teaching in order to make the
churchs moral critique of social systems better known.
Yet on Third World debt relief, John Paul struck a different note.
He acknowledged that corruption and mismanagement in Third World nations often
play a major role in the debt problem. He said the church does not mean
to place on one side all the blame for a phenomenon which is extremely complex
in its origin and in the solutions which it demands. He called for
further study rather than swift cancellation of debt.
Conservatives are likely to be heartened by this more nuanced
stance. Fr. John Richard Neuhaus, who expressed doubts about calls for debt
relief from the Latin American bishops in his recent book about the synod,
Appointment in Rome, told the Associated Press that he thought John Paul struck
a good balance between capitalisms faults and its strong
points.
On inculturation, the pope suggested that the church should take
its cue from popular piety. America, which historically has been, and
still is, a melting pot of peoples, has recognized in the mestiza face of the
Virgin of Tepeyac ... an impressive example of a perfectly inculturated
evangelization, the pope said.
John Paul asked that Dec. 12 be celebrated across the continent as
the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The pope called for special sensitivity to the cultural legacies
of the continents indigenous peoples and its African-Americans (aside
from the U.S. African-American population, there are an estimated 40 million
persons of African descent in Brazil).
The pope also sketched a new model of urban parish, one in which
the parish becomes a community of communities and movements.
Picking up on comments at the synod, the pope supported the idea of small
groups of people within the parish that can provide true human
relationships.
National Catholic Reporter, February 5,
1999
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