266.2 C8?m 66-00351 

Couturier 

The mission of the church 



266.2 

Couturier $3,50 

The mission of the church 



66-00351 




KANSASCITY, MO. PUBLIC LIBRARY 




D ODD1 



THE MISSION OF 
THE CHURCH 



The Mission of 
the Church 

CHARLES COUTURIER, SJ. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
BY A. V. LITTLEDALE 



HELICON PRESS 

BALTIMORE 



HELICON PRESS 
5305 EAST DRIVE, BALTIMORE 27, MD 



ENGLISH TRANSLATION (5) DARTON, LONGMAN & TODD LTD, 
AND HELICON PRESS, INC., 1960 

First published in France under the title 
'Mission de I'figlise' by Editions de I'Orante, 

Paris 1957 
This English edition first published 1960 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO: 59.9914 



PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS 
LTD., GATESHEAD ON TYNE. NIHIL OBSTAT HUBERTUS 
RICHARDS, S.T.L., L.S.S., CENSOR DEPUTATUS. IM- 
PRIMATUR E. MORROGH BERNARD, VIC. GEN. WEST- 
MONASTERII, DIE 26A JANUARH, 1959 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION vti 

PREFACE XV 

INTRODUCTION Xvil 

Chapter I 

THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION I 

MISSION OF THE DIVINE PERSONS I 

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 3 

'THE MISSIONS' 8 

Chapter II 

BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 12 

HOW THE CHURCH IS PRESENTED 15 

PEOPLES AND CULTURES 21 

PREPARING MEN FOR THE FAITH 30 

PREACHING THE WORD OF GOD 37 

THE LIFE TO BE FOSTERED 44 

Chapter III 

INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 52 

MINGLING OF CULTURES 58 



PAG! 

IE CHURCH AND FAMILY LIFE 64 

3E CHURCH AND SOCIAL LIFE 77 

IE CHURCH AND POLITICAL LIFE 86 

JTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE 98 

Chapter IV 

TH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 103 

/ANGELIZE OR HUMANIZE 103 

iE CHRISTIAN FAMILY 112 

IE CLERGY 117 

:VING WATER 122 

EW FORMS ,128 

,USION 133 

}GRAPHY 143 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



.re indebted to His Eminence the Cardinal, Archbishop oi 
nster and Messrs. Burns Gates & Washbourne Ltd. foi 
from the late Monsignor R. A. Knox's translation of the 
Messrs. Sheed & Ward Ltd. and Sheed & Ward Inc. New 
>r extracts from Religion and Culture by Jacques Maritain, 
;d in America in Essays in Order ed. by Christopher Dawson 
Burns, copyright 1939 Sheed & Ward Inc. 



INTRODUCTION TO 
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION 

BY THE VERY REV. M. J. WALSH, S. M. A. 

WITH the rapid missionary expansion of the 
Church and the increasing number of Ency- 
clicals and Papal pronouncements regarding 
the spread of the Gospel in pagan lands, every new work 
dealing with missionary theology is a welcome addition, 
but more particularly one in English. The dearth of 
material on this subject in the English language, out of 
all proportion to the number of English-speaking 
missionaries, presents a curious anomaly, and makes 
this translation of Charles Couturier's Mission de 
rglise a book that will supply a long-felt need. 

In his Introduction, the writer acknowledges a debt 
of gratitude to Father de Menasce, O.P., without the aid 
of whose valuable manuscript notes, constant criticism, 
authoritative advice and, above all, inspiration, the book 
would never have been written. At the 1955 Conference 
of Ecclesiastical Studies held in England, I had the 
pleasure of meeting Father de Menasce, who came from 
Paris to read one of the papers. Even our informal 
discussions on missionary work revealed his extensive 
knowledge of the cultural and social problems affecting 
the evangelization of new territories, and his deep con- 

vii 



Vlil THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

cern about the chaos which a clash of cultures could 
bring about unless they were harmoniously fused. I 
knew at once that here was a book worth studying, and 
I was not disappointed. 

Charles Couturier explains that in spite of the constant 
stream of works devoted to missionary theology, many 
possessing considerable merit, most suffer from being 
restricted to a part of the mission field, and appear as 
isolated monographs. The comparatively few textbooks 
which aim at co-ordinating the various materials are 
generally too analytical in treatment to give an overall 
picture of the principles governing missionary activity. 
The special merit of this book is that it attempts to 
supply a comprehensive view of the Church's missionary 
function. 

The author does not offer an exhaustive or text-book 
treatment, but his very readable presentation adequately 
outlines the problems confronting modern missionary 
endeavour. He takes full account of the fact that 
peoples are no longer culturally static, but the influence 
of Western Society and of the Church itself is inevitably 
playing an important role in shaping the destiny of new 
countries, and effecting, as a consequence, consciously 
or unconsciously, a religious, social, educational and 
political ferment. All this, and the rising tide of 
national aspirations, makes the task of the present-day 
missionary more delicate than that of his predecessors. 

The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel to 
every creature, to establish the Kingdom of God where 
it has not yet penetrated or where it has not been fully 



INTRODUCTION IX 

developed, and to make divine life accessible to new 
peoples by translating the message of the eternal Word 
into their language and culture. The Church, in its 
efforts to accomplish this, is viewed by the writer, 
through the eyes of the Gospel, as the great Tree sprung 
from a grain of mustard seed. The missionary is 
visualized as the gardener whose task it is not only to 
graft on new main branches, but to ensure that the 
graft takes properly and that good fruit is" produced. 
This grafting process may be called adaptation. While 
Christ is the Master Gardener and the fruit ultimately 
depends on the flow of sanctifying grace, it has been left 
to the Hierarchical organization of the Church to specify 
the precise means of establishing contact with peoples, 
to watch over this grafting process so that they may 
better understand Christ's message and the Christian 
way of life. 

The Church itself, we know, was not an entirely new 
creation, and the principles of adaptation have always 
governed its missionary activity. We read in the 
Gospels how understandingly Christ accommodated 
His heavenly doctrine to the mental capacity of His 
hearers. The early Church, which had taken root in 
Palestine, did not hesitate to enrich its tradition by 
drawing on the cultures of many peoples. Ecclesiastical 
law bears the imprint of the Roman Empire, theologians 
borrowed from Greek philosophy, and Christian artists 
found inspiration in their pagan environment. Usages 
connected with the cult of local deities were purified, 
and while the material elements remained the same, the 



X THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

prayers which consecrated them to idols were eliminated 
and replaced by invocations in the name of God and 
His saints. 

During the post-Renaissance period especially during 
the age of discovery a change of approach to the 
evangelization of pagan peoples could be discerned. For 
a variety of reasons, political, economic or sometimes 
from lack of knowledge, it generally became the fashion 
to suppose that all non- Western culture was crude and 
barbarous and had to be uprooted. This misplaced zeal 
for their own culture caused colonizers and missionaries 
to forget that the human qualities of people are the gift 
of God Himself, that knowledge of the moral law was 
not the sole prerogative of Christians, but was imprinted 
on the fleshy tablets of every man's heart. Yet in spite 
of an Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Propa- 
ganda in the seventeenth century, which urged mission- 
aries not to reject or impair the usages of new peoples 
except in so far as they were corrupt, but rather to 
preserve and protect them, in spite of the example and 
pleadings of such apostolic men as Father de Nobili in 
India and Matteo Ricci in China, the practice of impos- 
ing the supposedly superior pattern of their own Western 
culture on conquered peoples was continued. 

The difficulties of those early missionaries, however, 
must be appreciated. In the face of so much * fetish* 
worship, it was not easy to realize that beneath the cult 
of shapeless divinities which thirsted for blood, even 
human blood, beneath the seeming jumbled mass of 
distortion and contradiction, beneath the ritual dances 



INTRODUCTION XI 

and even the orgies, lay a chain of doctrine and often a 
complex religious system. It is often ignorance rather 
than perversion which is responsible for the errors in 
pagan moral judgments, for without the aid of super- 
natural light, the notion of right and wrong may 
become clouded by custom, concupiscence or expediency. 
Our predecessors in the field, it should be remembered, 
had not the benefit of ethnographic or missiological 
studies which have helped to make intelligible for us 
many conflicting beliefs and customs, and have opened 
the door to a greater appreciation of the intrinsic and 
spiritual values of indigenous cultural traditions. 

No one would deny the importance of a sympathetic 
approach to existing pagan cultures where the whole 
religious and social background of the people to be con- 
tacted is different from that of the missionaries. Never- 
theless, the bearer of God's message should not fall into 
the error of some anthropologists and try to explain all 
difficulties in terms of culture contact. It is true, as 
Charles Couturier states it, that inhuman social condi- 
tions and the struggle against injustice and destitution 
can hinder access to the Christian life, and the mission- 
ary must be actively concerned with setting right 
elements of native culture which are at variance with 
the moral law. Yet we cannot conclude that success in 
preaching the Gospel will come only after the cultural 
and social evils have been put right. Humanization 
does not necessarily precede evangelization. 

The missionary must also guard against the other 
extreme in thinking that the Church, allied to a partial- 



Xll THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

lar culture in so far as it lives and expresses it, makes 
no impression because of its Western garb. He may 
feel that the Church should be restored to its primitive 
universality, which in effect would mean taking on a 
new and individual culture that is, humanizing the 
Church before evangelizing the people. But the Church, 
as Charles Couturier points out, is not a purely human 
institution, and its contact with people is more than a 
meeting of cultures. Grace can be communicated, and 
the word of God heard, as we know from the Gospel 
and the history of the early Church, before cultural 
differences have been smoothed over. Since Christian 
morality is illuminated by Revelation and completely 
penetrated by grace, and grace takes hold of every facet 
of human life, the Church by its temporal action aims 
not only at creating conditions useful or indispensable 
to its supernatural action, but also at impregnating the 
temporal sphere with a specifically Christian spirit. 

Charles Couturier presents the Church as a living 
organism possessing a dynamic equilibrium which makes 
it capable of change provided its essential structure is 
preserved. In so far as the Church, without ceasing to 
be Divine, is a human society, its actual way of life 
reflects man's way of thinking. All tradition is not 
dogma, every custom is not sacrosanct, even if both the 
one and the other are orthodox and beneficial. There is 
room for adaptation, in which he outlines three main 
elements: Divine Revelation, the objective content of 
Christian dogma which is universal in its application 
and admits of no modification; at the opposite ends to 



INTRODUCTION Xlll 

this is the human cultural expression of that objective 
reality which is changeable and multiform and refers to 
extra-liturgical feasts, sacred art, family customs, etc.; in 
between these two, the writer places ecclesiastical tradi- 
tion which intimately binds the human elements to the 
Divine. It does not exclude all variety, and its unity is 
compatible with plurality of forms, as in varying 
liturgies, the new Paschal Vigil, etc. It is clear, there- 
fore, as Father Voss states it, that while the essence of 
Christianity which is of Divine origin can admit of no 
accommodation, yet, under Divine Providence, the 
human and consequently accidental development is not 
of metaphysical or universal value but admits of change 
and modification. 

This compact volume, so richly interspersed with 
references from Scripture and examples from the history 
of the Church, presenting in concentrated form the 
principles, methods, merits and dangers of adaptation 
and its concrete application to the liturgy of the Church, 
family and social customs and political institutions, 
will be welcomed, I feel, not only by missionaries whose 
specific task is to preach the Faith among non-Christian 
peoples, but by all; for the spread of the Gospel is the 
duty of everyone who has the interest of Christ at heart. 

The book may well be described as an extended para- 
phrase of the words of the late Pope Pius XII in 
Summi Pontificatus, where he says that the Church, the 
faithful depository of the teaching of Divine wisdom, 
cannot and does not think of depreciating or disdaining 
the particular characteristics which each people, with 



THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

jealous and intelligible pride, cherish and retain as a 
precious heritage. Her aim is a supernatural union in 
all-embracing love, deeply felt and practised, and not 
the unity which is external and superficial and, by that 
very fact, weak. 

The Pope reminds us that the Church has shown in 
her missionary enterprises that such a principle of action 
is the guiding star of her universal apostolate. Pioneer 
research and investigation, involving sacrifice, devoted- 
ness and love on the part of her missionaries, have been 
undertaken in order to facilitate a more deeply appreci- 
ative insight into the most varied civilizations and to 
put their spiritual values to account for a living and vital 
preaching of the Gospel of Christ. 'The Church has 
never disdained the doctrines held by pagans, but in- 
stead, after freeing them from all admixture of error, has 
completed and perfected them by the work of Christian 
wisdom/ All those who enter the Church, whatever be 
their origin or their speech, must know that they have 
equal rights as children in the house of the Lord, where 
the law of Christ and the peace of Christ prevail. 



PREFACE 

FOR many years, there has been a constant stream 
of works devoted to missionary theology and, in 
particular, missionary action, and many o them 
ave considerable merit. Most, however, have the draw- 
ack o being restricted to a part of the field, and appear 
s monographs on isolated subjects. The few text-books 
rhich aim at co-ordinating the various materials are 
DO analytical in treatment to give a comprehensive 
iew of the Church's missionary function. 

I have been tempted to supply this comprehensive 
iew, and may be judged, by the result, to have been 
ver-ambitious. However that may be, I would point 
ut that this book lays no claim to be a treatise on 
lissiology. As matters stand at present, both the 
bject and bounds of that science have yet to be fixed; 
nd, in any case, some questions, in my view essential, 
re only touched upon here. 

My aim is the modest one of clarifying the theological 
rinciples and sociological laws which combine to 
overn missionary action, of tracing the elaborate link- 
ge of its different facets, and of setting each problem 
a the context of the whole life of the Church. The 
implified treatment needs expansion in a great variety 
f directions. It is purposely brief so that the reader 
aay embrace the missionary Church in a single view, 

xv 



XVI THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

and learn to see the detailed problems in their true 
light. 

I must not fail to acknowledge my debt to Father de 
Menasce, O.P. This work would never have been written 
if he had not inspired it, if he had not shown me his 
valuable manuscript notes, and aided me by his con- 
stant criticism and authoritative advice. Whatever value 
it may have it owes to him. 



INTRODUCTION 

Yo u, therefore, must go out, making disciples of 
all nations' (Mt. 28: 19). There was a time 
when the Church might have believed she had 
fulfilled this injunction, but the sixteenth-century explor- 
ers of America, Africa and Asia opened out an immense 
field of action whose existence was hitherto scarcely 
suspected. The Church suddenly became aware that it 
comprised only a minority of the human race, and set 
itself vigorously to spread the Gospel throughout the 
new continents. Its success did not match its early 
expectations. All races, indeed, had their Christian 
members, but their number still remains slight in rela- 
tion to the masses of the unconverted. 

Consequently, doubt arose as to the whole manner of 
approach, and as to whether the methods used should 
not be revised. On reflection, it became more and more 
evident, particularly in the last half-century, that this 
could not be resolved independently of the wider prob- 
lem of the true end of missionary action, of the precise 
need it was meant to fill. This, it was said, was 'to 
make Christians where there had been only pagans' 
a formula which certainly conveyed the Church's mind 
from its beginning, but yet left some uncertainty. 

To be * Christian ' means to acknowledge Christ to be 
the incarnate Son of God, the one Saviour of the human 

xvii B 



XV111 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

race; it means receiving the light of his message, 
accepting the seal of his Baptism, and being thereby 
incorporated into his Church, in order to receive the 
communication of his life. 

Destined, as it is, to continue the work of its Head, 
the Church is modelled on him. By its mystical union 
with Christ, it bears in itself his divine life, and conveys 
it through the sacraments committed to the hierarchy. 
Thus it is at once invisible and visible; under these two 
aspects, which cannot be dissociated, it is essentially a 
mystery of the supernatural order. 

Through its members, and the mission entrusted to 
them of proclaiming Christ and bringing men to live 
by him, the Church comes to be linked with cultures 
that are the outward expression of the life of all kinds 
of peoples. For it has to translate the eternal Word 
into their tongues to make it accessible to them, and to 
intervene, more or less directly, in the social, economic 
and political problems of the world to illuminate them 
by the light of eternity. In that way, though not 'of 
the world', it is a social entity, one entirely orientated 
to its supernatural end. 

These two functions expression of the Word and 
social action though bound up with the supernatural 
work of the Church, are not to be confused with it; they 
are only particular conditions of its performance, and 
are due to the fact that the Church, while living 
essentially by the very life of Christ, acts on men by 
men who are its rulers and members. 

Consequently, what characterizes the Christian as 



INTRODUCTION 

such is his participation in the life of Christ. This is 
not just a superstructure added to his natural life with- 
out changing it in any way; but, penetrating it while 
remaining distinct, it works in it a transformation which 
enables him to live his whole life on the supernatural 
level. The Christian is, none the less, liable to short- 
comings, either through failure to direct a part of his 
actions towards God, or through wilful sin. Though, 
in itself, his spiritual ascent depends essentially on the 
grace given to him and his reception of it, it depends 
too, in a certain way, on the actual environment of his 
life. The Christian is, after all, a human being, and, 
as such, subject to the social influences that bear on 
him. Apart from special grace, his ascent will be 
facilitated or hindered according as the Christians 
around him more or less faithfully express the divine 
message, show its effect on the most concrete details of 
life, and draw him, by their example, to take up a fully 
Christian "attitude. 

Are we, by contrast, to consider as a 'pagan' anyone 
whose life is not enlightened by Christ? It is tempting 
to apply the term in this way, yet, despite its elasticity, 
it is inappropriate. Jews and Moslems know and adore 
the true God, and accept his Revelation; what they lack 
is its fulness, and so they are commonly called by Chris- 
tians 'infidels'. Over against them are the 'atheists', 
who reject God absolutely; but it may be that those who 
claim this title reject only a vain idol, since, in fact, 
their idea of God is false and inadmissible; in their 
fidelity to the Good as they see it, they render secret 



XX THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

homage to the true God. Between these extremes lies a 
vast field where numerous religions, varying in purity, 
arouse in their adherents some sense of adoration and 
prayer, of justice and charity, but in an obscure manner, 
gropingly, and with an admixture of error. 

The spiritual values accessible to the non-Christian 
vary according to the particular cultural group of which 
he forms a part and according to his own personal 
dispositions. It is impossible to tell how far he is capable 
of advancing in the knowledge and love of God by means 
of symbols that are inherently defective, hiding from 
him the light while, at the same time, allowing it to 
filter through. He is, like the Christian, one of the 
'redeemed 7 ; the blood of Christ flowed for him, and 
merited for him forgiveness and grace. Even though 
he does not acknowledge Christ as his Lord and God, 
because the means for doing so have not been given 
him, he is not thereby deprived of the graces necessary 
for his salvation. He is offered them, and, if his response 
is generous, he lives already with a genuinely super- 
natural life. 

The division between Christians and non-Christians is 
thus seen to be far less profound than is commonly 
imagined, since both the one and the other may share 
in the divine life, and are capable of losing it. It might 
even appear that this life is offered to all men by the 
mediation of Christ alone, without the Church having 
to play any active part other than making known the 
source to those unaware of it, and gathering together 
those who do know. In that case, the preaching of 



INTRODUCTION 

Christ by the Church would no longer be urgently 
necessary, and would seem to be dangerous rather than 
useful; for there is no doubt that it disquiets the con- 
science of many who have lived long in ignorance of 
Christ. There are men of good will we confine our- 
selves to them who have striven to be faithful to their 
interior lights, and, at the same time, to their inherited 
religious traditions, when a missionary arrives to tell 
them they have been living in darkness and error. 
From their point of view, he is a foreigner coming to 
cast doubt on the ancestral wisdom and, still more, on 
the spiritual way they have been following. It may be 
that, confident in their own experience, they close their 
minds to his message. Or else it may happen that they 
acknowledge the justice of his criticism of their religion. 
In this case, the unsettlement of their minds could lead 
them in very different directions : it could open them to 
Christ, or shut them up in agnosticism or even atheism. 
If the religion by which they thought themselves to live 
were open to doubt, could not the same be said of all 
the others? An access of light does not facilitate salva- 
tion so much as increase responsibility, for God, who is 
just, judges men according to the gifts they have 
received. Consequently, the conclusion is sometimes 
drawn that it is better to leave men in good faith than, 
by preaching the Gospel, to cause them serious 
disturbance. 

But that would show a failure to understand why 
Christ founded the Church and commanded the 
apostles to evangelize and baptize the nations. It would 



THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

be to misunderstand, too, the Incarnation of the Word 
and his Redemption, * to the Jews a discouragement, to 
the Gentiles mere folly' (i Cor. i : 23); and to lose the 
sense of the mystery of salvation. 

By an absolutely unmerited gift of the love of God, 
man is called to enter, by participation, the very life 
of the Blessed Trinity, a destiny beyond his natural 
reach; moreover, he has turned away from it by sin, 
and is unable to take a single step towards its fulfilment 
unless God takes the initiative. To save himself means 
to accept the gift of God and surrender to his love. It 
is not for him to impose a measure on the gifts of God; 
he must accept them or perish. The danger is great, 
for the divine love makes formidable demands, but it 
is, too, the precious pearl of great price whose possession 
alone can fill the needs of man (Mt. 13: 45-46). 

The missionary activity of the Church is to be under- 
stood only in the light of God's plan for the human 
race. Once this is made clear, it will be possible to 
determine the laws of its origin and growth, and to 
see the obstacles it has to surmount. 



THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION 

IN the sphere of salvation, the initiative comes 
entirely from God, and so we have to find out what 
he expects of us; no one is entitled to assume the 
power of directing our destiny, unless he has received 
it from God. But how could we direct our course 
unaided? God, had he judged it good, could doubtless 
have confined himself to speaking to each in the depths 
of the heart; in fact, he chose a way more conformable 
to the nature with which he had endowed man: 'In 
old days, God spoke to our fathers in many ways and 
by many means, through the prophets; now at last in 
these times he has spoken to us with a Son to speak for 
him; a Son, whom he has appointed to inherit all things ' 
(Heb. i : 1-2). That is the salient fact in the history of 
mankind, the primary Mission of which all others are 
either the preparation or the fulfilment. 

Mission of the Divine Persons 

God made himself one of us; that was the means of 
salvation devised by the love of the Trinity. Through 
the Incarnation, the divine Light itself shines in the 
world (Jn. i : 5). Consequently, the revelation given 



2 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

was bound to be definitive and complete; it comprises 
all truth and admits no error. It is not just a theory 
brought by Christ to the world, alongside so many 
others. The Good Tidings with which he was entrusted 
are that 'God so loved the world that he gave up his 
only-begotten Son, so that those who believe in him 
may not perish, but may have eternal life' (Jn. 3: 16). 
He is himself our salvation; for he is the Way every 
man has to travel to ascend to God, the Truth which 
enlightens the world, the Life which triumphs over 
death and draws mankind after him in his resurrection. 
As 'missionary of God', he claims nothing for him- 
self, but, in everything, conforms to the intentions of 
the Father: 'The learning which I impart is not my 
own, it comes from him who sent me ' (Jn. 7 : 16); 'The 
Son cannot do anything at his own pleasure, he can only 
do what he sees his Father doing; what the Father does 
is what the Son does in his turn ' (Jn. 5 : 19); ' My meat 
is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish 
the task he gave me y (Jn. 4: 34). In return, the Father 
bears him witness (Jn. 6: 44-45; 8: 18), and gives him 
all power on heaven and earth. The salvation of men 
depends on the attitude they take up in regard to him : 
'He who believes in the Son possesses eternal life, 
whereas he who refuses to believe in the Son will never 
see life; God's displeasure hangs over him continually ' 

(Jn- 3^ 36). 

As the 'one mediator' (i Tim. 2: 5), Christ alone 
possesses the power to make us * children of God ' (Jn. i : 
12). The sole Saviour, he offers himself as a sacrifice 



THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION 3 

for all men, so redeeming them from sin, and gaining 
for them access to God. No one can add anything to 
the perfection of his work; but, to gain its fruits, man 
has himself to take on freely the entire offering made in 
his name by Christ. 'To bring together into one all 
God's children, scattered far and wide ' (Jn. 1 1 : 52), the 
Incarnate Word, in his turn, sent out missionaries, the 
Spirit and the Church. 

The Spirit "will bear witness' to Christ (Jn. 15: 26). 
He does not speak of himself, and has no other message 
than that of Christ (Jn. 16: 13). But the divine Word 
had come up against carnal minds, where it was almost 
doomed to sterility; the Spirit penetrates within them 
to open them out and make the Word fertile. With 
unexampled force, he breaks in upon the world to spread 
abroad the Church planted by Christ (Acts 9: 13), and 
to form it into the perfect body of Christ. His essential 
mission is to penetrate it with charity, that is, to make 
it participate in the movement of love by which the 
divine Persons give themselves to each other in a perfect 
gift. So the Church is made capable of responding 
duly to the full gift which Christ made to it of himself; 
it is drawn in to the life of the Trinity. 

The Mission of the Church 

The Church brings the effective antidote to sin, and 
to the disunity which is its consequence. Adam's sin 
set man in opposition to God, but bore fruit, too, in the 
murder of Abel, and issued in the mystery of the tower 



4 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

of Babel, which is the mystery of the divisions among 
men. The divine action, on the other hand, is essentially 
unifying. The Incarnation and Redemption destroyed 
the chasm sin caused between God and man, and 
received their fulfilment in the mystery of Pentecost. 

Humanity, of its very nature, has a tendency to realize 
its unity in fact; but it is impeded by the seeds of division 
sowed by sin. The Word came down on earth to destroy 
these seeds, and to offer men a unity undreamt of, a 
participation in the divine Unity itself : * It is not only 
for them [the apostles] that I pray; I pray for those 
who are to find faith in me through their word; that 
they may all be one; that they too may be one in us, as 
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; so that the world 
may come to believe that it is thou who hast sent me * 
(Jn. 17: 20-21). 

In becoming incarnate, the Word took a human 
nature and raised it up to his divine personality; the 
unity thus realized in Christ is perfect, immediate, and 
absolute. By the very intensity of its action on that 
human nature, it influences mankind in general, and 
forms it into the mystical body of Christ, the Church. 
This is a social organism of the supernatural order, 
which, without destroying the personality of its indi- 
vidual members, effects an inner transformation of their 
life. It does not take to itself a nature at a particular 
moment of time, but gathers in, through the succeeding 
generations, all varieties of individuals, groups and 
peoples; it is therefore bound up with temporal condi- 
tions, and those of generation and growth. The union 



THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION 5 

of Christ with men, of which it is the realization, is the 
remote image of that between the human and divine 
natures in the person of Christ; it is no less real, and 
infinitely deeper, than that of any purely human society. 

The Church is the new People, heir of the promises to 
Israel. It is the Vine wherein circulates the divine life; 
a branch cut off from it is only good to be cast into the 
fire. It is the Body of which Christ is the source of 
unity and the Head; the Temple where he has set up 
his dwelling, and of which he is the corner-stone. It is 
the Spouse he has redeemed and purified, to whom he 
is bound with an enduring love, and which he brings 
to reign with him in his glory. It is his Presence con- 
tinued in the world, and extended to every part of space 
and time. 

Consequently, it is entrusted with carrying on his 
mission : * I came upon an errand from my Father, and 
now I am sending you out in my turn' (Jn. 20: 21). 
'You therefore must go out, making disciples of all 
nations, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them 
to observe all the commandments which I have given 
you. And behold I am with you all through the days 
that are coming until the consummation of the world ' 
(Mt. 28 : 19-20). It is so identified with Christ that men 
pass judgment on themselves by the reception they give 
it : ' He who listens to you, listens to me; he who despises 
you, despises me; and he who despises me, despises him 
that sent me' (Lk. 10: 16; cf. Jn. 13: 20). 

The Church is a necessary means to salvation, for it 



6 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

'exists for nothing else than to make all men sharers 
in the graces of salvation brought by the Redemption, 
by spreading the reign of Christ through the entire 
world' (Pius XI, Rerum Ecclesiae); but it is itself salva- 
tion, in so far as It carries into effect the union of men 
with Christ. It would be wrong to oppose a Church in 
this world, visible and hierarchical, to a heavenly 
Church, invisible and mystical Although these two 
aspects of the Church do not completely coincide, yet 
they are not to be considered apart. For, on the one 
hand, the hierarchical Church brings about, by functions 
partly visible, but still 'mysterious' sacramental and 
juridical a mystical unity whose range, moreover, 
extends beyond its visible frontiers; and, on the other, 
since its members are men, it is involved in earthly 
affairs which are 0ot its proper work, and are always 
subordinate to its supernatural functions. For that 
reason, the hierarchical Church alone is the recipient 
of the promises, and embodies the presence of Christ on 
earth to draw men Into the life of Heaven. It is one 
and the same City oi God that is built upon earth and 
has its foundation in Heaven; it is the same Body of 
Christ that grows by degrees and purifies its members 
here, and that is already triumphant in Heaven. ' Any- 
one looking on the Qmrch/ affirms St Gregory of Nyssa, 
'truly looks on Christ.' 

It follows that drawing near to God, confessing Christ, 
entering the Church* are one and the same thing. 
Doubtless a man may live by grace, without having any 
visible relation with the Church, when he has not yet 



THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION 7 

had the opportunity to recognize it for what it is. Yet 
he already belongs to it in a hidden manner; without 
being aware of it, he is nourished by its sap; he partici- 
pates secretly in the fulness of life and light it alone can 
communicate. When the Church is shown to him, it 
only remains for him to ratify, by asking for Baptism, 
what was already the meaning of his life; if he does not 
do so, he turns away from God and is false to himself. 
All grace is from Christ, and no one can be saved with- 
out belonging to the Church. 

Here we see the fearful responsibility of the heads and 
members of the Church on earth. Their persistence in 
claiming to be the sole depositories of the mystery of 
salvation seems to be pride, and is a cause of scandal. 
None the less, it is but humble fidelity to the mission 
received from God, humble certitude that, in spite of 
their personal unworthiness, they are the ambassadors of 
the Church of Christ, which, possessed of the message 
of salvation, cannot keep it selfishly for its own benefit, 
but must proclaim it throughout the earth. As guardian 
of the sources of life flowing from the opened side of 
Christ, which are alone capable of quenching the thirst 
of man, it has to use them to fecundate the whole 
universe. From the very beginning of the human race, 
men, despite all their faults, have been groping and 
straining in the search for God, who calls them in their 
inmost being. The Church cannot be indifferent to 
their strivings, when it has the secret to bring them to 
fulfilment. 



THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

'The Missions* 

It is one and the same work to make men live by the 
life of Christ and so bring them salvation, and to strive 
for the growth of the Church till it reaches its full 
stature; it will not be accomplished till the end of time. 
Therein consists the essential mission of the Church, 
and this involves different tasks. 

In its beginning, there was a foundation period, 
inaugurated by Christ, and entrusted by him to the 
apostles assisted by the Holy Ghost. Thus the Church 
was already endowed with all its essential organs; it 
was brought into the world and no power could drive 
it out. 

Next, there had to be continuous advance of the reign 
of God among the peoples where the Church had grown 
to the extent that its riches were actually available to 
every person of good will. This was its pastoral activity. 

At the same time, it had to set up the kingdom of 
God in places where it had not yet penetrated, or where 
it was not fully developed. This is the traditional mean- 
ing of its ' missionary activity ', and the proper sense of 
that expression. 

This activity is, of its nature, transitory, and issues in 
pastoral action. It is not a question of founding the 
Church this has been done once and for all but of 
bringing to birth new local Churches, 1 that is to say, 

1 St Paul uses the word * Church ' for the Christian community 
in a particular town (the Church of Antioch, Corinth, etc.). Very 
soon, it acquired the meaning of the universal Church, the mystical 



THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION 9 

bringing the divine life to new peoples. It is a question 
of grafting 1 new main branches on the great tree sprung 
from the grain of mustard seed (Mt. 13: 31), and of 
taking care that the graft takes properly and bears last- 
ing fruit. The new local Churches must be assured in 
their growth till they are visible and stable enough to 
ensure that the faith is effectively promulgated through- 
out their country. 

Consequently, the Church has the duty to establish 
itself, not only where it has never been before, that is 
among non-Christian peoples, but also where it exists 
in an incomplete state, as among heretical and schismatic 
Christians. It might be the case that a part, or a particu- 
lar level, of the population of a Christian country is a 
closed group without any real contact with the Church; 
such a group would be the subject of the Church's 
missionary action in the strict sense. 

The Church, once founded, has a double work, 

body of Christ. Both these meanings remain traditional in the 
Christian vocabulary; but they could give rise to misunderstanding. 
It is important to observe that the direct object of missionary action 
is to set up a community of believers where there was none before, 
and thereby to co-operate in the mysterious growth of the Body of 
Christ. 

x The symbol of grafting is a classical one from the time of St 
Paul (Rom. n: 16-24). Normally, cultivated plants are grafted on 
to wild trees and feed on their sap; but the graft succeeds only in so 
far as the former is enabled to produce its characteristic fruit. This 
is the feature St Paul stresses, but reversing the normal relationship, 
led on, no doubt, by the symbol of the vine (Jn. 15 : 1-6). For Christ 
is the one source of life to all men, and the Church brings this 
life to them, and changes them into * God's people '. We consider, 
at the end of the book, the contribution the various peoples bring to 
the Church. 



IO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

pastoral and missionary; and therefore it might be 
thought that the latter is the province exclusively of a 
section of the Church devoted especially to the purpose. 
This would be a dangerous error, impairing the Church 
in its essential nature. Missionary action belongs to the 
whole body of the Church, for it derives directly from 
its nature and is the expression of it. 

Primarily, missionary action devolves on the hier- 
archy, taken as a body, as heir of the apostles, for it is 
the possession of the priesthood in its fulness that con- 
fers the right and imposes the duty to proclaim Christ 
and communicate his life to men. The other members, 
priests and laity, share in it, but not in the same manner 
and degree. No one can renounce his part, for the very 
life of the Church is involved, and each Christian, inas- 
much as he benefits from this, has his share of responsi- 
bility for it. 

All contribute to the work by their union with Christ 
and by the spiritual riches they gain for the Church. 
In addition, some are called to discharge such primary 
functions as preaching and baptizing. Others perform, 
subsidiary tasks, such as preparing souls for the accept- 
ance of Christ, or restoring those natural foundations 
necessary for the Church to build on. Still others are 
engaged in the training of missionaries, or support the 
missions by their active interest and contributions. The 
vocations are various, but all are necessary, and each 
person has the duty to respond to God's particular call. 

It is through this variety that the Church is enabled 
to discharge the complex functions implied in mission- 



THE DIVINE PLAN OF SALVATION II 

ary activity. Now that we have perceived the general 
end and necessity of this kind of activity, we must 
attempt to set out its main features. 1 It is centred 
always on the proclamation of the faith and the impart- 
ing of the divine life; but since it is concerned, too, with 
forming communities living the Christian life, it has to 
include a number of accessory functions, all bearing, 
more or less closely, on the life of the Church. 

1 We have in view, essentially, the mission to non-Christian 
countries. The same guiding principles apply in other cases, but 
with important modifications. 




BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 

o B o D Y,' says Christ, * can come to me without 
being attracted towards me by the father who 
sent me' (Jn. 6: 44). It is from their inner 
selves above all, on the call of the Father, under the 
hidden influence of the merits of Christ placed at the 
disposition of the Church, by the action of the Holy 
Ghost by whom 'the love of God has been poured out 
in our hearts ' (Rom. 5 : 5), that men come to seek light 
and life in the Church of Christ. 

The missionary is sent by the Church to announce 
the Good Tidings that God loves man, and to invite 
men to give glory to the Most High and to draw living 
water from its one source (Jn. 4: 10-14; 7 : 37)>" an( i he 
is not to expect that his efforts to dispose men to under- 
stand and live the divine word should produce con- 
versions as an effect following its cause. Faith does not 
result, properly speaking, from his influence, any more 
than from a purely human decision of his hearers; it is 
above all a grace of God offered to man. 

Hence, there is no need for surprise if it pleases God 
to show himself to men and bring them to his Church, 
without making them go through the normal stages of 
preparation. He was pleased to grant Cornelius the 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 13 

centurion exceptional graces, and to sanctify him by 
sending the Holy Ghost, even before he had received 
Baptism; it was, moreover, a sign for the Church that 
being a gentile was no hindrance to becoming a cate- 
chumen (Acts 10-1 1). God intervened in just as sovereign 
a fashion in the life of St Paul and that of many others. 
It pleases him, too, to draw men, in a more hidden 
manner, by all kinds of antecedent graces, arousing in 
them, or in some at least, a desire for the good, a thirst 
for purity of life. The missionary must understand that 
the ways of God transcend the ordinary, and must respect 
* the divine moment ' in souls. 

This need not make him undervalue the necessity of 
the task entrusted to him. His action is an instrumental 
one; it is to bring home the nature and urgency of the 
divine call, and to help each person to respond to it. 
For this purpose, the missionary must present the mess- 
age of Christ in a language all can understand, strive 
to remove the prejudices in the minds of his hearers, 
make them feel the attractiveness of the life of which 
he is the bearer, and teach them to make it their own. 
These are all aspects, inseparable from one another, of 
his sole function, which is to form sons of God. 

Seen from the outside, his apostolate might seem like 
some form or other of 'propaganda'. Originally, this 
term signified the Church's action in spreading the faith. 
In the most usual sense of the word to-day, a pejorative 
one, it implies a deceptive or perverse kind of activity; 
'propaganda', as now understood, is concerned with 
neither the good of men nor truth, but skilfully flatters 



14 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

human passion, and seduces the imagination in order to 
gain command of the mind, and reduce it, by a course 
of oppression, to a state in which it is no longer free 
in its judgments. 

The missionary also makes use of human means: 
the spoken word, the J?ress, the radio, and the rest; but 
these serve his purpose only if employed in an entirely 
different spirit. It is impossible for force or pressure of 
any kind to cause that free homage of man to God that 
missionary action aims to produce. Just as Christ 
triumphed over Satan in the desert (Mt. 4: i-u), the 
missionary has to resist any temptation to lose sight of 
the true supernatural character of his work, its means as 
well as its end. Great holiness is needed to handle 
worldly instruments without being dominated by them. 
While respectful of the liberty of men, the missionary 
must yet make it plain that he has something of the 
greatest value to offer them; he must do so peacefully 
and disinterestedly, if he wishes the divine word to 
make itself heard. 

His primary function is to proclaim Christ, and to this 
all the rest of his work is subordinate. Planting the 
Church is not, in the first place, erecting buildings, nor 
is it creating a local clergy, nor even establishing 
Catholic worship; it is announcing that 'the kingdom 
of heaven is at hand'; 'the kingdom of God is here, 
within you' (Mt 3: a; Lk 17: 21). 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH IJ 

How the Church is presented 

At first the missionary, to gain a hearing for the 
divine word, will be drawn to express in other languages, 
however roughly, the familiar terms of his religion, and 
to suggest to his hearers the adoption of practices 
integral to his own life as a Christian. It will not be 
long before he realizes the difficulties confronting him. 
They arise principally from the fact that the Church 
has developed notably in the course of centuries, and 
that, in addition, the people to be evangelized have a 
whole background of religious history of their own. 

The divine seed of the Church was cast originally on 
the soil of Palestine, and soon spread over the shores of 
the Mediterranean. Christ himself fixed, in sovereign 
and permanent fashion, its essential features : a message 
to deliver, sacramental acts to be performed, powers of 
order and jurisdiction entrusted to Peter and the apos- 
tolic college, together with their successors. But the 
rulers of the Church, in the course of succeeding ages, 
were to define the means of making contact with men, 
of enabling them to reach a better understanding of the 
message of Christ, and of training them to lead a fully 
Christian life. 

For this purpose, the Church was led to work out a 
theology setting before the mind the inexhaustible 
mystery of God, to develop a spirituality which teaches 
how to live thereby, to envelop the sacramental acts in 
a setting of gestures and prayers for their more fruitful 



l6 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

working, to create a parochial organization for closer 
contact with the people, and to define their duties in a 
code of law. 

The Church, since it was obliged to see that the 
Christian spirit should inform its members in every 
detail of their lives, could not fail to take account of 
their problems of everyday life. It was led, in conse- 
quence, to approve certain devotions and forbid others, 
to pass judgment on books, even secular ones, and also 
on artistic matters, and to define, on many points, how 
the Christian ought to conduct his social relationships. 

This work, so wide in scope, fell to the pastors of the 
Church in the first instance, but also for various reasons 
to all its members. While it gave rise to original 
creations, it was accomplished, in large measure, by 
drawing on the cultures of the peoples where the Church 
took root and grew. Ecclesiastical administration and 
law bear a clear imprint of the Roman Empire. Theo- 
logians made use of Greek philosophy, thought out 
afresh, as a valuable means for the understanding of the 
Christian mysteries. Christian artists drew freely on 
native tradition for their inspiration. Liturgical vest- 
ments were originally garments in ordinary use. All 
kinds of customs which formerly referred to the divini- 
ties of rivers, harvests, fecundity, and others, were 
purified and sanctified; the places or the seasons with 
which they were associated, the material elements used 
for the purpose, could be retained, but the prayers 
offered to idols were eliminated, and replaced by a bless- 
ing in the name of God, and by the invocation of saints. 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 17 

This is how elements of a culture were adopted by the 
Church in the course of its history. Some of them, 
taken over into liturgy, theology, law, affect its life 
deeply and intimately; many others have only a super- 
ficial influence. 

The Church has become a great tree from which new 
main branches must be made to grow. The work 
involved may not be any more arduous than it was in 
the Church's infancy, but it is particularly delicate. 
The essential features of the Church have not changed, 
but they are more sharply outlined, more completely 
expressed. Their mode of expression, originally oriental, 
became by degrees, on account of the schism between 
Rome and Byzantium, more and more westernized. 
Concurrently, Catholics became gradually estranged, by 
their way of life, from all that has been, since the 
fifteenth century, 'missionary country'. 

The Church, as a living organism, possesses a dynamic 
equilibrium which makes it capable of change, provided 
that its essential structure is preserved. In so far as the 
Church, without ceasing to be divine, is a human society, 
its actual way of life reflects man's ways of thinking 
and acting. All tradition is not dogma, every custom is 
not sacrosanct, even if both the one and the other are 
orthodox and beneficial. New points of view on the 
Christian mystery, new ways of translating it into life, 
may make their appearance, and may be the expression 
of the special characters of persons and peoples. 

The missionary, for his part, is marked by the Chris- 
tian culture of his upbringing, through which he was 



l8 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

brought into contact with the Church. By the grace 
of Christ which it brought him, his thought is illumined 
by the divine light, his heart inflamed with the love 
of God; yet his life continues to derive from the experi- 
ence received in his particular surroundings, for these 
it was that contributed to his formation as a Christian. 
It is not that the divine mystery is indistinguishable 
from its expression in a particular culture, but that 
there exists between the two a vital bond. For it is the 
Spirit that teaches the Christian to pray, and even 
'prays in him' (Rom. 8: 13, 26-27), and the Spirit that 
'pours forth' charity; but the same Spirit expresses 
himself both by the interior word that is unutterable 
and by the spiritual experience of the Christian 
community. 

All men are not called to the same forms of prayer 
or of charity, and these vary according to circumstances. 
The missionary, in introducing his hearers to the Chris- 
tian life, relies, above all, on the interior Teacher. Still, 
he has his own instrumental part to play; and he can do 
so only by showing, through prayer and example, how 
he himself understands and lives the life of prayer and 
charity. In this sphere his attitude, however truly 
Christian, is, none the less, characteristically European, 
inasmuch as the life of the Church was for centuries 
concentrated in Europe, and it is still Europe that pro- 
vides the majority of missionaries. These are not 
unaware of the particular and partial character of their 
way of living the life of Christ, but they have no choice 
but to start from what they actually are, while fostering 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 19 

in their disciples the development of their own Christian 
personality. 

In general, when the Church makes its appearance in 
a new country, it comes in all its complex being in 
which are united, without confusion, its essential divine 
structure and its human expression. The missionary, 
penetrated through and through with the European 
Christian tradition, will have great difficulty in discern- 
ing where precisely development is called for, and to 
what point it is legitimate. Apart from very minor 
questions, he will be apprehensive lest, in touching one 
element, he endanger the whole structure, and so com- 
promise his mission. Only the assistance of the Holy 
Ghost, and the directives and control of the Hierarchy, 
will enable him to confront with confidence a task 
demanding much time and patience. 

Some, desirous of prompt results, have been led to 
maintain that the customs of the Christian West were 
simple excrescences on the tree of life, which is the 
Church of Christ. If that were so, it would suffice to 
remove them, to restore to it its authentic appearance. 
No human disfigurement would then be left to prevent 
outside peoples from recognizing the Church and giving 
it their allegiance. 

That view comes from thinking of the Church as 
something discarnate. The Word of God, in his Incarna- 
tion, could have taken any human nature; the particular 
one he took certainly possesses universal significance; 
and yet the Incarnate Word is still Jesus Christ, the 
carpenter of Galilee in the first century. It would be 



2O THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

quite useless and false to aim at stripping the Son of 
God of this human garb which is so individual and 
through which he reveals himself. 

In an analogous way, the Church, the body of Christ, 
transcends all cultures, and none of them is indispens- 
able to it. That does not mean that it excludes them, 
or that it is indifferent to them, but that it encompasses 
them without being confused with or limited by them, 
By taking on one of them, it expresses the inexhaustible 
mystery of Christ in a new way, one specially appropri- 
ate to the people among whom the culture originated. 
The Church could take up all of them, either in turn or 
together, but it cannot remain without expressing itself 
in some way, for, like its Head, it is called to become 
incarnate, it is sent to speak to mankind. 

We do not claim that every word and deed of its 
members is a true expression of the mystery. They are 
human and sinful; their thought and life are prone to 
failings, narrowness, deviations, which the Church works 
incessantly to correct. Yet, in so far as their life corre- 
sponds faithfully to their vocation, they truly exhibit 
the mystery, without, however, exhausting it completely. 

In the countries subject to missionary action Chris- 
tianity has obviously not yet formed its suitable cultural 
expression; or else, this expression, though brought to 
birth, has not reached maturity. Since Christianity 
must express itself somehow, it can do so, provisionally, 
only in a foreign culture, that of the missionary. 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 31 

Peoples and Cultures 

This cultural expression of Christianity can only with 
lifficulty be assimilated by the people evangelized, 
>recisely because it is a foreign one. They themselves 
ire penetrated with their own particular culture, in 
vhich there is no place for Christ or for his message. 
Dn account of the cultural context in which it is pre- 
iented, they fail to perceive clearly what is the super- 
latural gift offered by the missionary, and its appearance 
n their midst seems to cast doubt on their whole 
nanner of life. 

To understand properly this situation, we have to 
*ecur to the idea of what a culture is and the laws that 
govern it. 

Cultivating a field means inciting nature by some human 
labour to produce fruits which nature left to itself would 
be incapable of producing, for what nature left to itself 
alone produces is ' wild ' vegetation. Such a figure gives 
us an idea of what that culture means in the vocabulary 
of philosophy, the culture, not of an expanse of soil, but 
of humanity itself. Man being a spirit animating a body 
of flesh, his nature in. itself is a progressive nature. The 
labour of reason and the virtues is natural in the sense 
that it is in conformity with the essential inclinations of 
human nature; it brings into play the essential springs of 
human nature. It is not natural in the sense that it is 
supplied ready made by nature: it is an addition to what 
nature produces by itself and by itself alone. Nature, no 
doubt, can also be considered without this labour of 

1 J. Maritain, Religion and Culture (Essays in Order, Sheed and 
Ward, 1931), page 13. 



22 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

reason, and as reduced therefore to energies of a sensitive 
order and mere instincts, or considered before this labour 
of reason, that is to say in a state of, as it were, embryonic 
involution and absolute primitiveness. 

This work, to deserve the name of culture, has to be 
a truly human and therefore mainly intellectual, moral 
and spiritual 1 development ', very clearly, a material and 
technical development, by the fact that man is an in- 
carnate, not a pure, spirit. Presupposing both nature 
and the labour of reason, culture ought to keep in the 
line of nature, but may deviate from that line, allow 
itself to be sponged upon by artificialism contrary to 
nature and by perversions of varying degrees of gravity/ 2 

This analysis from the standpoint of philosophy 
agrees with that given by cultural anthropology, which 
is the term used in America to designate the science 
called elsewhere ethnology, and whose terminology is 
coming to be adopted universally. Anthropology gives 
this as its technical definition of culture : ' All that part 
of human behaviour that man has learnt and fashioned 
himself, and that is handed down as a social tradition, 
and not in a biological manner/ 

Man does not learn to be hungry or sleepy, to shout 
or to breathe. He does learn to paint his skin, to tint 
or cut his hair, to clothe himself, to speak, to make and 
handle tools. 

It is as 'natural' for a westerner of the twentieth 
century to wear a suit as it was for a Chinese, till recent 
years, to wear a robe. The pronunciation of the English 
, page 14. *lbid. 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 23 

th, the German ch, the Spanish /, the French r, is as 
* natural ' to each of these peoples as it is almost imposs- 
ible to the others. The Chinese eat dog, the Jews abhor 
pork, the Hindus refuse to eat beef, and the English can 
never understand how the French can feed on frog's legs. 
In greeting a friend, the French shake hands, a practice 
they have taken from the English, who use it more often 
in greeting strangers; the Arab puts his hand on his 
forehead, lips and heart. 

In short, the manifold counsels and examples man 
receives from his surroundings inculcate a particular 
technique of living, which is a more or less successful 
adaptation to geographical conditions, and also a 
language, whose structure conveys a certain way of 
thinking. On these foundations is erected a way of 
social life, expressing itself in family, economic and 
political relationships elaborated in the course of history. 
According as the different family, professional, regional 
and national groups interpenetrate and are superposed 
on one another, or are isolated and differentiated, there 
arise cultures that are widespread or restricted. But, in 
the strictest sense, the term * culture ' is reserved to the 
patrimony of a vast social aggregate, that is to say, to 
an ethnic or national group. 

The elements which make up a culture are not set out 
like goods on the counter of a general store. They 
support and strengthen one another in forming a whole 
whose parts are interconnected like cells in a living body, 
so that any action on one element ultimately affects the 
whole. The harmony of the various features may be 



24 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

highly subtle and difficult to discern; in fact, the laws 
of their association are practically unknown at present. 
What is certain is the existence of a network of power- 
ful links between the different elements, and that is 
called the law of cultural integration. 

To see how it works, let us go over rapidly the prob- 
lem of clothing, as an example. If man makes clothes 
for himself, it would seem to be primarily in order to 
protect himself from the weather; it is a matter of 
biology. It appears quite natural to cover or uncover 
oneself according as it is cold or hot. Yet some who 
live in cold parts, right at the south of America, for 
example, know no use of clothing; even in tropical 
countries, the nights can be cold, or slight variations 
of temperature can easily be dangerous to people 
unaccustomed to them. It is a fact that, with people 
who have kept to their ancestral custom of wearing no 
clothes, colds and congestion of the lungs are frequent, 
and are among the chief causes of high infant mortality. 
From this simple point of view, Europeans, whether 
missionaries or not, have advised them to use clothes. 
But it has been found that their use has brought with it 
the development of rickets among the people, since the 
deficiencies of their diet were no longer compensated 
by the absorption of sunlight. To counteract this loss, 
better nourishment should have been provided. The 
introduction of clothing as a protection against heat and 
cold was treated as a distinct problem, when it was part 
of the general problem of organic equilibrium to be 
viewed as a whole. 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 2J 

Wearing clothes, it is clear, seems to respond to a 
moral need, that of safeguarding modesty and of pro- 
tecting against concupiscence. Yet it has been found 
that their introduction among people who had not used 
them before did not always favour morality; in fact, it 
often caused a decline. This may not have been due to 
the clothes as such, but to those who advocated them, 
who stopped short at the material aspect of the change, 
without considering the spirit animating it. In the 
concrete, morality rests on a received discipline of living, 
whose structure takes account of the material conditions 
of life, so that the discipline itself comes ultimately to 
be expressed in particular attitudes. Against the 
temptations bound up with the way of life are set up 
* taboos', if we like to call them that, or, at any rate, 
rules of conduct to ensure victory over temptations. 
Thus, girls and boys are kept strictly separate till the 
time of marriage, and very severe punishment is inflicted 
on breaches of marriage-customs; for adultery it is often 
the death-penalty. Clothing might appear of itself to 
tell against some kinds of temptation; but, unless it is 
accompanied with a new attitude of mind, with new 
practical rules of moral conduct, it is of no effect. On 
the contrary, its introduction may seem to make the 
traditional rules unnecessary, and there is a strong risk 
of their being swept away indiscriminately. 

Clothing is due also to social requirements, which 
indicate perhaps its most essential function, certainly its 
most despotic one. It gives man his place in society. 
At all times, and in all countries, certain types of cloth- 



a6 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

ing reduced perhaps to very little, a cloak, an orna- 
ment, etc. have been reserved to certain classes of 
persons. They permit of instantly distinguishing the 
soldier from the civilian, the ruling classes from the 
masses, or working- from leisure-hours. In the modern 
world, which "believes in the basic equality of all, differ- 
ences tend to diminish; but it is still doubtful if we 
will arrive, as some hope, at complete uniformity, even 
among the same people. To appreciate the scope of 
this factor in social life, we have only to imagine the 
horror which would be caused by the appearance of a 
short skirt at a dinner party at Buckingham Palace, or 
of a dinner-jacket at a workers' meeting. Everyone is 
aware of the tyranny of fashion. Without going into 
the question of principle, we may recognize that it can 
easily involve expense that cannot be afforded, clothes 
that are uncomfortable or unliealthy, and sometimes 
improper, even when ideas and customs have undergone 
a normal development. 

The question of clothing comes also into the sphere 
of religion. Differences of dress according to age, sex, 
or occupation are often bound up with the idea that the 
life of each individual is a response to a divine vocation, 
and their object is to show forth this vocation publicly. 
Even in societies as secularized as those of modern 
Europe, there still remain traces of this idea in the 
clothes worn at baptism, first communion, weddings 
and at times of mourning, in the religious habit, in the 
wearing of scapulars, or in the use of blue and white as 
a sign of consecration to Our Lady, as well as, of course, 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 27 

in the liturgical vestments. Up to now, the non-western 
cultures have been more penetrated with the sacred than 
ours; that is to say, the colours and shapes of clothes 
are, in them, full of religious significance of a very 
precise nature. It is impossible to propose any changes 
without at least seeming to minimize the importance 
of the beliefs attaching to them, and often of throwing 
doubt on these in one way or another. 

At different periods, and among different peoples, 
very various kinds of clothes have been adopted in 
similar circumstances. This shows that their shapes and 
colours are not necessarily bound up with a fixed social, 
moral or religious purpose. In fact, however, they are 
not easily to be separated from the symbolic value attri- 
buted to them by common opinion in a given society. 

An analysis of other cultural elements would show 
that they too are intimately related to all the aspects 
of human life. They form an integral unity, and are 
organized in an art of living, which subsists in a state of 
dynamic equilibrium; that is to say, the culture assures 
the continuance through the ages of a settled way of 
life, expressive of the special character of peoples, while 
at the same time it is able to adapt itself to a changing 
world. Slow development may occur without endanger- 
ing the stability of the whole. Sometimes, however, 
circumstances arise which confront a people with alien 
importations of great moment, problems of a special 
kind, and standpoints at variance with their own; and 
these menace the very life of their culture. Thus, the 
barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire, the Islamic 

D 



28 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

conquest of the Near East and North Africa, made a 
real breach in the continuity of the cultural develop- 
ment of these regions. 

The missionary, whose duty is to proclaim the Gospel 
of Christ, has no intention of upsetting the culture of 
the people he approaches, for he recognizes it as a 
normal human development, even though it stands in 
need of correction in some of its details. The people, 
though, resent his arrival, and see in it a danger, particu- 
larly as his message tends completely to undermine the 
religious values by which they had been living, which 
made up the noblest element of their culture, and were, 
in fact, the principle on which it was organized. Why 
were the Roman emperors, like the Latin and Greek 
masses, so violently opposed to the spread of Christi- 
anity? It was because they could not conceive how it 
was possible to reject the gods of the empire or the city 
without ceasing to be a loyal subject and a good citizen. 

A people cannot belong to the Church without effect- 
ing a dissociation between the religious elements and 
the strictly human elements of its culture, in order to 
-engraft the latter on Christ. But this separation appears 
to be fraught with danger, and the fruitfulness of the 
graft is not easily seen. 

Does this mean that the religious beliefs and practices 
of non-Christian peoples are totally false? By no means; 
for God has endowed human nature, in its creation, with 
an aspiration to the supernatural. A spiritual impulse, 
aversion from evil, devotion to the service of others, rub 
shoulders in the heart of every man with selfishness, 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 29 

pride and sensuality. It rests with the individual, aided 
by grace, to make the former of these tendencies prevail. 
Grace, too, will never be wanting, for 'it is his [God's] 
will that all men should be saved, and be led to recognize 
the truth' (i Tim. 2: 4). 

God has never ceased to make himself known to man. 
As St Paul tells us, ' from the foundations of the world 
men have caught sight of his invisible nature, his eternal 
power and his divineness, as they are known through 
his creatures ' (Rom i : 20). Therefore, the impious are 
inexcusable for not having given God their homage and 
gratitude. Man, being by nature social, is formed, too, 
by the positive religion of which his culture is the carrier; 
as this tradition may seem to satisfy his religious needs, 
it shuts him out, in a corresponding degree, from the 
fulness of the Light; yet it may help to develop in him 
some sense of adoration of God, of submission to Provi- 
dence, of prayer and virtue. In spite of the errors they 
contain, whether through human infirmity, or through 
the continual effort of Satan to deform them and make 
them issue in sinful conduct, the positive religions, as ex- 
hibited in actual life, 1 are not completely lacking in value. 

In fact, if God gave Israel exclusively the privilege of 
preparing the way of the Messias, it might be said, in 
an analogous way, that every people has its own ' sacred 
history ', for, from the beginning, God has been working 

1 We leave aside the question of religions taken in the abstract as 
each a body of doctrines and practical obligations. Religion exists 
to be lived, and it is of concern to the missionary in that respect 
alone, for his work is directed not to religions as such, but to the 
men who live by them. 



30 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

secretly on men to lead them to the fulness of Revela- 
tion. Beyond doubt, there have been persons who have 
responded to his call, and approached a state of holiness; 
and the whole people has profited from their influence 
and example. 

The Church has the duty to bring this advance to 
completion; but it seems at first to disparage it and bring 
it to a halt. For the missionary has not simply to align 
himself with a process and carry it to its conclusion, but 
to correct it and cure its ills, since the stem which is 
to be grafted on the Church is embedded among evil 
growths and infected by them. 

These various elements, some sound, others dubious 
or frankly evil, are integrated in a living culture, in 
which the supernatural and the merely human exist 
side by side, with the consequent danger of confusion 
between them. Just as the missionary strives to divest 
his own actions of any element that is too human, he 
will not hesitate when charity itself obliges him to upset 
settled habits if that is necessary for the people to attain 
to the full measure of supernatural life. Like Christ 
himself, he must say: 'I have not come to set them 
aside, but to bring them to perfection' (Mt. 5: 17), but 
he cannot pass over the complementary assertion: '1 
have come to bring a sword, not peace ' (Mt. 10 : 34). 

Preparing men for the Faith 

The earliest obstacles to the preaching of the mission- 
ary come from the alien character of the Church, and 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 31 

the threat it seems to show towards non-Christian 
cultures. Fundamentally, what he comes up against 
derives from the characteristics of human nature, the 
attachment of people to their ideas and customs, their 
mistrust of the unknown and the unusual, the fear of 
possible dangers on venturing into new regions. 

In fact, to put one's faith in God is always an advan- 
ture of some sort. Abraham, the type of the believer 
(Rom. 4; Heb. 1 1), had to face the danger. ' Leave thy 
country behind thee, thy kinsfolk, and thy father's 
home', was God's command to him, "and come away 
into a land I will shew thee. Then I will make a great 
people of thee; and I will bless thee' (Gen. 12 : 1-2). He 
had to forgo the tangible security of family ties and of 
a country with whose resources he was thoroughly 
acquainted, and stake his life on the impalpable 
promises of God. 

None the less, there are not wanting persons who 
respond generously to such demands. Abraham 'went 
out, as the Lord bade him' (Gen. 12: 4), without ques- 
tion or delay. Moses was to display much less prompti- 
tude (Exod. 3-4). It requires exceptional strength of 
character to break one's habits, and an ardent desire for 
the light to welcome it wherever it appears, and to 
submit to it entirely. 

Every culture, an art of living slowly elaborated in 
the course of time, has the semblance of a wisdom from 
which it would be folly to stray. Each generation, 
admittedly, and every individual, brings a special con- 
tribution to it; still their life as a whole bears its strong 



32 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

imprint. No culture, however, is without its imperfec- 
tions, they arise from the very limitations of the human 
mind; grievous errors may creep in concerning man's 
way of life, social relations and religious ideas. In 
consequence, ways of thought and conduct come tc 
seem normal and good, when they are in fact abomin- 
able. No culture is immune from deviations of the sort; 
and those where the light of God has not yet shone in 
its fulness, or that refuse to be guided by it, are 
especially liable to them. 

It has to be recognized that the errors integral to a 
culture and constituting its principles make up an actual 
counter-teaching. They are much less like a thorn to 
be extracted than a poison that impairs the mind's 
aptitude for the truth; and it is truth for which the 
missionary has to arouse the desire, stimulate the taste, 
and make the need felt. 

For this reason, he must show that he is bound to it 
with ties that cannot be broken. In his whole attitude, 
his public and private utterances, he must avoid all 
pretence, patiently seek exact information, be ready to 
revise his standpoint in the light of new knowledge 
obtained, and not to exploit unduly what he already 
possesses. He will often be drawn to scientific investiga- 
tion or to the teaching of purely secular matters. This 
kind of activity gives the Church some incidental 
prestige, but his real aim is to create an attitude of 
mind that is one of respect for truth, whether religious 
or not. He must never allow himself to varnish it for 
any reason at all; however disconcerting it may appear, 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 33 

he yet places his trust in it. For Christ is subsistent 
truth; no part of truth is hostile to him, or even alien; 
it all leads back to him, and, of its own power, counters 
the virulence of error and destroys it. The intellectual 
integrity of the missionary is what restores the confi- 
dence of the catechumen who, in the light of Christ, 
feels his world crumbling away; it enables the mission- 
ary himself to understand the real aspirations of the 
people and to provide for them. In fact, it constitutes 
a secondary motive of credibility for his supernatural 
message, for one who has a deep regard for truth does 
not embrace a faith unless he sees it as at least com- 
patible with the truth that all seek. 

The contact established in this way helps to arouse 
curiosity and to make the Church appear in a favourable 
light, as showing respect for truth; but it is only tenuous, 
since it reaches man in his intelligence rather than in 
his totality. The witness so proclaimed is too restricted 
in scope to remove all hesitation. Man is a creature of 
emotion as much as of intellect, and, until the heart is 
won over, the mind finds much difficulty in perceiving 
what is true, and even more in conforming to its 
demands. The non-Christian is repelled by the alien, 
strange character of the Christian message, and 
instinctively distrusts it. His own religion has been 
integrated by long tradition with his distinct national 
way of life, and the missionary comes to assault it. 
The non-Christian is reluctant to acknowledge that his 
own culture is gravely defective. Rightly conscious as 
he is of the human values it contains, which have been 



34 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

fostered by the wisdom of his ancestors, he natural! 
wonders if they can be retained, and at what cost. 

The missionary, then, must be at pains to exhibit th 
supranational character of the Church. Pope Pius X] 
in Evangelii Praecones said: 

From its beginning to our own day, the Church ha 
always observed the very wise rule by which the Gospe 
neither destroys nor diminishes anything good, true o 
beautiful in a people's character and natural genius. I 
fact, when the Church invites all peoples to ascend, unde 
the guidance of the Christian religion, to a higher forr 
of human culture, it does not act like one who recklessl 
cuts down a luxuriant forest, plundering and destroyin 
it, but like a man who grafts a fine shoot on a wil 
growth, and so enables it to produce, later on, fruits n 
longer bitter but savoury. 

The human qualities of peoples are themselves th 
gift of God, and the missionary, recognizing this, wi] 
show them respect, getting to know them, and, in som 
measure, adapting himself to them. It is of the greates 
importance for him to become familiar with th 
language of the people among whom he works; for tha 
manifests the categories which their minds use, an< 
through these he himself must pass if he is to read 
them. Normally, he will conform to the ordinary rule 
of living, so as not to pass for a boorish person and s< 
lose any hope of a hearing. He may have to adopt th' 
clothes and food of the country. The acquisition o 
the language is always indispensable, 1 but the adoptioi 

1 Obviously it could happen that a missionary should do valuabl 
work, even without any knowledge of the language, being prevented f o 
some reason or other from learning it; but such cases are the exception 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 35 

of customs demands much good sense and caution. 
Wholesale Imitation, hardly ever desirable, is not always 
possible, either because it involves danger to health, or 
because some of the actions of everyday life have a 
religious significance and so cannot be adopted unre- 
servedly. Any sort of haste is dangerous; there must be 
time to look about, to understand and form a judgment. 

Adaptation is easier in these days, when the various 
cultures have become connected and tend to some kind 
of fusion. The missionary no longer arrives in an entirely 
unknown world, as happened before. We know the 
labour Father Ricci underwent in the sixteenth century, 
in gathering reliable information on China. Nowadays, 
there is an abundance of writings which are easily 
accessible to the missionary desirous of gaining some 
idea of the culture he will meet with. His adapting 
himself to it, though not so necessary in some respects 
as in others, 1 is a clear sign of his love for the people 
and his high regard for them. 

This attitude may eliminate certain prejudices, but 
it may fail to impress the people, because to them it 
appears perfectly normal. The missionary, if he is to 
gain their affections, must give himself to them, and 
make use of every opportunity to prove that he really 
does so. For this reason, the Church puts itself at their 
service by setting up schools, hospitals, dispensaries, 
orphanages, reception centres for the victims of catas- 

1 Since Asiatics and Africans are often disposed to adopt many 
European customs, and desire Western culture. However, there are 
important reservations to be made on this matter; see below, pages 
61-2 and 133-8. 



36 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

troph.es, whether arising from nature or man. It sends 
its missionaries to assist and comfort the poor, defends 
the victims of injustice, and lends support to efforts to 
improve living conditions. These are so many various 
occasions to enter into contact with the people, to 
acquaint them with the Christian way of life, and make 
them realize what is meant by the charity that is the 
gift of the Spirit. The most remarkable instances of 
these in our day have been the anti-slavery campaign 
of Cardinal Lavigerie, the work of Father Damien 
among the lepers in the island of Molokai (Hawaii), the 
social work of Father Lievens at Chota Nagpur in India, 
the life led by Charles de Foucauld among the Tuaregs 
of the Sahara, and the places of refuge set up at Shanghai 
and Nanking by Father Jacquinot in the very midst of 
the Sino- Japanese war. 

The Church was the first in this field, and, for a long 
time, the signs of her charity were clear and evident. 
Nowadays, the various States have largely taken over 
the direction of these institutions, seeing in them a duty 
of social justice. In consequence, the spirit animating 
the Church in so far as she continues that work is less 
easy to discern, and so it is more urgently necessary to 
make evident in it the charity that is not opposed to 
justice, but animates it and goes beyond it. These works 
would be useless, if they were not properly executed; 
they require a competent personnel and an established 
organization. Yet they are not an end in themselves; 
they are always subordinate to the apostolic work as a 
whole, and may not monopolize its resources. 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 37 

Above all, they must be infused with charity, and so 
exempt from commercialism, competition, and the spirit 
of bureaucracy. A Catholic hospital, for example, is 
not to be valued for the excellence of its equipment, the 
money it brings in, the exact observation of a time-table, 
the cures effected, the wonderful operations carried out, 
nor even for the number of patients who ask for and 
receive Baptism. Charity does not claim anything as 
its right; it does not judge works by their results, even 
their apostolic ones; it serves according to its ability, in 
a purely disinterested way. These are the conditions in 
which it bears witness to God, and opens to him the 
hearts of men. 

Preaching the Word of God 

Under the influence of the Holy Ghost, the Good 
Tidings, of which the missionary is the herald, is able of 
itself to gain entrance to the mind and heart of man. 

We do not read of St Paul engaging in all sorts of 
preliminary activities before proclaiming salvation by 
Christ to the inhabitants of Iconium, Lystra, or Philippi 
(Acts 14 and 16). Only once, so it seems, when he had 
to explain himself at Athens, did he take as his starting- 
point the traditional beliefs of his hearers (Acts 17). 
The failure of that approach taught him a lesson, and 
at Corinth he decided to go straight to the point: 
' Christ . . . sent me to preach the gospel; not with an 
orator's cleverness, for so the cross of Christ might be 
robbed of its force. . . . When God shewed us his 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 39 

to draw up plans of action. He learnt from experience 
that patient preliminary work is normally indispensable. 

In any case, it falls to the missionary to proclaim the 
Christian message as soon as the soil appears ready for 
it. The task is a difficult one. For the faith, expressed 
in propositions about divine truth, has the appearance 
of a clear-cut system; and, further, it demands adherence 
to a person, that of Christ. Now Christ is not to be 
adapted; he is to be received either as he is, or not at all. 

Besides, the main elements have to be sketched in a 
language all can understand. It is a problem similar 
to that of devising a method of education which will 
transmit to the young the ancestral wisdom expressed 
in all kinds of ways of thinking and acting. This 
involves the learning of words and gestures unknown 
to the child, but, if it is to succeed, it should be based 
on his own natural gestures and his native or acquired 
knowledge. In preference to forms, which are variable, 
principles should be instilled, and these are quite com- 
patible with a spontaneous kind of reaction. Some sort 
of discipline is inevitable, but education consists 
essentially in the use of appropriate exterior action to 
stimulate interior progress; it calls for a communication 
between master and pupil that enables the former to 
teach something new in a way that the pupil can 
understand. 

The missionary has to gain a * hearing * for his mess- 
age, that is for the Gospel in its fulness, and for all that 
is closely bound up with the life of the Church. He 
has at his disposition a language that has been developed 



40 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

over a long period, but which is, for that very reason, 
all the more mysterious for those outside. He will 
hardly find in the language of the country equivalent 
terms which will not be misleading, particularly as in 
the beginning he will know it only slightly, and grasp 
very imperfectly the scope of the ordinary religious 
terms. He will have to put his trust in an interpreter, 
who may have little familiarity with Christian 
terminology. 

A typical example of this is the experience of St 
Francis Xavier with his beloved Paul Anjiro, the 'first 
fruit of Japan'. On the information of the latter, he 
took Dainichi to be the true God, introduced the term 
into his catechism, and proclaimed himself the restorer 
of the true worship of Dainichi. This gained him a 
considerable welcome from the Buddhist bonzes, 
especially those of the Shingon sect, enthusiastic for 
this unexpected recruit. In reality, the Dainichi, the 
Great Sun, the Enlightener, had nothing in common 
with a personal, creative God; it was a frankly panthe- 
istic myth, bound up, too, in the popular mind, with 
obscene imagery. It took Xavier a year to realize that 
he had been side-tracked; and then, warned by his con- 
verts, he put a few precise questions to the bonzes, and 
was completely undeceived; but it meant the loss of all 
contact with the Buddhist monasteries. From then on, 
he preferred the safest course and transcribed in Japan- 
ese the Christianized Latin word, Deus. 

Ricci, when he came up against the same problem, 
had time to get to know the classical Chinese writers 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 41 

before deciding on a solution. The traditional terms of 
Tien, for ' Heaven ', and Shang-ti, for 'Lord on high', 
seemed to him pure enough in meaning to convey the 
true idea of God. This view of his, however, was not 
above criticism, for Chu-hi had, in the twelfth century, 
revised the Confucian teaching in a materialistic sense, 
and from that time his interpretation was the standard 
one. Certainly, that was one of the most fiercely con- 
tested questions in the only too celebrated Dispute on 
the Rites. To prevent any possible doubt, the Holy 
See finally insisted on the use of the term Tien-chu, 
the Lord of Heaven. 

This expression was at any rate in conformity with 
the genius of the language. So long as the language is 
imperfectly known, it could be dangerous to make use 
of its religious vocabulary to express specifically Chris- 
tian ideas. But the process of importing Latin words 
involves creating neologisms that sound strange to the 
people of the country, or else are somewhat infelicitous 
in their connections. Many such examples are given 
by Father de Nobili, 1 whose ideas were much the same 
as those of Ricci: thus, missa, Mass, transcribed into 
Tamil, was confused with mixei, which means 
6 moustache '. 

Whatever the terms adopted, they have to be 
explained, and so the native language has to be 
employed. Some of the ideas it conveys offer a starting- 
point for understanding Christian truth, with which 

1 Apologie de 1610, ed., Dahmen, Paris, Descle"e de Brouwer, 
Museum Lesslanum, 1924. 



42 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

they have some similarity. Thus, most religions record 
interventions of God in history, and these, however 
remote from the mystery of the Incarnation, may serve 
to introduce it. Similarly, the compassionate love of 
the Buddhists is a sort of prefiguration of Christian 
charity. 

This procedure, however, has its dangers. In Tamil, 
for instance, heaven is sometimes represented as the 
svarga, which is a place of carnal delights. In other 
words, incompatible terms are too hastily taken to mean 
the same thing. Even when there does exist some 
analogy, it can have an effect opposite to that intended, 
blunting the precision of the doctrine in question, and 
dissembling the original character of the mystery. The 
fact is that words have no existence independently of a 
context of imagery, historical background, particular 
situations, literary associations, in short, of all that goes 
to make a living language. It is a language of that sort 
that has to be employed to convey the Christian mess- 
age, and its transposition for the purpose demands con- 
siderable study and a fine discernment. 

Altogether, the problem will be solved only when the 
language has become a mediator, that is to say common 
to both the Church and the people. The use of European 
expressions is not bad in itself; it may be found, pro- 
visionally, indispensable to preserve the original char- 
acter of the faith, but requires a suitable commentary 
to make clear its meaning, and, in consequence, the use 
of the native tongue. Since, however, the terms which 
this contains are not in themselves appropriate to convey 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 43 

the divine mystery in its fulness, they have to be 
developed further and purified. 

It is of the highest importance to give a clear sense 
that the truths of revelation, though expressed in 
familiar language, are yet absolutely original and trans- 
cendent. The Christian message is not to be assimilated 
to any culture whatever; on the contrary, it is the culture 
that has to be assimilated to the message. 

For this purpose, the missionary has to apply himself 
to enter into the culture of the people, and even to live 
according to it in so far as it is sound, in order to share 
its spirit; he must start from within if he is to translate 
it properly into Christian terms. He has to smooth the 
way, helped by his converts or even by non-Christians, 
and he will not hesitate to revise the current terminology 
in the interests of precision. 1 The privilege of bringing 
the work to its conclusion belongs to the indigenous 
clergy, profiting by the experience of the universal 
Church. 

Finally, it must be emphasized, the technical side of 
the question is only secondary; the important thing is 
to live the mystery, in continuous loving contemplation 
of it. It is then that the Spirit gives the deepest under- 
standing of it and of how various external forms can 
be used to express it. 

1 Thus in China the persons of the Trinity were long designated 
by the terms Pa-t^-U for the Father, Fei-lo the Son, and Se-pi-li 
Tuosan-tuo the Holy Ghost. Latterly, these barbaric transliterations 
have been replaced by Cheng-fou, Cheng-tse t and Cheng-chen. 



44 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 



The Life to be Fostered 

If the faith were merely a system of truths to be 
acknowledged, the work of the missionary would stop 
at this point, having achieved its purpose. But the faith 
cannot be obtained by human action, it is wholly the gift 
of God; and, moreover, it remains 'unformed 7 so long 
as it does not bring about a change of life, that is to say, 
conversion. Its normal completion is achieved only 
when it is lived in hope and charity. The faith has to 
be put forward for acceptance, but the Church's mission 
is to bring forth people to the supernatural life, and to 
illuminate their ordinary life in its every aspect by the 
divine light. 

Whenever, in a hitherto non-Christian country, a few 
come forward under the influence of grace, and receive 
Baptism, the seed of the Gospel may be said to have 
ripened; a new Church has been born. It still has to 
grow and become strong, so as to be capable of renewing 
the whole people, and recreating them according to the 
image of God. 

Since adherence to the faith has for its effect a change 
of life, man's progress towards Christ may be retarded 
or held up, not only by previous religious habits, but by 
the whole network of his personal and social manner 
of living. 

Undoubtedly, God found, in the past, 'men of good 
will * in all peoples, and formed them to a virtuous life 
in a hidden fashion, as he formed Job the Idumaean. 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 45 

None the less, they are no more immune from back- 
sliding than are Christians themselves, or they may 
simply hold back in face of the further steps to which 
God calls them. 

However anxious they may be to obey God without 
reserve, their conscience is yet darkened, to some extent, 
by the ideas current around them. This is not to imply 
that Christians vaunt themselves to be the only posses- 
sors of the moral law. St Paul, in fact, reproached 
Greeks as well as Jews for their vices, precisely because 
they had * the just decree of God before their minds ' 
that ' those who so live are deserving of death; not only 
those who commit such acts, but those who countenance 
such a manner of living ' (Rom. i : 32). The same idea 
is expressed by St Francis Xavier, when he declares that 

Long before the law came from China to Japan, 1 the 
Japanese knew that it was wrong to kill, to steal, to bear 
false witness; their remorse of conscience was a sign of 
the evil they committed; that is because the duty of 
refraining from evil and doing what is good is written in 
the hearts of men. People, therefore, know the com- 
mandments of God without being taught them by any- 
one unless it be the Creator of mankind. 3 

It is well known to missionaries that there is no people 
entirely ignorant of the moral law; here and there, a 
few wise men attained a high level of doctrine, which 

1 On the admission of the Japanese themselves, Francis Xavier 
realized that it was to China that they owed, in large measure, their 
religious inspiration. 

2 Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii, ed. Schurhammer, Rome, Monu- 
menta Historica S J., 1944-1945, vol. II, p. 262. 



46 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

served to regulate the general conduct of their people. 
Is it possible, then, for a society to discover for itself 
the natural moral law in its entirety? This would appear 
doubtful, in view of the profound effects of original sin. 
The mind of man is still capable of distinguishing good 
from evil, but, in the absence of light from a higher 
source, he vacillates and is easily led astray when it 
comes to deciding what is, in fact, good and what is bad; 
thus, in many peoples, suicide is held to be required by 
honour. Moreover, under the impulses of concupiscence, 
man comes to let his desires prevail over his principles 
and to make his weakness the measure of right; this 
explains, for example, the appearance of divorce and 
polygamy in some societies. This tendency is so strong 
that it prevails even where divine revelation has been 
accepted; and we see the nations of Europe, in spite of 
their long Christian history, legalizing divorce and social 
injustice. 

The rules of life expressed in a country's law and 
institutions are an exact reflection of its moral climate. 
Obviously, this does not rule out the possibility that 
men, through the action of grace and by their own 
unsullied vision, may preserve their rectitude of con- 
science, even in surroundings more or less decadent. 
Yet they are in constant danger from the pressure of 
opinion of judging modes of action to be normal and 
good, when they are intrinsically immoral. 

Even when the principles adopted by a society are 
good, it remains to be seen how far they are actually 
conformed with. It is one thing to know the moral 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 47 

law, and another tiling to live up to it, and there may 
be considerable divergence between the law that is 
acknowledged and the life that is led. What consti- 
tutes a departure from the ideal may make its appear- 
ance and become an accepted practice; and people are 
far more impressed by what they see in actual life than 
by rules that remain a dead letter. Here, too, Christians 
themselves are, unfortunately, a case in point. At 
various periods, numbers of them, swayed by their 
environment, gave up the sacraments, contemned the 
laws of marriage, and acquired wealth by violent means. 
By the same kinds of influence, non-Christians may 
come to lose the sense of God and of the virtues tradi- 
tional to their race. 

Consequently, morality is in need of help and correc- 
tion both in its prescriptions and in its practice. ' Christ 
alone is the guardian of human justice/ wrote Pius XII 
in the encyclical, Evangelii Praecones; and the Church 
alone maintains it integrally, because she alone is 
indefectible. She alone provides the means of living 
constantly faithful to it, for she has the privilege of 
dispensing the grace of Christ, which alone can assure 
such fidelity and raise men up again after their repeated 
falls. She points out what is right in ideas and conduct, 
and, in doing so, restores the natural bases essential to 
the being and development of the Christian life. 
Furthermore, by the theological virtues of faith, hope 
and charity, the moral life is set on a higher plane of 
development; the rules already known and lived by are 
further refined, the conscience made more delicate in 



48 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

its perceptions, and the charity of Christ breaks down 
all the ramparts of human selfishness. 

The world of men, for the most part, ignores the call 
to this life; for, in spite of its thirst for God, it is, in one 
of its aspects, an invisible ' world ', the world of ' dark- 
ness ' (Jn. 1:5), the world of which Satan is the * prince ' 
(Jn. 12: 31; Lk. 4: 6), and Satan wars against Christ to 
keep his empire intact, or, at least, to delay its destruc- 
tion. He is ever active in raising up new adversaries 
to the Church, and finds ready auxiliaries in that con- 
cupiscence which enslaves man to the goods of this 
world, and the pride which leads him to trust entirely 
to his own judgment. 

The Church, on the other hand, testifies that * God so 
loved the world that he gave up his only-begotten Son, 
so that those who believe in him may not perish, but 
have eternal life. When God sent his Son into the 
world, it was not to reject the world, but so that the 
world might find salvation through him. For the man 
who believes in him there is no rejection; the man who 
does not believe is already rejected; he has not found 
faith in the name of God's only-begotten Son ' (Jn. 3 : 
1 6- 1 8). The Church insists that 'we have an everlasting 
city, but not here; our goal is the city that is one day 
to be' (Heb. 13: 14). 

It is absolutely indispensable to strive with every possible 
means to preserve all peoples, or disengage them, from 
those pernicious teachings that make the enjoyment of 
this world's goods the sole end of man in this life. . . . 
It is absolutely imperative to teach all that we are here 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH 49 

in exile making for our true country which, is immortal 
(Pius XII, Evangelii Praecones). 

Between Satan and the Church there is no possible 
compromise. Man must make his choice; it is a ques- 
tion of life or death for eternity. ' Rejection lies in this, 
that when the light came into the world, men preferred 
darkness to light; preferred it, because their doings were 
evil. Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light, will 
not come into the light, for fear that his doings will be 
found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes 
to the light, so that his deeds may be seen for what they 
are, deeds done in God' (Jn. 3: 19-21). 

There is no need to disguise the fact that, in the 
beginning, the unusual aspect, and more or less alien 
character, of the Church may hinder or delay the people 
among whom it is set up from drawing near to Christ, 
but that is only a secondary obstacle. The real one is 
men's attachment to sin; the barrier causing them to 
stumble in their advance consists of the formidable 
demands on them that Christianity entails; these they 
well understand, and too often they hang back. The 
best of them are liable to repeat the experience of the 
rich young man (Mt. 19: 16-22). He had kept the 
commandments from his youth, and, urged on by the 
desire to ascend further, he fell at the feet of Jesus, 
asking him what he should do. When he learnt that 
he should abandon everything, he became sad and dis- 
couraged. In a sense, the non-Christian, too, is called 
to sacrifice all his goods to gain the pearl of great price 
(Mt. 13: 45-46). 



5O THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

The Gospel has a real power of attraction, its beauty 
is striking, and many recognize its truth. Many, also, 
hesitate to * take the step ', because their principles and 
habits of life would be overthrown. Men's actions, 
when exposed to the brilliance of the divine light, change 
their colour; the change, in some cases, may be imper- 
ceptible, but, elsewhere, it is a violent one. Benevolence 
must become charity; forgiveness of injuries, which 
might seem foolish or bad, becomes of obligation; divorce 
and polygamy, which might seem to be natural, must 
be abolished; the sense of family responsibility, while 
remaining alert, must yet allow for a proper appreciation 
of the religious vocation; and moral value does not reside 
in external conduct, but in the internal attitude. 

Before the word of God made itself heard, the life of 
men ran, calm and clear, in well-defined channels; and, 
all at once, the dykes grow weak and break at the impact 
of a torrent that sweeps men away indiscriminately. 
Previously, they knew where they were going, they could 
count up their possessions; but when, in obedience to 
grace, they go over to Christ, they are, indeed, aware 
that they are offered wealth of quite a different kind, 
but as yet they have no experience of it; they cannot 
foresee precisely how far their life will be transformed 
by it. 

The particular attachments keeping them away from 
Christ vary with the individual, and must be studied 
in each several case. One factor, however, is common 
to all; there is a counter attraction to what the Church 
offers, not only in the passions and habits of the indi- 



BEGINNINGS OF A CHURCH JI 

vidual, but also in the pressure o the world and public 
opinion. There must be an endeavour to nullify this, 
or even to reverse the trend. Thereby, the Church is 
brought to intervene in temporal problems with which 
it is not directly concerned; and, in addition, it has to 
develop its own organizations to give effective support 
to all Christians, whether newly converted or of long 
standing. In this way, it can gradually transform a 
non-Christian into a Christian environment, without 
which conversion must entail real heroism, and so be 
restricted to a small number; the local Church, then, 
would never be able to grow to its normal dimensions. 



INTERFERENCE 
OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 

SINCE the Church is wholly a mystery of the super- 
natural order, her essential mission is a supernatural 
one. But, since she cannot accomplish it without 
being 'incarnated' in a manner analogous to the 
Incarnation of Christ, her Head, her influence penetrates 
deeply into the temporal 1 order. 

The Son of God was made man; he acted in human 
fashion, * fashioned in the likeness of men J (Phil. 2 : 7). 
Consequently, he was confronted with typically human 
problems. It is true that he took care to uphold the 
supernatural character of his mission, and refused to 
take sides in purely temporal questions, as in a dispute 
over an inheritance (Lk. 12: 13), or that of the tax 
imposed by the Roman authorities (Mt. 22 : 15). The 
Sanhedrin might accuse him before Pilate of political 
designs, but the false witnesses were their own refuta- 
tion, for Christ never taught disobedience to the laws 
or to established authority. 

1 This term is open to ambiguity. It is ordinarily opposed to 
'spiritual', and, in that way, indicates the material side of human 
life. In itself it is applicable to all that is essentially subject to time, 
and so may comprise the whole of human life in so far as directed 
to temporal ends. This is the sense in which it is used here, in 
opposition, that is, to ' supernatural '. 

52 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 53 

Christ's mission itself required him to correct many 
of the ideas current in his day. If, for example, the 
possession of riches is not wrong in itself, it is yet danger- 
ous, through encouraging the growth of earthly desires 
(Mt. 19 : 24). Foresight and skill in temporal business 
may indeed be commendable, but trust in Providence is 
better (Mt. 6: 25). Authority, whether domestic or 
political, has a right to obedience; but it is not supreme 
(Lk. 14: 26; Jn. 19: 11). Revenge, though permitted by 
the law of Moses, is henceforth forbidden (Mt. 5: 39), 
and the same applies to divorce (Mt. 5: 32; 19: 9). We 
must love even our enemies (Mt. 5 : 44), and the attitude 
of Christ to the Samaritans (Jn. 4; Lk. 9: 55) is an 
actual indication how intolerable to him was racial 
hatred. 

He was equally forthright in his treatment of existing 
customs, such as the observance of the Sabbath (Mk. 2 : 
27; Mt. 12: 11); the frequent washings (Mt. 15: 3); the 
practice of fasting (Mt. 9: 15); the buying and selling in 
the temple (Jn. 2: 15; Mt. 21: 12). 

In this way, he brought back law and life to a state 
of purity; but, at the same time, his action affected the 
Jewish culture of his day in its principles and practices, 
which were in an imperfect, even a perverted, condition. 
In general, when principles are restored to vigour and 
attitudes set up correspondingly, the wider and deeper 
their reach the more the balance of social life is 
endangered. 'Nor is new wine put into old wine-skins; 
if that is done,* the skins burst, and there is the wine 
spilt and the skins spoiled. If the wine is new, it is put 



54 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

into fresh wine-skins, and so both are kept safe ' (Mt. 9 : 
17). The comparison must not be pressed to prove that 
Christ desired to set up an entirely new culture; but 
it does mean that cultural elements must be radi- 
cally reshaped if they are to form part of a higher 
synthesis. 

Likewise, the Church, knowing that her mission is a 
supernatural one, refrains from taking over the manage- 
ment of temporal matters. As human beings, her mem- 
bers have to take their normal part in society. Those, 
however, with responsibilities in the strictly ecclesiastical 
sphere will normally decline to take on temporal 
functions in addition, on account of the confusions inevit- 
ably occasioned; though, in exceptional conditions, there 
may be good reasons for combining the two. The 
Church, as such, is never involved therein. She leaves 
all, Christians or not, free to choose their form of 
government and of social and family relationships. 
When she became a predominant force in the Roman 
Empire, she did not agitate for the replacement of one 
ruler by another, for national liberties, for the legal 
suppression of slavery, or for fresh legislation on 
domestic matters. 

Her contribution is quite other than a recasting of 
temporal society; it is the divine life, an interior prin- 
ciple of personal renovation. The virtues of faith, hope 
and charity bring light of a higher order to bear on the 
whole moral life of man; and the whole of life becomes 
thereby capable of being raised to the supernatural 
level. 'In eating, in drinking, in all that you do, do 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 55 

everything as for God's glory', was the teaching of St 
Paul (i Cor. 10: 31). What is required for a meal to 
become a supernatural act? It is that man should live 
by the light of grace, and should have a right intention; 
and this, in turn, supposes that the act should be in 
accord with the moral law, and the outcome of a general 
will to live for God, It matters little what the food in 
question is; everyone is free to follow his inclinations. 
The Church may intervene, and at times does so; for 
example, to instil in her members a certain idea of 
asceticism, to some degree indispensable, she enjoins 
days of fasting and abstinence, and these have their 
own reaction on the life of society. 

In a more general way, the Church's penetration of 
the temporal sphere comes about through the close 
connection between theology and morals on the one 
hand, and morals and techniques on the other. We have 
already analysed the way in which divine revelation 
revivifies the moral law, and there is no need to return 
to the subject, but the second point needs examination. 

Man being a spiritual being, free and immortal, there 
is no aspect of human life to which moral considera- 
tions are irrelevant. No doubt, the economic and 
juridical orders have their own particular 'autonomy, 
since they have their specific ends and follow their 
proper laws. The economic order is that of the relations 
of man to nature (in the material sense); it regulates the 
exploitation of material resources and their distribution, 
and is governed by laws such as those of supply and 
demand. The juridical order comprises the relations 



56 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

between persons within society; it secures the co-opera- 
tion of each to the good of the whole, and, to this end, 
has to determine the extent of individual rights and 
duties. In both, what is established is a technique of 
life on this earth; but, since they are both concerned 
with human persons, they cannot leave out of all con- 
sideration the question of eternal destiny. Hence any 
use of immoral means is ruled out in principle, if not 
always in fact even if such bring technical advantages; 
and it follows, too, that the supreme end of the economic 
and juridical orders is to ensure that justice prevails in 
the human relations with which they are concerned. 
All this follows from their essential subordination to 
the moral order. This latter, in its turn, has for its 
object the direction of man to his final end, and so is 
subordinated to religion, in which God, the final End, 
makes known his summons, his demands, and the means 
of salvation he puts at our disposition. 

If, then, it is no part of the Church's business to deter- 
mine what economic and juridical arrangements are 
most suitable to a given temporal situation, it does fall 
to her to draw the attention of the various societies to 
the moral principles that should govern their whole 
activity, and to urge their detailed application, while 
leaving to each society the responsibility of working 
out the best practical arrangements. In these matters 
she acts, not directly, but by setting forth obligations 
and urging their fulfilment, at one and the same time 
stating the true principles and stirring up her members 
to adapt their lives to them without waiting for the 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 57 

reform of institutions, useful or indispensable though 
that may be. 

A characteristic example of this is the attitude of the 
early Church towards slavery. Neither the apostles nor 
their successors inveighed against the inhuman character 
of that institution. They did not hesitate to affirm 
that slaves ought to obey their masters, and that, in 
doing so, they were obeying God himself, and so they 
ought to put their hearts into it, and not merely serve 
with their bodies. But, at the same time, masters were 
taught it was their duty to God to treat their slaves in a 
humane fashion, since these were equally children of 
the same Father, servants of the same Master, God, with 
whom * there is no respect of persons ' (Eph. 6 : 5-9; Col. 
3: 22-4: i; i Pet. 2: 18-25). A new principle had been 
introduced, the * revolutionary ' principle of the equality 
of all men before God. It only needed that Christians 
should begin to grasp this idea and live accordingly, for 
the system to be undermined and marked for collapse. 
The force of their example and later of their teaching 
would one day lay low the institutional structure from 
which the spirit had already been put to flight. But we 
can see that it was the whole life of the Roman Empire 
that was rendered unstable, for slavery was a most 
important factor in social relations and economic pro- 
duction. Both of these, therefore, had to be recast, and 
new forms devised, and this gave rise to unrest and 
obloquy. No doubt, the people of Rome distorted the 
facts when they spread the rumour that the Christians 
were stirring up the slaves to revolt; but they were not 



58 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

mistaken in their view that the Church was introducing 
the germ of a radical social change. 

In many other questions, too, the Church manifests 
principles, and teaches behaviour, opposed to established 
practice. The scandal it thereby occasions is no less than 
that of the faith itself, and is inherent to it. No ' adapta- 
tion * or human prudence can avail to eliminate it, unless 
the Church betrays itself and the integrity of its mission. 

Mingling of Cultures 

At the level we have considered, the intervention of 
the Church in the temporal sphere is a direct conse- 
quence of its mission, and is not just an example of 
contact between one culture and another. The moral 
principles which, by the light of revelation, it restores 
to vigour, are not the appanage of a particular culture, 
but should be an inspiration common to all; they are 
not alien to anyone, but natural to every man, though 
by many they are only dimly, if at all, perceived. 

Yet the Church, besides the mysterious, supernatural 
influence it exerts on men, also speaks to them by its 
missionaries. The heralds of Christ are themselves 
human beings, with habits of mind and action that are 
doubtless Christian, but form only one way, among 
many other possible ones, of living as a Christian; they 
bear, too, the imprint of a particular culture, in these 
days generally a Western one. It is not easy, either for 
the missionary or his audience, to distinguish the uni- 
versal, * Catholic ', principles of which he is the bearer, 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 59 

from the cultural expression they take on with him. 
Thus there is a close connection, in fact not by right, 
between the moral contribution of the Church and the 
cultural contribution of the missionary. Hence, we have 
another source of interventions in the temporal sphere, 
due, this time, not to the nature of the Church as a 
whole, but to the character of a local Church; and these 
interventions are subject, at least in part, to the general 
laws of 'acculturation'. 

A culture, as we have already seen, is in a state of 
dynamic equilibrium, that is to say, it is both stable 
and in continuous movement. Each member of a society 
is moulded by the language and customs inherited from 
his forbears; these provide a vision of the world, a way 
of confronting problems, a manner of life, characteristic 
of that particular culture. Since it is men who are 
moulded by it, a culture cannot be simply imposed; it is 
an education that should bring each person to accept it 
freely, leaving him free to inquire as to its value, and to 
introduce modifications. What the individual brings in 
this way, far from conflicting with the culture, is itself 
an expression of it, and a fulfilment of its potentialities 
for living. Wisdom and culture, being human, are never 
perfect, but grow in perfection through a long series 
of tentative experiments. It is a part of wisdom to have 
a general trust in the cultural heritage which embodies 
ancestral experience, but it would be foolish to think 
that all problems have been solved in advance and 
definitively. A culture, then, develops chiefly through 
the influence of ' pioneers ', even though a spontaneous 

F 



6o THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

reaction of self-defence holds back the premature com- 
mitment of the whole group to new ways, as yet un- 
tried and uncertain in their issue. It is rather like the 
action of a bather who feels the water first with his 
finger to see if it is not too cold. The finger in this 
case consists of the disciples, the pioneers of the new 
way. 

Pressure from within is combined with the action of 
an external force of cultural development, the impact 
of one culture on another, and this sets before each of 
them the problem of its own peculiar value, and brings 
about certain changes in each; this is what is known as 
'acculturation 3 . It arises as soon as a 'foreigner', one 
formed in another culture, comes into contact with a 
given society. As a rule, such a one has no intention 
of introducing any change at all in the life of those 
around him; he lives in his own way, without troubling 
about other people, or else adopts from free choice the 
customs of the place. Yet he is bound to lead people 
to question these. His way of greeting or of eating, of 
going about his affairs or decorating his house, are 
different from what is customary. Even if he takes pains 
to do 'like everyone else', his manner lacks assurance, 
he makes mistakes, and so indicates, without being aware 
of it, the existence of different habits. This is quite 
enough to suggest to the people of the country that their 
ways are not 'natural', but derived from tradition; 
other attitudes are seen to be possible, and some of them 
may appear better adapted to deal with this or that 
problem of living. This is what we mean when we say 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 6l 

a man * leaves his mark ' on his surroundings, and they 
on him. 

If the foreigner is a single person, and if, besides, he 
has little contact with the natives, the problem to which 
his coming gives rise may pass unnoticed. But if there 
are many of them, and they include men of distinction, 
forceful men, who attract the notice of people, there is 
brought about a situation of contact between the two 
cultures. They become interdependent, and the effects 
of this vary according to the form and duration of the 
contact, and also according to the degree of receptivity 
or resistance of the members of the two groups. 

It is sometimes imagined that, once the contact has 
been broken off or greatly restricted in scope, each 
culture would simply return to its original state. Accord- 
ing to this view, the cultures of Asia or Africa, once they 
recover their political independence and their freedom 
to order their future as they please, will abandon that 
western culture which affected them for a time, regard- 
less of their own wishes, and will renew their bonds with 
their own past to develop according to their natural 
genius. 

Obviously, every people has its own special character, 
and tends to uphold it. It is equally clear that accession 
to political independence goes along with a strong aspira- 
tion to be 'themselves', in every sphere of life. But 
these values, at one time 'foreign' western, in the 
present case have penetrated the cultures in question 
more deeply than was at first suspected. They have 
been tried, and the experiment has left lasting effects, in 



62 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

proportion to its own duration. Just as the human 
organism, after taking medicine or poison, remains 
permanently affected, and reacts to outside influences in 
a way different from before, so contact between two 
cultures leaves a permanent imprint on each of them. 
Once the first impulse of ill humour or self-assertiveness 
has passed, an impulse to discard all foreign elements, 
the peoples become aware that these elements are already 
partly assimilated to their own native culture. The 
task that then awaits them is to sift all the elements at 
hand and reject what seems definitely opposed to their 
own genius as well as those aspects of their own past 
that are evidently defunct. The way is thus opened up 
towards a new and original synthesis based on both 
cultures. 

Under the influence of acculturation, the development 
of a society may work itself out by slow, almost imper- 
ceptible degrees. Thus, Ricci in China, and de Nobili 
in India, with their successors, opened up long ago new 
horizons to the people of those countries, introducing to 
them ideas which made their way by gradual infiltration. 

Development may also proceed with the speed of 
revolution. That will be the case especially when one 
of the two cultures in contact is seen to be manifestly 
superior to the other in a sphere of vital importance, 
for this produces a violent effect. Even if the people 
so touched on a sensitive place in regard to their culture 
continue to hold theirs to be superior in other respects, 
their relative inferiority is still felt to be intolerable. 
An instinct of self-defence moves them to refuse to 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 63 

acknowledge it, to adopt an ostrich-like attitude. The 
feeling of inferiority remains hanging over them, and 
brings into being pioneer-spirits who devote themselves 
to restoring the balance by assimilating those cultural 
elements that are the strong points of the other people. 
They themselves are liable to go to excess, to despise 
their own past, and to try to incorporate the foreign 
culture in its entirety. In any case, the traditional 
culture is disrupted, its elements tend to fall apart and 
to be transformed under the impact of new forces. The 
balance will be restored, once the native genius of the 
people has effected a symbiosis of its own, at once rooted 
in the past and incorporating new elements from outside. 

It is impossible to understand the missionary prob- 
lems of the present time without realizing that a strong 
revolutionary ferment is at work among the peoples, not 
only politically but also culturally. The Church itself, 
in fact, brings to them a ferment of renewal, which may 
act slowly, or else, in cases where their culture is at 
marked variance with the principles of natural morality, 
may cause a sudden upheaval. Doubtless, the effect of 
the impact of the Church's supernatural contribution is 
more profound than any other factor, but, since here 
its action is essentially interior and the means invisible, 
it is all the more difficult to assess its temporal results; 
these are, on the one hand, retarded by human sinful- 
ness, and, on the other, being due to an inner change 
rather than an external agency, may come to be con- 
fused with the natural development of the culture. 

Besides, in our own day, missionary expansion and 



64 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

western penetration have, in fact, coincided. Availing 
herself of her scientific and technical discoveries, Europe, 
in the course of the nineteenth century, extended her 
political and cultural influence all over the globe. In 
so doing, she started a revolution in ways of living, and 
spread abroad ideas that are far as yet from having 
realized all their consequences. There is no essential 
connection between this action in the temporal sphere 
and missionary action, but they are connected in time. 
They operate at different levels; yet, inasmuch as the 
missionary, too, exerts secondarily a cultural influence, 
this becomes, in fact, conjoined with that resulting from 
western penetration. The actual development of the 
Asiatic and African cultures is prompted by both these 
agencies, and is complicated by their own independent 
reaction to them. Nothing is harder than to distinguish 
the effect proper to each of these factors, and it is doubt- 
ful if that can ever be done adequately. The result 
remains common to all; but the important thing is to 
define on which scale the action of the missionary 
should lean, if he is to be faithful to his essential task, 
and what are the temporal obstacles before him. 

The Church and Family Life 

The family, being the natural sphere in which man 
develops, and to which he is most strongly bound by 
affection, often forms an important factor in his adhesion 
to, or rejection of, Christ. It is by no means rare for a 
whole family to be converted after one of its members. 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 65 

What is hardest for a catechumen is to go against the 
opinion of his family, when it remains firmly hostile. 
It irks man to live in solitude. When he is cut off from 
his family, he feels uprooted, but, with the support of 
the family, he is ready to face anything. 

Whenever the family is based on the natural law of 
monogamy and indissolubility, the Church has only to 
strengthen its unity by a public expression of approval 
and by bringing the faithful to the sacrament of 
matrimony. It is, obviously, quite possible for a society 
to have kept this tradition of the natural character of 
marriage; the studies of Schmidt seem to show that this 
was the case with the African pygmies. But in many 
peoples divorce or polygamy, or both, have been rife, 
though the forms and rules in vogue vary considerably. 

The introduction of polygamy was not always due to 
the same causes. It may arise from sexual licence and 
a tendency to look upon women as a mere object of 
pleasure, in which case it is generally a luxury that only 
the rich can afford. It would, however, seem rare to 
find this cause alone at work; nearly always, especially 
when the custom is widespread, motives of a higher 
order are present. 

To take a wife is to enter into a union with her family. 
It is, therefore, an excellent way of settling long-stand- 
ing disputes, or of sealing an 'offensive and defensive' 
alliance; it is a pledge of security and progress for the 
two families concerned. In monarchical regimes, prin- 
cesses were often thus disposed of for political reasons. 
But even in the West, the centralization of political 



66 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

power is something quite recent, and elsewhere it is far 
from being achieved. As long as families retain a large 
measure of autonomy, and have to rely on their own 
resources for their protection, a network of matrimonial 
alliances is a vital necessity; and this is made possible 
by a plurality of wives. Polygamy is thus a source of 
family power. 

Often it is also a source of wealth. Nearly all peoples, 
at least in their beginnings, had a spontaneous impulse 
to set up a relationship between the fecundity of women 
and that of the soil. This idea, a religious one, is seen 
at work in the numerous feminine divinities to whom 
was attributed the patronage of agriculture, and in the 
custom of reserving certain special agricultural tasks to 
women, in some cases to virgins. In parts of Africa, up 
to the present time, the cultivation of the fields is 
reserved to women; men take it on only with reluctance, 
or in certain special circumstances. Where the soil is 
poor and its cultivation takes much time and toil, it 
takes up a woman's whole time, and another is needed 
to fetch water, collect wood, do the cooking, etc. A 
catechumen may well argue that, if he dismissed one 
of his wives, he could not go on living. When condi- 
tions are less severe, the possession of many wives may 
not be indispensable, but is always an advantage. 

The importance of this factor is seen in the persistence, 
even the advance, of polygamy in North Africa, in spite 
of the growth of Christianity, the attraction of western 
modes of life, and the protests of young men who find it 
difficult to marry. The reason is that contact with 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 67 

foreigners had multiplied the economic value of women. 
Formerly, all they had to do was to assure a supply of 
the ordinary necessities. Then came European traders, 
bought certain kinds of fruit, and expressed their desire 
to buy as much as could be obtained. The price they 
paid may have been ridiculously low, but they did pay, 
and the natives found themselves in possession of 
unknown, undreamt-of wealth. To increase this, planta- 
tions had to be extended, and more wives acquired. 
They were thus the essential springs of the economic 
machinery; they produced the fruit, which brought in 
the money, which purchased additional wives. In addi- 
tion, the wife bore children, some of them girls, who 
began by helping with the work of the fields, and could 
later be sold for a good price; in every way, then, she 
was the chief source of profit. As a result, the marriage 
agreement, which used to be an exchange of gifts 
between two families as a sign of their alliance, tends to 
become a contract of sale, or at least of hire, and may 
reach an exorbitant sum. 1 The attraction of wealth is 
so strong that missionaries have often to rebuke their 
Christian people both for taking many wives and for 
selling their daughters to married men; and young men, 
unable to afford the payment demanded, are virtually 
forced into concubinage. 

1 The amount varies according to the district, and is sometimes 
fixed by law, which may remain a dead letter. Sometimes, mis- 
sionaries manage to elicit a general agreement on a basic figure, 
which, for the most part, depends on the economic state of the 
country and may be 20,000 to 100,000 French francs in poor parts 
like the Middle Congo, 800,000 to 1,000,000 and more in rich 
districts like the South Cameroons. 



68 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

The Church does not condemn all desire to grow 
rich and powerful, but cannot accept polygamy as a 
means. It has, therefore, to correct the ideas current, 
and ceaselessly uphold the natural and divine essentials 
of marriage, urging them on the faithful. In so doing, 
it strikes at the base of the existing life of the family 
and society, and the reaction provoked may be violent. 
The following is an example of the sort. In the summer 
f Z 955> a ^ ew local chiefs surrounded the Catholic 
mission in a village of the central Cameroons, prevented 
the people from going to Mass, and threatened the 
missionary with violent measures if he did not change 
his way of acting. They charged him with implanting 
outrageous ideas in the minds of young women, urging 
them to marry only Christians, to refuse to enter a 
polygamous household, and to become nuns if they 
had the vocation. This was to deprive the heads of 
village or family of monetary gain or sensual gratifica- 
tion, and they had no intention of allowing it. Interven- 
tion from various quarters put an end to open hostility, 
but it left the feeling of resentment. 

Difficulties equally grave, though not so directly 
apparent, arise from the traditional form of the family. 
The origin of these types is still obscure and a matter 
of dispute. Religious beliefs, historical circumstances, 
economic needs, have all played a part in it. The 
scarcity of food, in particular, leads to the dispersion of 
families over vast areas, and so to the extension of the 
bonds of consanguinity. In richer lands, it is possible 
for very large families, comprising several generations, 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 69 

to live together. It is certainly the case in Asia and 
Africa, as formerly in Europe, 1 that the ' great family ' 
is the prevalent type, one based on descent paternal 
or maternal rather than on the marriage bond. 
In Africa to-day, for example, 

marriage, while it brings a girl of the clan into another 
family, does not remove her, juridically, from her original 
clan; she continues to belong to it. It might almost be 
said that she is only lent to her husband's family for 
the work of procreation. Nor, in the case of matriarchal 
clans, does the husband become completely incorporated 
into his wife's clan; he has no right over his children, who 
belong to the clan of their mother. 

Whether she is a member of a patrilinear or a matri- 
linear tribe, the African girl grows up with the idea of 
belonging completely to her own clan. After marriage, 
she often goes back to it; she knows she will always find 
protection and support in her difficulties, and a per- 
manent refuge in case of need, should her husband send 
her away, or should she refuse, after his death, to marry 
one of his heirs. 

Thus, it is not surprising that the African woman 
remains, primarily the daughter of her 'father ' (or, more 
precisely, of her clan), rather than the mother of her 
children, a -fortiori well before being the wife of her 
husband. For her, the conjugal union only takes third 
place, and it is not seldom that she refuses to follow her 
husband when an administrative change, or some other 
reasonable motive, causes him to leave the country. 

x Up to quite recent times, the 'family tie* remains very strong 
in some parts of Europe among peasants in particular. The * grand- 
father exercises a quasi-dictatorial power on the rest of the family 
and over its property, though this is less and less recognized by 
the law. 



7O THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

Furthermore, when she is recalled to the village for 
whatever reason by order of her father or of the head of 
the clan, she obeys without question, leaving without 
scruple if not without regret her husband and children, 
until she is allowed to go back to them. 1 

In China, where the family is also of the patriarchal 
type, the conjugal bond seems much stronger, but has 
a pronounced bias in favour of the wife. Though tradi- 
tion has come to confine the Chinese wife more and 
more closely to the home, there 

on the contrary, woman has always been the despot of 
the family. The authority of the mother and the mother- 
in-law is very well known. Even the wife is always the 
terror of the husband; no other country in the world can 
compete with China for the distinction of being the 
nation of hen-pecked husbands. Certainly, no other 
country has produced so many stories of hen-pecked 
husbands. The wife built up her strong position some- 
times upon love, sometimes upon beauty or personality, 
but in most cases upon the fact that she could not be 
dislodged from her position: she could not be divorced! 2 

When several generations live together under the 
authority of the head of the family, it is his mother 
or wife who has the power. Hence the saying of Lin 
Yutang, that a Chinese 'does not marry a wife, but 
" marries a daughter-in-law ", as the idiomatic expression 

1 Marie-Andr6 du Sacre"-Co2ur, Civilisation en Marche, Paris, 
Grasset, pp. 171-173. 

2 Hu Shih, The Chinese Renaissance, The Haskell Lectures, 1933 
(University of Chicago Press, 1934), pp. 104-105. 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 71 

goes, and when a son is born, the idiomatic expression 
is " a grandson has been born " '- 1 

The Church neither has nor could have any objection 
on principle to these or other types of family life, pro- 
vided that they observe the law of monogamy and indis- 
solubility, with which they are not incompatible; but it 
obviously introduces factors making for profound 
changes in them. No doubt it insists on the obedience 
due from the wife to the husband, and from children to 
parents (Eph. 5: 22-6: 4; Col. 3: 18-21; i Pet. 2: 13-17), 
but this obligation is not unrestricted in scope. The 
6 great family ' holds it self-evident that individuals are 
strictly subordinate to the interests of the group; its 
head naturally tends to be an autocrat, and to stifle, 
rather than encourage personal initiative. The Church, 
while recognizing that family solidarity calls for sacri- 
fices, and that the heads of families often work with 
intelligence and success for the happiness of all the 
members, yet promotes the sense of personal vocation; 
it teaches its members that the call of God has priority 
over all else, that the religious vocation involves a break- 
ing away from family obligations, and that the call to 
the married state is a call to set up a home based on 
love freely given, 2 and rules out any separation of the 

1 Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, (Heinemann, 1936), 
p. 141. 

2 This does not necessarily imply that the choice of husband or 
wife is left entirely to the two persons, nor does it preclude all inter- 
vention on the part of the parents for the good of the two parties 
or even for that of the family as a whole. Traditions and mental 
outlooks vary, but they may be perfectly sound. It is constraint 
that is ruled out. See the very pertinent accounts of Dr John Wu, 
Beyond East and West (Sheed and Ward, 1951). 



72 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

partners on the pretext of obedience to the head of 
the family. 

What is less apparent in the beginning, but more 
revolutionary in the end, is the change of emphasis in 
what constitutes family unity. Whereas the 'great 
family' is based primarily on blood-relationship or the 
maternal relation, and the father or mother has, by 
tradition, a sacred character, the primary factor, in the 
Christian view, is the marriage bond; this it is which is 
consecrated by the sacrament of marriage, and raised 
to the level of a symbol of the mystical union between 
Christ and his Church (Eph. 5: 25-32); henceforth from 
it the other bonds derive their strength, which, none the 
less, is somewhat impaired. 

Thus the strictly religious element in family life is 
seen clearly. The family is never a purely secular 
institution, except in the secularized Western societies; 
it rests on beliefs from which it derives its essential 
strength, and which are expressed in a whole group of 
various rites, such as the worship of ancestors, or in 
ceremonies which mark the different stages of life. 
Ancestor-worship is not necessarily a superstitious 
practice. In certain circumstances, and when there is 
no danger of a false construction being placed on it, the 
Church may authorize its members to take part in it; in 
other circumstances, she forbids it. Similarly, rites of 
initiation, of marriage and of burial, may have a prim- 
arily social meaning, as the ability of a young person to 
fend for himself, the mutual consent of the spouses 
and the alliance between families. Funerals, since they 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 73 

signify the passage to the next world, are necessarily 
more stamped by the traditional beliefs; but the other 
rites nearly always include invocations of divinities and 
gestures- expressing the role attributed to them. For 
these, prayers to God or the saints must be substituted; 
that has been done, for instance, in the case of the 
Chinese marriage customs, of course only in Christian 
circles. The deciding factor in settling the Christian 
attitude to a particular ceremony is the meaning gener- 
ally given to it by public opinion; if it is viewed as a 
social act, no problem arises; but if it is understood to 
be a religious act expressing non-Christian beliefs, it is 
impossible for a Christian to take part in it, until those 
beliefs have been developed and purified. 

The latter has been most often the case, up till quite 
recent times, precisely because the cultures of Asia and 
Africa were so deeply impregnated with the ' sacred'; 
and so Christians were faced with the duty, often a very 
hard one, of breaking away from traditions held by their 
families as imperative. They were in consequence liable 
to be looked upon as traitors and as impious. That is 
no new accusation; it is the one levelled against the early 
Christians. The danger is that it may not only induce 
in the convert himself a feeling of shame, but that his 
relations too may feel themselves dishonoured. In 
these countries, public opinion could easily view Chris- 
tian marriage, lacking the ancestral forms, in the same 
light as Europeans look on 'free love*. What is even 
more serious is that the vengeance of their divinities may 
strike, not only those guilty of the ' sacrilege ', but the 



74 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

whole family of whom a member has turned aside from 
the right way. 

Owing to a marriage or to the neglect of some cere- 
mony which for a Christian is incompatible with the 
faith he professed, his family feels hanging over it a 
threat which agitates it and may lead it to take violent 
measures. Legal difficulties, too, may arise, if the law, 
whether written or customary, holds invalid acts per- 
formed without the traditional religious forms. The 
right of inheritance may thus be questioned, or access 
to certain positions may be withheld. 

To missionaries falls the task of resolving cases of 
conscience fraught with hardship for their converts; 
they have to strengthen them against the temptation 
to return to an easier way of life, to keep them from 
sinking into a state of discouragement when they feel 
themselves ostracized. They must also concern them- 
selves with the sudden impact of their procedure even 
though wholly supernatural and taken with due pru- 
dence on the life of the family. They know that it is 
not just a question for them to set up order in place of 
disorder. There were already in existence sound ele- 
ments of life, and they are not to be suppressed, but 
rather embodied in new institutions, and animated by 
the Christian spirit; this requires great care, and there 
is danger in postponing the effort. It is not enough to 
state what is of obligation, what is allowed and what 
forbidden; men have to be trained to live accordingly. 

In this consists the great value of Catholic educational 
establishments and after-school activities. These, as 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 75 

indeed in Europe, cannot be restricted to implanting 
secular knowledge, but have to form Christians in the 
fullest sense of the word. Since they also reach a large 
non-Christian public, they extend correspondingly the 
Church's sphere of influence. Even when respect for 
other convictions and observance of the proper stages 
oblige the missionary to limit himself strictly to secular 
subjects, he should set himself to form the character 
and educate the judgment. The human culture he 
works to promote is closely bound up with Christian 
ideals, and aims at directing men towards them; it 
involves a conflict with the evil tendencies which the 
native cultural tradition may perhaps promote. 

Moreover, this work of education brings with it new 
problems, arising from its western character. Mission- 
aries have, in fact, not been negligent in 'adapting' 
themselves. Thus, in the Belgian Congo, they have 
adopted the African languages for their teaching, and 
worked out curricula which are not modelled on those of 
Europe, but correspond to local needs. 1 Elsewhere, they 
have often made greater use of European languages, and 
followed more closely the usual syllabus, but this is 
always because it was thought useful to the people 
themselves, and not through any wish to westernize 
them. It is clear, for example, that China, at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century, gave up, of its own accord, 
its traditional mode of education, to create a new system 
strongly inspired by Anglo-Saxon methods. India or 

1 This applies to the first stages; subsequently other needs have to 
be met. 

G 



76 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

Indonesia had no say in the educational revolution 
brought about by England or Holland, but, when they 
began to regain their independence or had already 
obtained it, they had no idea of calling in question these 
new types of education. When they consider reforms, 
they aim at giving more scope to their own cultural 
inheritance, not at forgoing the benefits of a wide 
initiation into western culture. The integration we 
spoke about is in course of accomplishment. 

The real problem lies elsewhere, in the actual reper- 
cussion of the ideas introduced by western education, 
with its sense of scientific exactitude and material pro- 
gress, its cult of freedom and its impatience with tradi- 
tional discipline. New horizons open out before the 
mind, by reason of the prevailing atmosphere of the 
schools and the books made accessible by the education 
given. In consequence, ways of life established by 
custom or imposed by economic necessity may come 
henceforth to seem repugnant. The problem is, perhaps, 
particularly acute in much of Africa. There the young 
people, on leaving school, have little inclination to return 
to the life of the bush. In the villages, they would find 
themselves again under the dominance of the ' elders ? , 
and deprived of the cinema and other resources; they 
are tempted by the towns, even though they may have 
to live the miserable life of the unemployed. At the 
same time, it is found that fathers are disinclined to send 
their daughters to school; it would be time wasted from 
work in the fields, but, above all, they would return 
with the fixed intention of exercising their own choice 



in marriage, and of insisting that their husbands treat 
them on a footing of equality. These are human prob- 
lems, admittedly, but they are disturbing to the con- 
science, and are a threat to the balance of society. The 
missionary, if he does not take them into account and 
attempt some solution, will be producing a crop of root- 
less persons, who would soon grow discontented and 
embittered, and blame their misfortunes on the Church. 
The work of education, then, is incomplete and defective, 
so long as it envisages only the school-period; it has to 
be concerned with adapting the pupils to the actual 
life they will have to live, and helping them to discover 
the resources to sustain and improve it. In addition, 
it must act, through influencing parents, to alter the 
surroundings the children will return to when their 
studies are over, so as to create an atmosphere favour- 
able to the development of their lives as human beings 
and Christians. In short, education has to be thought 
out as an organ of the whole life of society. 

The Church and Social Life 

The new ideas on family life and education brought 
in by the Church react strongly on the whole culture. 
They affect the process of acculturation at that very 
point where the younger generation, of its own accord, 
takes up and assimilates its ancestral traditions, but it 
may also transform them more or less radically. 

At the same time, as we have already seen, the 
Church's concern to make it possible for its members 



78 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

to live a fully Christian life leads it to intervene in all 
the aspects of social life. If it is to direct the whole 
people towards a life in full accord with the moral law, 
it has to remove the obstacles in the way of their pro- 
gress to Christ. 

The Church, then, will condemn unnatural customs 
such as slavery, the killing of infants and prisoners of 
war, the suicide of widows, the absolute segregation of 
castes. In regard to the problems arising from urbaniza- 
tion and industrialization, it has to set its face against 
communism and the abuses of capitalism, against shanty- 
towns and sweated labour, against arrogant and aggres- 
sive race-theories. 

In its courteous attitude to all with whom it comes in 
contact, the Church, in the persons of its members, will 
set a firm example of the respect due to human dignity. 
It will labour constantly to restore a true sense of values, 
and so to foster and encourage really human living 
conditions. For the want of freedom in its true sense, 
and excessive poverty, especially when they derive from 
the way things are organized, hinder both normal 
human development and the progress of the Christian 
life. 

In regard to social institutions that are either evil or 
clearly imperfect, the Church's primary and imperative 
duty is to declare the moral law. Even so, charity obliges 
it to do so in a reasonable manner and to choose the 
right moment, and also to observe proper order in the 
carrying out of its various tasks. It is well known that 
institutions are not capable of being transformed over- 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 79 

night, and that they are important less for what they 
are than for the spirit they manifest. Even when 
imperfect, as everything human is hound to be, they 
provide an indispensable framework of living; they are 
not to be abolished until they can be replaced, and 
undue haste may result in great harm being done. We 
have only to consider the dramatic consequences of the 
sudden suppression of slavery in the French colonies 
under Louis-Philippe. In a few months the colonists 
found themselves without any workers. Once liberated, 
the natives had no wish to remain under their former 
masters, of whom they had only unpleasant memories; 
yet, accustomed as they were to have food and lodging 
provided, they could not at once grasp the need for 
earning their living. The whole community, in fact, was 
threatened with disaster, which would have benefited 
no one at all. In itself, the decree of liberation was 
both generous and just, but it would have been 
better for everyone if the process had been made 
more gradual. 

This explains why it is that the Church adapts itself, 
at any rate provisionally, to institutions that are imper- 
fect, or even evil. As we have seen, the early Church 
refrained from starting a movement against slavery. In 
seventeenth-century India, and even in our own day, it 
has not urged the abolition of the caste system, but 
agrees to tolerate, even in churches, the separation 
imposed by custom. In the United States, it accepts the 
provision of separate priests for the whites and * for the 
coloured. In consequence, it has been blamed for belying 



80 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

its vocation. Gandhi, among others, strongly con- 
demned its toleration of caste prejudice. 

This, however, is due to a misunderstanding of the 
nature of the Church's vocation, whose specific aim is 
the conversion of the hearts of men, the propagation of 
a certain spirit. This is done more by introducing into 
the lump a leaven so as to raise it, rather than an 
explosive charge to reduce it to fragments. The Church 
brings about the realization of what real love of others 
consists in, and only thereby undermines institutions 
opposed to this. It is a love which impels the individual 
to put himself at the service of all, and so destroys 
egoism, the source of all enmity. Though uncompromis- 
ing in regard to evil systems, it is lenient to individual 
persons, whose responsibility is lessened by their deep- 
rooted prejudices; so it guards against ill-considered 
haste, which would only retard progress, and perhaps 
introduce chaos instead of order and peace. 

It is none the less true that the Church, acting through 
its members, whether native or foreign to the place, aims 
at developing institutions productive of good, and also 
at the improvement and reform of those that are 
defective. Thus, Mother Javouhey founded the cele- 
brated agricultural settlement of Mana (Guiana) to pre- 
pare slaves for emancipation. So too, at the end of the 
nineteenth century, Father Lievens, stirred by the 
wretche'd condition of the peasants of Chota Nagpur, 
cruelly exploited by their zamindars, embarked on a 
study of the laws, both written and , customary, which 
governed them, became their legal adviser, and founded 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 8l 

co-operatives to protect their interests, improve their 
methods of work, and raise their material level. In a 
different setting, missionaries introduced syndicalism 
into Madagascar and elsewhere in Africa. 

In his promotion of social welfare, the missionary, 
while actuated by his Christian spirit, draws on his own 
cultural experience. In dealing with problems of a like 
nature, his fellow-countrymen have also worked out 
solutions in harmony with their own interests and out- 
look. These have turned out more or less successful, 
effective or otherwise, and their forms vary according 
to the difference in western peoples from one another. 
These solutions may be penetrated with the Christian 
spirit, or capable of receiving it, or they may be con- 
ceived in a frankly materialist way. The institutions 
therefore, with which the missionary is familiar cannot 
be looked on as providing a ready-made solution; they 
call for reflection, comparison, and transposition. He 
should gather all the information he can, and use his 
imagination so as to apply only what is best in all the 
varied experience of the West, and to adapt it to the 
character of the people concerned. 

All this is really the province of lay people; but it 
may fall to the missionary, in their absence, to take the 
initiative, and to supply what is needed for the time 
being. In so doing, he is prompted by the urgency of 
the need, but he must never forget that he has to train 
the laity to take over their own responsibilities. This 
is the real function of lay missionaries; that of the priest 
is to foster the Christian life in all who come to him, 



82 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

teaching them its essential principles, from which they 
should draw the practical consequences in every aspect 
of social life. 

The most delicate problems are those which arise from 
the embodiment of religious elements in social conduct. 
Just as a group of young Catholics forge certain spiritual 
links of their own by associating in common prayer, so 
in all countries of the world, associations of men, women, 
youths of both sexes, are bound together by participation 
in certain ceremonies. In the country of Bamileke in 
the Cameroons, the chiefs, in the summer of 1955, tried 
to revive certain customs which had more or less lapsed. 
Among other things, they tried to renew the gatherings 
of young people. A number of African priests, sent by 
the bishop of the place, had to enjoin the Christians not 
to take part in these, unless the fetishist rites, tradition- 
ally of obligation, were left out. The native mind, in 
fact, cannot conceive the possibility of taking part in 
an act of religion without sharing the beliefs it expresses. 

Though the Church does not, in all cases, forbid 
attendance at non-Catholic religious ceremonies, it has 
always warned its members against any conduct that 
would give an impression of indifferentism. It recog- 
nizes and respects the genuine religious intention present 
in the minds of men of very various beliefs, but it is 
also bound to testify, on every occasion, that it acknow- 
ledges as alone true, in the full sense, the revelation 
brought by Christ and entrusted by him to his Church. 
The combination of firmness and tolerance, both equally 
necessary, though on different levels, undoubtedly puts 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 83 

the Church in a difficult position, and its members will 
not find it easy to avoid exaggeration of one or the other. 
The right line of conduct to be followed is particu- 
larly difficult to discern when it is a question of beliefs 
that are absolutely fundamental. According to specialists 
in the ethnography of the coloured African races, the 
land is generally held by them to be something divine, 
and between it and man are set up relations in which 
divine and human elements are mingled; these are 
expressed in rites of consecration, at the time of the 
foundation of villages, and in the system of agricultural 
work through the seasons. Hence comes the reservation 
of the work of reclamation to men and that of sowing 
to women, as we have seen. Besides the land which 
produces it, food also has a sacred character. 

Eating is not only a physical, but also a sacred act. What 
one eats, how one eats, with whom one eats, are factors 
that give rise to feelings at a very deep level, sentiments 
that are not only the most firmly embedded in the in- 
dividual, but the most far-reaching in their social in- 
fluence. There is a kind of modesty in the fashion of 
eating as there is a sexual modesty, and they are con- 
stantly associated, whether they are observed for them- 
selves, as in the prohibition of men and women eating 
together, or as serving to express a subtle distinction of 
worth. One does not eat red turtle-dove, just as one does 
not sleep with a woman of a particular clan. 1 

1 Ch. and M. Le Coeur, Initiation a I'hygiene et & la morale de 
I 'alimentation chez les Djerma et les Peul de Niamey, I.F.A.N., VIII, 
1946. Different customs, but inspired by the same ideas, are to be 
found in all the negro communities of Africa. 



84 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

A religious bond joins those who share the same meal. 

This may enable us to understand better what St Paul 
meant when he wrote: *In eating, in drinking, in all 
that you do, do everything as for God's glory' (i Cor. 
10: 31). Quite apart from the special myths of non- 
Christian religions, and even prior to any divine revela- 
tion, it is incumbent on man to recognize the earth and 
the food it produces as gifts of God. The Church, in 
restoring this attitude to its original purity of expressing 
the worship of God in his Providence, does not destroy 
tradition, but fulfils it. 

None the less, mythical beliefs, more or less false, are 
in fact conjoined with this true religious attitude, and 
may in some way distort it. It is never easy to find the 
practical means of correcting it, without destroying it. 
It is appropriate to reflect on the decisions of the 
' Council ' of Jerusalem (Acts 15 : 28-29), and on St Paul's 
teachings on the use of things sacrificed to idols (Rom. 
14: 13-23; i Cor. 8-10). The law of Moses laid down 
for the Jews certain rules in regard to food, which did 
not apply to Gentile Christians, but, in order not to 
scandalize their Jewish brethren, the Gentiles had, for 
the time being, to keep the same rules, at least in part. 
By the customs of Greece and Rome, slaughtered animals 
were offered to the gods before being put up for sale. 
Christians, knowing that these gods were vain idols, 
could without scruple buy the meat and use it for food, 
but if someone, whether Christian or not, drew attention 
to its * sacred 7 character, and held the act of eating it to 
be a sharing in the idolatrous worship, the Christian 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 85 

would have to abstain from it to avoid giving scandal. 
( I am free to what I will; yes, but not everything can 
be done without harm. I am free to what I will, but 
some things disedify' (i Cor. 10: 22-23); 'here is a soul 
for which Christ died; it is not for thee to bring it to 
perdition with the food thou eatest 7 (Rom. 14:15). 
These are wise and flexible rules for a carefully gradu- 
ated mode of conduct, neither compromising nor rigid. 

With a view to detaching social behaviour from 
erroneous beliefs, the missionary will be tempted to 
emphasize its purely natural aspect. He may not be 
altogether wrong in this, since this element is present, 
but it would certainly be a mistake to adopt this solu- 
tion, the easiest way out of the difficulty. The liberty 
St Paul claims in regard to all things is the 'freedom 
of God's sons', who await all from God their Father. 
The apostle keeps within a world that is sacred, and his 
view is the truly profound one. What is needed, then, 
is not to 'secularize' ordinary life, but to assist the 
various peoples to distinguish the religious inspiration 
by which they were led from the beliefs which expressed 
it, to bring them to realize that they were already on 
the way to the one, true God, who is the fulfilment of 
all their hopes. In this way, there is no danger of 
causing the disappearance of that sense of the sacred 
which divine Providence has so strongly stamped on the 
Asiatic and African mind. 

Yet it is still the case that this work will not be 
achieved without a dissociation, fraught with danger, 
between the life of the peoples and their traditional 



86 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

beliefs. There is a sense in which peoples, like indi- 
viduals, have to go through death to attain the Life. 
This Life comes, not from the earth, or from anything 
earthly, hut from God alone. 'Believe me when I tell 
thee this; a man cannot see the kingdom of God with- 
out "being born anew * (Jn. 3 : 3). 

This irruption of the Life causes a cleavage in the 
temporal life. The unity of the people is imperilled. 
It was not just due to chance or political expediency 
that the principle of cujus regio, ejus religio, came to be 
accepted at the time of the Reformation. However 
unsound it may be as ruling out freedom of conscience, 
it does express the strong conviction that religious unity 
is the most powerful factor making for the unity of a 
people. Those who have experienced it will forgo 
it voluntarily. They may admit a multitude of sects 
and religious groups, provided that these look to the 
religious tradition of the people as their centre; but they 
react, as to a mortal threat, against the preaching of a 
religion which is fundamentally opposed to received 
ideas. 

However charitable and enlightened the conduct of 
the missionary may be, he cannot spare a non-Christian 
culture a rupture with its past that imperils its very 
foundations. Between the old and the new order, there 
is inevitably a most dangerous period of instability. 

The Church and Political Life 
Social life reaches its natural fulfilment only within 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 87 

a political community; for the pursuit of the common 
good necessitates an authority to direct it, to prescribe 
the rights and duties of each person, and to co-ordinate 
their actions in view of a single end. The political 
community is perfect in its order, that is, it is the most 
highly wrought type of human society as such; but since 
this latter is simply the natural stage where personal 
freedom acts and develops, the State is not an absolute 
end in itself. It exists for the sake of the person, whose 
temporal good it has to ensure, but in view of his 
spiritual development. 

The attitude of the Church to the State may perhaps 
seem paradoxical. On the one hand, it teaches the strict 
duty of obedience to constituted authority in all that 
has to do with the affairs of the nation, provided there 
is no evident sin involved. This submission goes so far 
that Christians are forbidden to rebel even when perse- 
cuted solely on account of their religion. On the other 
hand, the Church, in virtue of its spiritual sovereignty, 
claims an absolute right to complete liberty, in preach- 
ing, converting, public worship, the setting up of its 
characteristic institutions, the choice of its rulers, and 
the exercise of its governing authority. In addition, it 
enjoins on the civil authority respect for the moral law, 
and holds it a duty binding on governments to assist its 
apostolic work, even though it may prefer to dispense 
with such support so as to preserve the disinterestedness 
of its mission. Thus, the Church treats with the State 
as one power with another, though each has authority 
in its own particular sphere. 



18 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

To political rulers, even Christian ones, the Church 
.ppears as a doubtful ally, ready to support them, but 
mly up to a certain point, ready also to oppose them, 
>ut within certain limits. For instance, in the present 
lationalistic ferment, it is clear that the Church must be 
>pposed to the colonizing States, since it teaches that 
>olitical liberty is an inalienable natural right, even if 
ts full realization may come about only by degrees. At 
he same time, it is in opposition to the new nations, 
ince it teaches the injustice of infringing the lawful 
nterests in their lands acquired by their former rulers, 
ind that 'racialism in reverse' is no less to be con- 
lemned than the other sort. 1 

In these, as in other cases, the Church takes its stand 
>n principle, by reason of its being entrusted with the 
:onscience of peoples. The application of principles is 
lot its direct concern; it may suggest one or another 
:ype of concrete solution to the problems at hand, but 
lever mobilizes its members in a political action of 
vhich it takes over the direction. Temporal interven- 
ion of that sort would be contrary to its nature. But its 
nembers, as both Christians and members of the com- 
nunity, have the duty to translate that spirit into action, 
ind, in so doing, to further the common good. They 
nust, in consequence, perceive the practical conclusions 

1 The Africans, perhaps more than others, have suffered and still 
uffer from racialism, so obviously prevalent among the whites, 
nany of whom have come to realize that their resentment is tending 
o crystallize in a negro racialism, out of hostility. The latter is 
ometimes called 'racialism in reverse* because it is not so much 
L spontaneous attitude, as a reaction to the conduct of the whites. 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 89 

to be drawn from the principles laid down, and use the 
lawful means at their disposal to effect them. 

It is not always easy, in the concrete instance, to 
distinguish between the just and the unjust, the desirable 
and the possible, nor to work out a solution which 
respects the rights of all. So it is perfectly natural for 
Christians to uphold opposing policies. In no case, how- 
ever, do they act as representatives of the Church, 
although it is their faith that requires them to foster 
the civic virtues, and to take part in temporal activities 
in the service of the national and human communities. 
They submit to the government when it issues orders 
within the scope of its lawful powers; they have equally 
the right and the duty to check or prevent its action, 
by lawful means, when it seems to them contrary to the 
rights of their fellow-citizens or of other peoples. 

Though the acts of the Church and those of Christians 
are quite distinct, there is a constant tendency to con- 
fuse them, especially when they are looked at from the 
outside. This confusion naturally arises from the fact 
that the Church's agents are the hierarchy and the 
clergy, who are human beings and citizens of a country 
with whose fortunes they are intimately concerned; 
being only fallible, they may easily come to confuse their 
supernatural mission with a temporal line of action. 
On this account, and also owing to the tendency of 
politicians to see everything in terms of politics, 1 they 

1 Simply through professional bias; not necessarily on account of 
ignorance, or wilful misunderstanding, of the Church's trans- 
cendence. 



90 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

often look on the Church as a rival power, on the same 
level as the State. 

It is, of course, true that Christians are a force in 
politics, strong in proportion to their numbers, their 
abilities, their solidarity, and also their international 
connections. It is equally obvious that they are pro- 
foundly influenced by the Church. From this, it is 
but a step to conclude to the presence of political aims 
behind the work of evangelization, or to regard as mere 
chicanery the assertion of a distinction between the 
Church and Christians, and this step is only too often 
taken. It is always difficult for the Church to bring 
home to people that it is not 'of the world', although 
sent ' into the world ' to restore it to God, the Trinity. 

The failure to understand the mystery of the Church 
has weighed heavily on its historical development. 
Everywhere, and at every period, governments have 
tried to make use of the Church to further their temporal 
aims, or have attempted to prevent its establishment 
through fear of it bringing in its wake a dangerous 
political influence. 

Without denying the part played by grace, and the 
powerful witness of the martyrs, we may yet see, in the 
changed attitude of the Roman Empire, under Constan- 
tine, in favour of the Church, an expression of political 
astuteness; since the State could not destroy this restless 
and vigorous * sect ', it had to neutralize it or, even better, 
put it to good use by incorporating it in the social frame- 
work, and securing its support by the granting of favours. 
Constantine himself and his successors, whether deliber- 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 91 

ately or not, tried to transform the Church into a 
political force devoted to their interests; and this gave 
rise to frequent conflicts, for the Church, even if its 
individual rulers made unfortunate concessions, could 
never renounce its calling. In spite of all difficulties, 
a lasting agreement was reached between the Church 
and the Empire; and this had certain repercussions on 
missionary activity outside its frontiers. The most 
characteristic cases are those of Persia and Armenia. 
Persia, a powerful kingdom, waged war continuously, 
and often with success, against the Empire. As soon as 
Rome and the Church reached agreement, the Chris- 
tians of Persia fell under suspicion and were persecuted, 
and their progress was halted. However much they 
protested their loyalty, they were deemed traitors to 
their sovereign. Armenia, caught between Rome and 
Persia, was in an unpleasant situation. It was anxious-, 
to preserve, if not independence, at least its own tradi- 
tions. When Persia gained the ascendancy, the 
Armenians went over to Christianity, partly, but not 
solely, to ensure the support of Rome; when Rome 
became the stronger, they embraced heresy, partly to 
emphasize their independence. 

In the sixteenth century, the rulers who shared Viet- 
nam between them, one after the other invited mission- 
aries into their territory, and favoured the growth of 
Christianity in the hope of obtaining European support 
against their neighbours, or of enjoying commercial 
advantages; when their rivals were backed by western 
powers, they turned against the Church. Japan, for its 

H 



92 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

part, was afraid that missionaries would be the fore- 
runners of a Spanish invasion; while Siam and China 
welcomed those sent by Louis XIV. 

The whole history of the Church bears witness to the 
influence of political factors, from one epoch to another, 
on the course of its development; but to consider them 
as the sole decisive ones, or even as the most importatit, 
would be a grievous error. Their specific effect is to 
facilitate or impede the contact of the Church with the 
people, in arousing in them favourable or hostile 
prejudices. If it be the case that the political climate 
is favourable, the Church takes advantage from the 
fact, but its essential task still remains, for to bring forth 
men to the life of Christ is exclusively the work of the 
Church and the Holy Ghost, and no other agency can 
discharge it. If the political climate imposes a barrier, 
the Church does not admit defeat. It uses all available 
means to reach the people opposed to it, and to bring 
the Gospel to them. It has succeeded, both at its first 
coming and frequently afterwards, in founding vigorous 
communities in the face of constant persecution. There 
is only one decisive obstacle to missionary action, and 
that is the sinfulness of man and his refusal to admit 
the light. 

Still, political factors, like other human agencies, may 
give rise to secondary hindrances, which missionary 
action has to take into account. Here the basic diffi- 
culty lies in the danger of confusing politics and religion, 
a danger that threatens, not only the authorities of a 
country, but the missionaries themselves. Viewed, 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 93 

though wrongly, in purely political terms, missionary 
action seems to endanger the country, both because it is 
carried on by foreigners, and because it implants ideas 
that are new and unfamiliar. Consequently, it seems to 
involve the twofold danger of foreign interference in 
politics, and cultural and social upheaval. 

The Gospel, both of its own nature and by reason of 
its messengers, impinges sharply on family and social 
life. The ruling powers fear to see their authority 
weakened, for Christian teaching severs its connection 
with the religious sphere where it was formerly exercised, 
and with the traditional beliefs on which it was based. 
They may also fear to see the unity of the country 
impaired, since it would no longer be held together by 
a single faith and identical habits. Christians, in fact, 
hold aloof from certain points of the common tradition, 
and associate themselves besides with a vast international 
society, whose source and centre lie outside their own 
country, and whose aims are not so easy to discern. 

Much uneasiness will be avoided if the missionary 
shows that he respects the authorities of the country, 
is not too critical of its ancestral customs, and takes 
part in the culture of his adopted country as far as it is 
not incompatible with the Christian spirit. None the 
less, the missionary, by reason of his birth, his culture, 
and the contact he maintains with his native country, 1 

1 The missionary cannot break off all contact with his native 
country. He is dependent on - it for financial support, for fellow- 
workers and persons to succeed him, not to mention the need for 
communication with his ecclesiastical superiors, and the indispen- 
sable moral support he derives from his friends and his brethren. 



94 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

is always a foreigner, and, therefore, his acts are bound 
to cause constant misgiving. 

Whatever his wishes in the matter, his conduct is 
bound to interest his own country, for from it he draws 
most of his resources. 1 The State, too, however desirous 
to serve the Church, will be tempted to use the oppor- 
tunity for its own advantage. Francis I obtained from 
the Sublime Porte a kind of protectorate over the Chris- 
tians of the Near East, and, thanks to that, France has 
been able, through the centuries, to be of the greatest 
assistance to them; yet the main object was to secure 
the alliance of the Turks against the Holy Roman 
Empire. Even more were the 'laic' governments of 
France, at the beginning of the twentieth century, con- 
cerned with the work of the missions because they 
counted on drawing political advantages from it; none 
the less, they were most effective in securing for the 
missionaries their necessary freedom of action. 2 

Whatever benefits may accrue from political inter- 
vention on these lines, it always involves a formidable 
danger. The State is seldom disinterested in its action, 

1 For all sorts of reasons, the State may be led to give direct aid 
to the work of the missions. Even voluntary organizations in 
support of the missions are dependent on the good-will of the State, 
which can either permit or forbid sending men and money to 
foreign parts. 

2 We are not concerned here to draw up a balance-sheet of 
political intervention in the mission-field. We will, however, observe 
that, contrary to prevalent opinion, such intervention was never due 
to reasons exclusively or even primarily of a missionary character. 
It was invariably necessitated by political motives, and was clearly 
directed to political ends, even though the government, in some 
cases, went on to secure certain advantages for the missionaries. 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 95 

and naturally looks for some return for its services, using 
these to bring pressure on the missionary so that he 
may further its aims, or else, unknown to him, exacting 
from the country where he works some return for his 
labours. The missionary, too, from a natural motive 
of patriotism, may be led to use his position to serve 
his own country. But even the appearance of collusion 
between the Church's work in the missions and the 
political designs of the State is most injurious to the 
apostolate, not only for the reasons, so obvious and 
compelling, peculiar to the circumstances of the present, 
but also because the confusion it inevitably involves 
may completely hide from view the supernatural char- 
acter of the Church. 

The fundamental law binding on the missionary is 
none other than God's command to Abraham : * Leave 
thy country behind thee' (Gen. 12: i). He leaves for 
the country God has shown him, to further the spiritual 
good of his adopted country, but also, as a consequence 
of this, its temporal good. He has, therefore, to refuse 
absolutely to let his hands be tied, and must assert, in 
regard to his native country, his complete freedom in 
the discharge of his mission. He may not hesitate to 
incur the dissatisfaction of his own countrymen and run 
the risk of losing their support, rather than sully his 
work by any colour of political action to their advantage. 

His very devotion to his adopted people may bring 
them to hold his native country in high regard; but this 
is a consequence that should not be consciously desired 
or sought. The missionary is sent by God for the spread 



96 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

of his kingdom, and so is called to be perfectly disinter- 
ested, both as regards his country and his own personal 
interests. 

At the same time, he himself and the Church he 
brings into being have the urgent duty to take part in 
the life of the country, where the kingdom of Christ is 
to be established. The Church of China, of the Congo, 
or anywhere else, has to take its share in the responsi- 
bilities of the country, to make its own the sufferings 
and joys of the people, to lend its support to whatever 
makes for human betterment, and to be subject to the 
laws of the country, except when they contravene its 
mission. It instils patriotism into its members, not to 
gain sympathy for itself, but because that is part of the 
ideal it aims at. Obedience to authority, taught as 
obligatory on Christians, is not merely passive and inert, 
but involves active participation in the common effort. 
Notwithstanding his alien origin, the missionary is 
bound by loyalty to his adopted country, but he must 
be extremely careful that nothing may sully the purity 
of his actions. 

Any direct political action, in fact, is dangerous for a 
local Church, for it is bound to cause confusion between 
missionary work and work for a temporal end. It is no 
more normal for the clergy, native or foreign, of a 
missionary country to enter the political arena than it 
is for those in countries where Christianity is of long 
standing. It may not always be forbidden for a priest 
to take part in politics, but it only happens in excep- 
tional cases, and by the express approval of his bishop. 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 97 

It is, however, indispensable to form the civic con- 
science of Christians. At first, they may seem wholly 
absorbed by the discovery of the supernatural world 
opened out before them; they may feel themselves 
ineffectual, on account of their small number, or dis- 
couraged by the distrust felt for them. This may easily 
give rise to a kind of political apathy, which may 
reinforce the prejudice of their countrymen against the 
Church. What is necessary is to arouse the Christians 
to a sense of their national and social responsibilities, 
to accustom them to reflect on the problems that arise, 
to aid them to work out their solutions, and to bring 
them to realize that they have to work towards the 
reign, in their country, of peace, justice and charity. 

The Church itself may have to take a definite line 
in public, when the vital interests of the nation are 
involved. Thus, the apostolic delegate to China, and all 
the bishops of the country, denounced in concert the 
Japanese aggression of 1937, and called all Christians 
to their duties as patriots. In the same way, the South 
African bishops protested strongly against the policy of 
apartheid rampant, and those of Madagascar and French 
Africa proclaimed unequivocally the right of their people 
to independence. 

As its vocation demands, the Church, on these and 
similar occasions, confines itself to the sphere of prin- 
ciples," it is no part of its mission to state the precise 
means by which, in practice, they are to be applied. As 
guardian of both social and individual morality, it 
appeals to the conscience and good will of all to let 



98 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

social life be brought ever more completely in accord 
with the moral law, and, as soon as possible, be guided 
by the supernatural light of Christ. But it is for men, 
each in his own sphere, to work out ways of living that 
will foster their ascent to God. 

In the present crisis of the world, where we see inter- 
mingled, in every country and race of mankind, so much 
unselfish devotion and egoistic striving, so many gener- 
ous aspirations and" fantastic imaginings, so much 
narrowness of view and resentful feeling, there is noth- 
ing more urgent, however impolitic it may be, even for 
man's temporal salvation, than to blazon abroad Christ's 
call to charity, that real charity poured out by the 
Spirit, which alone is capable of passing beyond justice 
in order to uproot the injustice and resentment in the 
hearts of men. 

Outlook for the Future 

The network of human relations is bound to be more 
or less disturbed by the action of the Church; for it 
penetrates deeply into the temporal order to cure its 
ills and raise it to a higher plane, and, in so doing, the 
Church is permanently liable to misunderstanding. 

Quite apart from any religious motives, everyone is 
concerned with social progress in its various forms, and 
has his own special responsibility and part to play in its 
promotion. When the Church sets about restoring the 
solid foundations on which all progress depends, or 
collaborates in the works of men, its action appears no 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS 99 

different specifically from that of any other organization. 
When the African or Asiatic sees the arrival from 
Europe of administrators, engineers, doctors, teachers, 
traders, and missionaries too, how can he be expected to 
distinguish the latter from all the others? They all of 
them engage in building, or cultivation, they open 
schools, hospitals, dispensaries, workshops, and so on. 

The missionary brings along with him both super- 
natural and natural gifts to the country, but they differ 
completely in their nature. From those of the natural 
order, everyone may take what pleases him, but the 
supernatural ones are of absolute necessity to each, even 
though he has the power to refuse them. The people 
run the risk of confusing the two kinds. They may 
refuse grace, because the culture in which it is presented 
does not appeal to them; but they may accept it simply 
as something of no particular importance that goes with 
the temporal goods they really want. 

Yet temporal action, kept in its right place, is good; 
for it provides the Church with numerous opportunities 
for contact and evangelization. By its means, the Church 
shows that her charity is genuinely human, because truly 
divine. It is charity that enjoins her to make known 
to the peoples of the earth the sole principles of real life. 
It is charity, too, which impels her to educate her mem- 
bers to lead a fully Christian life, and, to that end, not 
only to instruct them by word, but to draw them by 
the example of those of her members whose formation 
is already complete. Hence, Pius XII makes it a special 
duty of bishops to found those ' associations and institu- 



IOO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

tions, based on social and economic ties, that are required 
by the circumstances and the character of the people 
entrusted to them ' (Pius XII, Evangelii Praecones). The 
Church has no design of taking over the direction of 
temporal matters, or o recommending a particular social 
or economic system; its mission is only to ensure every- 
where the presence of the Christian leaven that may 
permeate the whole lump. 

The missionary who is called upon to deal with 
temporal matters must bear in mind that these are 
normally the province of the laity, and that he has to 
organize them with a view to his own replacement by 
Christians who are * competent, of recognized integrity 
and prudence, to take over these enterprises and develop 
them 7 (Pius XII, Evangelii Praecones). His function 
is to make clear what religion demands; he is the con- 
science, both of the faithful and of the whole people. 
Ever sensible of his supernatural mission, which has 
absolute priority, he will make it his chief aim to express 
in visible form the spirit which animates him in all that 
he does. 

It may be that he will be often discouraged by the way 
his efforts are received. When Our Lord healed the 
man born blind (Jn. 9), the bystanders were struck with 
amazement at such an unheard-of miracle; but, since it 
happened on a sabbath day, it caused scandal. * Some 
of the Pharisees said: This man can be no messenger 
from God; he does not observe the sabbath. Others 
asked, How can a man do miracles like this, and be 
a sinner? ' 



INTERFERENCE OF TEMPORAL FACTORS IOI 

The missionary, in his turn, will be exposed to 
malicious interpretations, misconceptions, narrowness, 
and will experience, too, the joy of seeing men turn to 
Christ. At one moment, he will be blamed for inter- 
fering too much in human affairs, at another, for ignor- 
ing them. It is not merely a question of the personal 
shortcomings, inevitable that they are, of the missionary 
himself; for, whether from outside or within the Church, 
the same persons will be found to make diametrically 
opposed accusations against him on identical points, and 
will also find much to censure in missionaries who act 
differently to him. 

'To what, then, shall I compare the men of this 
generation? What are they like? They put me in mind 
of those children who call out to their companions as 
they sit in the market-place and say, You would not 
dance when we piped to you, you would not mourn 
when we wept to you. When John came, he would 
neither eat nor drink, and you say, He is possessed. 
When the Son of Man came, he ate and drank with you, 
and of him you say, Here is a glutton; he loves wine; 
he is a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is 
vindicated by all her children* (Lk. 7: 31-35). 

In spite of all the criticism, however, there will also 
be men who will see the light, as did the man born 
blind when Our Lord passed by. 

In any event, the missionary will remember that it 
is better to please God rather than men (Gal. i : 10; 
i Thess. 2:4). Consecrated as he is to the service of 
peoples, he has to further their spiritual good in all the 



IO2 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

human and social aspects that the fulness of the Chris- 
tian life implies. He cannot evade this summons. He 
trusts the charity that is the source of all he does to 
prove his disinterestedness, that his sole aim is to bring 
each man to the joy of God. 



4 

GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 

* h | IHE immediate aim of the missions is to make the 

I light of Christian truth shine before peoples 
JL among whom it had never been, and to raise up 
Christians from among them; but the ultimate end at 
which they must aim, and which they must have con- 
tinuously in view, is that the Church should be firmly 
and definitively set up among the new peoples, with its 
own hierarchy chosen from among the inhabitants of 
the country' (Pius XII, Evangelii Praecones). In these 
words, the Pope designates precisely the two stages of 
missionary work. When the missionaries have pro- 
claimed the word of God, and brought a few persons to 
the life of grace, there yet remains something more to 
be done; they have to develop the local Church, which 
is the universal Church in a particular country, until it 
reaches maturity. 

Evangelize or Humanize 

The local Church, in consequence, has to concern itself 
intimately with the institutions and customs of the 
people. Its struggle against destitution and injustice, 
and its active support of cultural progress, enable it to 

103 



104 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

establish contacts and gain the sympathies of the people. 
Moreover, it is obliged to set right those elements in the 
native culture that are at variance with the moral law, 
and to restore the framework of natural morality with- 
out which its members could not be led to a full Chris- 
tian way of living. Finally, since Christian morality is 
illuminated by Revelation and completely penetrated 
by grace, and grace takes hold of every side of human 
life, the Church, by its temporal action, aims not only 
at creating conditions useful or indispensable to its 
supernatural action, but also at impregnating the 
temporal sphere with a specifically Christian spirit. 

In consequence, the two aspects, cultural and super- 
natural, of the missionary's work are not easily dis- 
tinguishable, when viewed from the outside. Moreover, 
in the countries to be evangelized, the Church ordinarily 
finds the religious and the social spheres closely inte- 
grated, very slightly differentiated, and each bearing the 
imprint of the other. Itself a society taking in the 
whole of man, it easily appears as a competitor on the 
same plane as the others, an alien force coming in to 
destroy age-long traditions, and threatening the exist- 
ence of the nation's personality. 

Whether this prejudice is strong or weak, more or less 
consciously entertained, in the * people outside', its 
existence is unquestionable, and gives the missionary 
much food for thought. A twofold danger confronts 
him. He may be tempted to explain all the difficulties 
in his way by certain cultural factors that make the 
people impervious to his teaching. For example, he may 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH IOJ 

deem it impossible to christianize the people as a whole, 
or a section of them, so long as they are burdened with 
this or that institution, whether it is polygamy, or the 
wage-system, nomadism, or slum-dwelling. He may 
therefore imagine that all his efforts should be directed 
to that one point, and that only after their success will 
he be able to preach the Gospel. Now, it is undoubted 
that 'inhuman 5 conditions of life hinder access to the 
Christian life; but that does not authorize the conclusion 
that * humanization ' must precede evangelization. 

On the other hand, what may strike the missionary 
as specially significant is the fact that the Church is 
allied with a particular culture, not essentially indeed, 
but in so far as he lives and expresses it, as a result of 
the circumstances of his own upbringing. He may, 
therefore, come to think that he meets with no response, 
because the Church, in the concrete, in its missionaries, 
comes as something ' western ' or * bourgeois '. The aim 
would then be to restore to the Church its universality 
untarnished, and this would mean, in fact, its taking on 
a new individual culture, a new * humanization *. The 
conclusion is essentially the same as in the preceding 
case, though in appearance the reverse. Again, it is a 
question of 'humanizing' before evangelizing, but now 
it is the Church that is to be humanized, to be adapted 
to the people it approaches. In this case, too, it must be 
recognized that those special features of the Church 
tend to disguise its real nature, but that is not a sufficient 
reason for the conclusion that nothing can be done until 
those features are eliminated. 



IO6 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

In both cases, to act accordingly would be to treat the 
problem on a purely superficial level; it would amount 
to accepting that the contact of the Church with the 
peoples is no more than a meeting of cultures, or, at 
least, that it begins with that, and, in consequence, that 
it is impossible for grace to be communicated, the word 
of God to be heard, until the cultural differences have 
been smoothed over. 1 This is far from the truth. 

Christ, who is both our Head and the model we have 
to follow, has shown us the way. We have already seen 
that, if he concerns himself with typically human ques- 
tions, that is because he is truly man and the light he 
brings illuminates the whole of human life; yet he does 
not apply himself, in the main, to changing the institu- 
tions of society. He does not wait for the abolition of 
destitution before proclaiming to all the good news of 
the Gospel, the only message that is absolutely and com- 
pletely good, that ' God loves men '. Entrance into the 
Kingdom of God is opened up to all, rich and poor alike. 
The renewal Christ offers to mankind is an interior one; 
it acts like the leaven which raises all the lump without 
ever becoming identical with it. The leaven does not 
wait for the paste to rise before it gives free rein to its 
power of expansion, but it itself causes the paste to 
rise. 

Equally clear is the lesson of the early Church, whose 
action on the question of slavery we have already studied. 

1 On the relation between evangelization and its conditions, see 
the illuminating point of view of Father Pin, ' Sociologie religieuse et 
Reflexion the"ologique *, in Revue de I 3 Action Populaire, January 

> PP- 3-*4- 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 107 

St Paul, fully conscious of his calling to preach the 
Gospel, and confident in the guidance of the Spirit, was 
able to declare : ' Being entrusted, then, by God's mercy, 
with this ministry, we do not play the coward; we 
renounce all shamefaced concealment, there must be no 
crooked ways, no falsifying of God's word; it is by 
making the truth publicly known that we recommend 
ourselves to the honest judgment of mankind, as in 
God's sight' (2 Cor. 4: 1-2). 'It would go hard with me 
indeed if I did not preach the gospel' (i Cor. 9: 16). 
It was this obligation of his, inescapable and primary, 
which led him to live with other men, 'with the Jews 
. . . like a Jew, to win the Jews . . . with those who are 
free of the Law like one free of the Law 1 . . . With the 
scrupulous I behaved myself like one who is scrupulous 
. . . everything by turns to everybody, to bring every- 
body salvation' (Ibid. 20-22). 

The problem before the Church is, in fact, one of 
visibility, or, perhaps more exactly, of transparence. 
What is, properly speaking, visible of her, is always one 
or other of her human aspects, just as Christ himself 
was for his contemporaries, the 'carpenter's son' (Mt. 
13: 55; Mk. 6:3). It is in the very person of Jesus 
that the Son of God is revealed; there can be no question 
of depriving the Incarnate Word of his human features, 
as if they were nothing but a mask he wore. They are, 
in fact, an integral part of his person, the sign, the 
sacrament in which he is manifested. But neither are 
we to stop at the material aspect of the sign; we must 

1 The reference is to those who are not subject to the Mosaic Law. 

I 



IO8 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

penetrate to the divine reality which is its origin and 
which it bears. 

That is why Christ asked his apostles : ' Who do you 
say that I am? * and, when Peter confessed him to be 
the Christ, the Son of the living God, Christ declared : 
' Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jona; it is not flesh and 
blood, it is my Father in heaven that has revealed this 
to thee' (Mt, 16: 15-17). 

Without grace, it is never possible for man to discern 
God in the person of Christ, the * Son of Man '; but the 
Father works in the hearts of men, opens them to the 
light, gives them understanding of the works by which 
the Son of God manifests himself as what he really is. 
( If you find that I do not act like the son of my Father, 
then put no trust in me; but if I do, then let my actions 
convince you where I cannot; so you will recognize and 
learn to believe that the Father is in me, and I in him ' 
(Jn. 10 : 37-38). 

The works to which he refers may be summed up as 
the giving of himself to man. God's coming among 
men to share their life, the sovereign Wisdom shedding 
its light on man, his power placed at the service of men, 
his own life given to deliver them from death these are 
the works that testify to the intervention of God in 
human history for the benefit of mankind. On this 
account, men are brought to recognize Christ as their 
God and Saviour, to see beyond his human appearance 
the splendour of his divinity. 

The Church is nothing else than the sacrament in 
which Christ continues his presence in the world, at all 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 109 

times and in every part. She, too, is manifested to men 
in human form, in the person of her missionaries, in 
the local Churches. These rapidly attain visible shape 
in the countries where they are, at least in a small group 
of the inhabitants, and from the importance they derive 
from their union with the universal Church; but, at 
first, they are perceptible only to the senses, that is to 
say, they are in danger of appearing as purely human 
institutions. It is necessary that these human appear- 
ances, which are not disguises, but aspects of the Church 
itself, should become transparent to the supernatural. 

That can come about only if grace is active in the 
souls of the missionaries and their followers to purify 
continually their actions, and, at the same time, if it 
opens the hearts of non-Christians to the light, to the 
understanding of the works wherein the Church, like 
her Head, shows forth her real nature, which is both 
divine and human; for Christ has communicated to his 
Church, not only his love, but his power too. 'The 
man who has learned to believe in me will be able to 
do what I do; nay, he will be able to do greater things 
yet. It is to my Father I am going: and whatever 
request you make of the Father in my name, I will grant, 
so that through the Son the Father may be glorified' 
(Jn. 14: 12-13). 

These works are the miracles wrought throughout 
the generations, and, much more, the evident fruits of 
the life of the Church in all peoples, the outcome of the 
heroic charity she stirs up in the hearts of men. Here 
is a witness of how, on the human countenance of the 



IIO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

Church, her divine features, as it were, become clearly 
delineated. 

Religion is what the missionaries are concerned with. As 
their name indicates, they are sent for a precise purpose, 
to be, for the human race, the heralds of God and his 
revelation. They take on social activities as well, because 
they see in them a means of bringing men to God, and 
because they know that injustice is a great evil that out- 
rages the justice of God and injures its victims. If aid to 
lepers is so esteemed by missionaries, particularly Catholic 
ones, it is because no other form of service demands a 
greater spirit of sacrifice; it calls forth the highest 
idealism and the most complete abnegation. The worlds 
of politics and journalism can boast few heroes com- 
parable with Father Damien of the leper-colony of 
Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, 
numbers thousands who, like him, have vowed them- 
selves to the service of the lepers. It is well worth our 
while to study the source of a heroism like that. 1 

Human service of a kind altogether exceptional, that 
is what stimulates the mind of man to investigate the 
source whence it springs; but it can be found only if the 
missionary gives himself out for what he really is, the 
herald of God. This service, in fact, would take on a 
false aspect, even to the one who renders it, if he saw 
it as just a service of the bodily needs of others, of their 
material, even human, wants, confined to the temporal 
order. The gift, surpassing human imagination, that 
God brings to the world, that the missionary is entrusted 
with to offer to all, is the gift of divine life. It is from 

1 Gandhi, quoted in Rhythmes du monde, 1:946, no. 2, p. 2. 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH III 

the Holy Spirit himself, given by God to his Church, 
that all the works of the missionary spring; to the 
Spirit and the whole Trinity they must give continual 
witness. They must ever point to the Spirit, and be 
the channel communicating him to man. 

The Church cannot wait till conditions are favourable 
before starting the work of evangelization. Peter, 
threatened by the Sanhedrin, replied boldly : { God has 
more right to be obeyed than men' (Acts 5: 29). The 
apostles, sent to preach the Gospel, allowed no hindrance 
to deter them. Their successors, at the command of 
Christ, are ready to go to the ends of the earth, to places 
where access is barred just as much as to those where 
they are welcomed, to the hostile and suspicious as well 
as to the well-disposed and trusting, to people apparently 
the least likely to receive the gift of God as well as to 
those the most open to it. Everywhere, it is the message 
of God, and it alone, that will act as the ferment. 

To proclaim Christ's coming to the world and his 
work of salvation, to gather those called by God and 
make them grow in the divine life, that is the first task 
of the Church, to which she is wholly dedicated, and 
which she cannot evade. But charity urges her, the need 
for removing obstacles puts her at the service of men; 
this task, too, is incumbent on her, but it must ever 
remain a subordinate one. 

From whatever standpoint, to suppose that a process 
of * humanization ' ought to precede the work of preach- 
ing the Gospel would be to misunderstand profoundly 
the true nature of the apostolate, which is essentially a 



112 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

supernatural work. The missionary, as God's instru- 
ment, is obliged to put all his talents, whether great or 
little, at God's service. The actual efficacy of all that he 
does depends essentially on his docility to the call of 
God, not on his human talents. The decisive factor is 
holiness; for what is decisive is the action of God on 
minds and hearts, and holiness alone, the supreme gift 
of God, has the privilege of being able to exert an 
influence on the action of God himself. 

It is perfectly clear, too, that the preaching of the 
Gospel is itself a call to holiness, and that the primary 
task of the Church is to point out the ways to union 
with God, to make them available to all, to support 
them in their endeavour and to remedy their shortcom- 
ings, to keep those entrusted to her by God as Christ 
kept his own (Jn. 17: 12). The Church, therefore, must 
organize the life of her members in such a way that 
they may have access to the source of life. She must 
make herself visible and permanent enough for the 
people, and every man of good will, to be able to discover 
her, recognize her for what she is, give her their adher- 
ence, and, by her mediation, become themselves sons 
of God. 

The Christian Family 

The family, besides being the natural basis of all 
human society, is also destined by God to be an integral 
part of the structure of the Church. For, since it is 
entrusted with the task of bringing up children to 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 113 

become men in the fullest sense, It has, at the same time, 
the vocation to make them sons of God, and, in conse- 
quence, it is the centre from which the Christian spirit 
radiates into the whole life of the community. 

With regard to the family, as to every other institu- 
tion of the natural order, the Church's role is not 
' creative '; she does not have to bring it into being, in all 
its parts, out of nothing. She does not aim at altering 
its traditional social and legal status, except in so far as 
this deviates from the natural law. What she does do 
is to exercise on it an action of * re-creation ', admitting 
her members to the sacrament of marriage and leading 
them on to live it fully; thus, she raises the family to 
the supernatural level, and gives it, through grace, the 
power to form children to be true Christians. 

The specific function of the missionary is to bring the 
family to realize the full depth of the love which is 
spiritual, and so to put physical love in its right place, 
so that it comes to foster and develop a love that is 
properly human, that is one where the flesh is sub- 
servient to the spirit, and not the contrary. At a much 
higher level, this human love will come to be made 
fruitful and to be raised up by the inflowing of divine 
love. The missionary brings to the family a whole 
spiritual outlook that goes beyond the keeping of the 
commandments, and introduces it to a religious life 
lived as a community, and no longer just individually. 
The marriage bond, as a symbol of the unity of Christ 
and his Church, should be lived in the fulness of its 
mystical significance. 



114 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

This ideal can be realized in a great many different 
ways. It does not necessarily require the break-up of 
the * great family * in all its forms, though it alters the 
balance within it, as we have seen. Nor does it demand 
that the law, written or customary, of a country should 
admit the full legal and social status that Christian 
marriage has a right to. In Italy, Christian marriage is, 
as such, valid in law, and is subject to the Canon law, 
but there are few countries now which recognize it in 
the same way; yet this does not make it impossible for 
the Christian family to exist and to reach its full develop- 
ment. In this way, Christian liberty is emphasized, as 
well as a fact essential to the growth of the Church, 
namely, that its foundations can and must be laid even 
though human institutions have not yet developed to 
the state which they ought to reach. 

Family life, informed by grace, furthers the spiritual 
life of husband and wife, and its influence naturally 
spreads into their surroundings. The children will be 
the first to benefit from it, and it is by no means one of 
the least concerns of the Church to prepare parents for 
their function as educators. Normally, it will continue 
their work in its own schools and other places of instruc- 
tion, which, therefore, meet the need both of preparing 
the non-Christian pupils to receive the Gospel message, 
and of forming the Christians to lead a fully Christian 
life. There is bound to arise a certain tension between 
these two objects, but there can be no question of 
sacrificing one to the other. 

The family environment thus ' re-created ' is a suitable 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 115 

centre where new converts are welcomed, and so avoid 
the danger of being totally uprooted. It is the natural 
nursery for the germination and ripening of apostolic 
vocations, whether of priests or laity, which the Church 
needs in order to continue and widen the scope of its 
activity. 

The part of the laity in the mission field is an impor- 
tant one, and Pope Pius XII treats of it at length in the 
encyclical Evangelii Praecones. Frequently in the course 
of history, the Pope reminds us, priests were preceded 
in new countries by laypeople who prepared the soil and 
sowed the seeds of the Christian life. Like the Magi 
of old, certain men of learning from Korea, struck by 
the truth of God which they read about in a book of 
Father Ricci, travelled, in the middle of the seventeenth 
century, to Pekin to obtain a fuller knowledge of Revela- 
tion, and ask for missionaries to be sent to them. It 
was many years before priests went to teach them in 
their own country, but, when they arrived, they found 
a whole Christian community had been gathered and 
instructed by the travellers on their return. Often, in 
the course of their investigations, missionaries have 
come upon fields white with the harvest that only 
awaited their arrival to reach perfect maturity. 

Everywhere, lay missionaries are called to 'exercise 
a salutary influence, setting up charitable works, spread- 
ing the Christian faith in every part, supporting the 
cause of the Church to their full ability, above all, 
pointing the way to all men by their personal example ' 
(Pius XII, Evangelii Praecones). 



Il6 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

They are helpers, often indispensable, in the work that 
falls to the clergy. Thus, they may become catechists, 
that is to say they are entrusted with much of the work 
of leading catechumens to the Church, instructing them 
in religion, and assuring their perseverance by organiz- 
ing prayer in common and meetings for the furtherance 
of their spiritual life. It is no detraction from the 
heroism and zeal of the missionaries to recognize the 
immense work done by the catechists. They, trained 
and supported by the missionaries, may justly claim 
that the actual development of the Churches of Asia 
and Africa are, in great measure, due to their efforts. 

They have, too, their own specific role, which con- 
sists primarily in showing by their own life that Chris- 
tianity is not just a matter for priests and religious, but 
can be lived completely in the temporal setting, and 
brings to it a peace and joy surpassing any human 
expectation. From this a second aspect is derived, 
which is to further Christian solutions of temporal prob- 
lems, and so to work positively toward the transforma- 
tion of existing institutions by the Christian spirit. 

By Baptism and Confirmation, every Christian is 
called to this apostolate, and he has all sorts of means 
to exercise it. The life and conduct of Christians create, 
in the world, a tissue of spiritual influences which draw 
non-Christians to embrace Christianity and sinners to 
amendment of life. What is still too often lacking to 
Christians aware of this vocation of theirs is the practice 
of meeting together for a more thorough initiation into 
their responsibilities, and for the extension of their 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 117 

range of action on the whole of social life. That is the 
function of Catholic Action. 

This is how a Christian community comes into being 
and develops, but only on condition that there is present 
within it the priesthood, through which the supernatural 
life is given. 

The Clergy 

From the earliest times, one of the chief preoccupa- 
tions of the apostles, whenever the Holy Spirit raised up 
by their preaching a new Christian community, was to 
appoint 'elders', priests, with the charge of conveying 
to others the supernatural life they had received, and 
to watch over the growth of this life in the local Church. 
They chose these ' elders ' from the district, though the 
practice was not ruled out of transferring a priest or 
bishop from one locality to another. The Congregation 
of Propaganda, from its beginning, insisted on the 
urgent necessity of forming an indigenous clergy, from 
which ultimately the local bishops would be chosen. 
The Popes of modern times, who insist so strongly on 
the development of a native clergy, refer constantly to 
the tradition derived from the apostles. 

The bishop is not just an administrator. Representing 
God to man, he is equally the representative of man 
before God, and so he must be ' chosen from among his 
fellow-men' (Heb. 5: n), truly one of them, chosen by 
God as mediator between them and him. That is the 
normal law, and a foreigner cannot fulfil it entirely. If 



Il8 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

the Church is fully entitled, after considering all the 
circumstances of time and place, to call anyone it pleases 
to govern a diocese, it only chooses a foreigner for some 
exceptional reason, or because the local Church is not 
judged to be yet mature enough. 

This question of maturity is a delicate one, and the 
Holy See is the ultimate judge of it. It is certainly not 
bound up essentially with the material extension of the 
local Church, that is with the number of members, or 
even of priests; but it depends rather on the conscious- 
ness of priests of their responsibilities. If they are too 
much attached to the human prestige accruing to them, 
or if they fail to understand the thorough detachment 
required by their priesthood from their family and all 
human ties, they may well be able to represent their 
people before God, but they are ill suited to be the true 
representatives of God to men. All through her history, 
in every country, the Church has had to struggle against 
the domination of priests by their families, a domination 
which is especially pernicious when exerted over bishops, 
who are then dangerously liable to let temporal interests 
prevail over their duties. 

The Church has no need to despair in the face of 
human weakness, or to lack confidence that the Spirit 
will raise men of good will to the height of their voca- 
tion, but she has to use supernatural wisdom in choosing 
bishops as in accepting priests for ordination, both 
rejecting the unsuitable and fixing the duration of the 
preliminary stages. 

It ifc, however, also a matter of supernatural wisdom 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 119 

to take account of practical conditions. It is clear that 
foreign missionaries will never be sufficient for the 
evangelization of a country; those who are to replace 
them must be chosen from the place. The natives are 
no less able than foreigners to absorb the Christian 
spirit, enter upon the understanding of the Christian 
mysteries, preach the Gospel to their people, advance in 
the way of sanctity. They may be better able than 
foreigners to gain access to certain quarters closed to 
others, and to perceive how to reach the hearts of men. 
Moreover, the supply of foreign missionaries may, for 
various reasons, dry up, or they may come to be for- 
bidden entry into the country. It is enough to recall the 
almost total disappearance of missionary personnel 
following on the French Revolution, the internment of 
many of its active staff in the late wars, and the diffi- 
culties caused by the arousing of national consciousness 
in Asia and Africa. 

No one has ever questioned the necessity of forming, 
sooner or later, a national clergy in every country where 
Christianity has taken root, and of entrusting it with all 
responsibility for the Church of the district. Every- 
where immense efforts have been made to attain this 
end. It was the chief concern of St Francis Xavier, as 
it was the essential function entrusted to the Vicars 
Apostolic at the request of Propaganda in the seven- 
teenth century. At times, however, the possibility has 
seemed doubtful of reaching this result in the near 
future. The difficulties are, in fact, considerable, for the 
formation of a local clergy requires the fulfilment of 



I2O THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

conditions which are not easy to satisfy or to harmonize 
with each other. 

While Benedict XV and Pius XI insisted most strongly 
on hastening the development of the clergy, they 
opposed with equal vigour the temptation to admit 
candidates too readily. It is not just a question, for the 
missionaries, of enlisting minor auxiliaries, to be kept 
in a subordinate position, but of raising up pastors and 
apostles who will take over the Christian destinies of 
their people. 

Candidates therefore must by their temperament and 
proved trustworthiness show a real prospect that they 
will persevere in their vocation. They must be given a 
spiritual and theological training at least equal to that 
given in the older Christian countries, in fact a more 
advanced one, for the work before them is formidable 
and intricate. 

As things are at present, the education of the clergy 
involves learning Latin and scholastic philosophy, for 
the Church's tradition is expressed in those terms. There 
is no question of dispensing seminarists from these 
studies, even if they are foreign to their culture. The 
pontifical decrees are explicit on this point, for the 
clergy must be brought into contact with the sources 
of Christianity. Besides, at a time when Western culture 
has spread all over the world, and has been eagerly 
assimilated by the educated everywhere, it is far from 
strange, indeed it is most desirous, that the clergy 
should profit from it too, and steep themselves in its 
noblest element, the Christian tradition. Not that this 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 121 

tradition itself is properly part of a culture, but the 
latter is an indispensable road, at least provisionally, to 
its understanding. 

In consequence of such a formation, the clergy run 
the risk of becoming partly divorced from their own 
culture. The young priests, brought up on the tradi- 
tional ecclesiastical disciplines, may speak in terms that 
mean little to their compatriots, whether these are still 
formed solely by their ancestral traditions, or are already 
influenced by the prevailing westernizing trend. They 
must, therefore, still receive a thorough grounding in 
their own culture; but the simultaneous pursuit of both 
these ends demands a high degree of courage, industry, 
and perseverance. 

The solution of the difficulty lies in a proper balance 
and proportion; it requires delicate adjustment and a 
fairly long period of time. The crucial point lies beyond 
the problems of instruction; for, above all, there must 
be developed in the young clergy ' the sanctity demanded 
by the priestly life, an apostolic spirit and a concern 
for the salvation of their brethren that will make them 
ready to give even their lives for the members of their 
tribes and nations' (Pius XI, Rerum Ecclesiae). In 
missionary, just as in Christian, countries, the priest is 
foremost a * man of God ', who lives by and for God, and 
so is, in fact, dedicated to the service of men. If the 
seminarist, and the priest too, does not see his vocation 
in this light, he fails to understand its nature, and his 
ministry will be ineffectual. 

Whatever state of development a local Church ma) 



122 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

have reached, the primary functions of the clergy, 
indigenous or foreign, are always and everywhere the 
same. The Church, like Christ, was sent to save man- 
kind by imparting to it divine charity; but the mode of 
redemption chosen by Christ is none other than the 
liturgical sacrifice of the Cross, which gives to God a 
perfect worship and causes the outpouring of grace to 
men. Consequently, the offering of the Mass, where the 
Church unites itself to Christ's offering and becomes a 
sharer in his grace, is the very centre of its life, and is, 
par excellence, the function of the priest. All the rest 
of his activities serve as preparation for it and as dis- 
posing others to unite themselves to it, or else to gather 
and communicate its fruits. The Eucharist is the living 
spring whence the Church draws its nourishment, and 
to which the faithful must be led that they too may 
draw on it and satisfy their thirst. 

Living Water 

To bring the whole world to the source of living water, 
which is Christ himself, is the task for which the whole 
missionary Church is responsible, each member playing 
his appropriate part. The functions to be discharged 
are of various kinds, but all are necessary, and they are 
exercised in close dependence on the hierarchy, which 
not only controls, but also creates, them. For it is a 
question of a strictly supernatural order of activity, 
which the priesthood alone has received the power to 
call into being. 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 123 

The power of preaching is directly connected with the 
power of Orders, for the presenting of the faith is far 
more than a matter of teaching. It aims at the conver- 
sion of souls to God, and so at eliciting from those who 
'hear' the word a personal act, rich in its effects, in 
which all their faculties are brought into play, under the 
influence of the grace that comes down on them to 
'recreate' nature. To impart the supernatural life the 
fulness of sacramental grace is needed. The work can 
be divided up and allotted to various groups : catechists 
trained to teach doctrine, the lay apostolate set up with 
its advantage of being on the same footing as the people 
to be approached, family education established. These 
are but ways of participation in the strictly priestly 
action; they have their own kind of perfection, but not 
the fulness of the apostolic preaching from which their 
own effectiveness is derived. This flows from the grace 
of Orders, and needs no special setting; it matters little 
whether the missionary preaches in the street or from a 
pulpit. But he cannot fulfil his ministry unless he 
makes it his aim to gain for himself the fulness of 
life, which is charity; his preaching is a giving of him- 
self and of the truth living within him, which is, in 
fact, his very life. It demands, therefore, from him a 
constant fidelity in directing his mind and heart to 
God. 

This serious application to holiness of life is itself a 
form of preaching, in fact the most effective of all, even 
if the results are not always immediately apparent. It 
is testified to abundantly by history, as, for instance, by 

K 



124 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

that of the origins of the Church of Malagasy. The 
missionaries there had their own share of the cross, but 
the way in which the first inhabitants of the country 
came to accept the Church, more than a century ago, 
has left a permanent memory. They had seen the 
missionaries at prayer, and came to tell them: 'We 
want to pray with you, to pray like you/ A missionary 
who was no more than a builder or an administrator 
would have left out what was, in fact, the essential. He 
would have failed to grasp the lesson handed down 
by so many others who, in different places, became 
deservedly known as 'men of prayer 7 . Only through 
his continual contact with God in prayer will the 
missionary be able to detect God's ways with men and 
learn to lead others to Christ. 

In this question of the ways of God, there is one 
doubt which besets many minds, namely, that, since 
Christ called to himself, first of all, the shepherds of 
Bethlehem, it would seem fitting to preach the Gospel 
first to the poor alone, to devote the best part of our 
attention to the disinherited of this world. To this 
Pope Pius XI gave a decisive answer: 

Undoubtedly, the word of God is received with most 
alacrity by the poor, as are the preachers of the Gospel 
themselves. Undoubtedly, too, Christ himself declared: 
'The spirit of the Lord has sent me out to preach the 
gospel to the poor' (Lk. 4: 18). But we are not to forget 
the words of St Paul : ' To the wise and to the unwise I 
am a debtor* (Rom. 1:14). Besides, we know from 
actual experience that, once the elite of a country is won 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH I2J 

over to Christianity, the ordinary people easily come to 
follow their example (Rerum Ecclesiae). 

The Church has no choice in the matter. Her mission 
is to proclaim the Gospel to every man, to let the light 
of grace shine everywhere. No one can be excluded from 
it, except through his own fault. The elites, social and 
intellectual, must be evangelized, and the influence they 
naturally exert will bring in the rest of the people. But 
the evangelization of the poor is still the special sign of 
the coming of Christ, who does not weigh human worth 
in terms of money, knowledge or power, and it exhibits 
that charity which perceives, in every human being, 
the person of Christ (Mt. 25: 31-46). 

The act of faith which brings the supernatural life to 
birth implies the desire for Baptism; but the catechumen 
cannot be admitted to this sacrament, unless the Church, 
in the person of the priest responsible, judges him ready 
to receive the life of Christ, and to be incorporated into 
the Christian community. Baptism, then, is as much a 
public act of the Church as a personal adhesion to 
Christ. The responsibility of the Church is all the 
greater in that, by Baptism and Confirmation the 
fulness of Baptism the convert becomes a witness oJ 
the Church before the world. The other sacraments 
ensure to this beginning of life its constant growth and 
purification, to the Church fruitfulness and continuance 

The missionary has to take care that his converts 
realize the value of the sacraments, for their own 
religious traditions may, in fact, minimize the impor 
tance of outward rites. More often, however, though 



126 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

they do not completely ignore the interior life, non- 
Christian religions put their chief emphasis on a ' ritual 
purity' that is wholly exterior, and the catechumens 
may look upon the rites of the Church in the same light. 
They must be taught that it is not enough to ' receive ' 
the sacraments, but they must also 'live' them, and 
they must acquire the sense of the spiritual progress 
they are required to aim at. 

Light and strength will be theirs through the theo- 
logical virtues, whose principal object is to enable God 
to be perceived, in the life of the Trinity, as true, good, 
powerful and ready to succour. They include, in addi- 
tion, secondary objects which take on a special aspect 
in missionary countries. In the case of faith, these will 
be the understanding of the Christian mysteries and 
the solution of the difficulties, both speculative and 
practical, arising from the former mode of life. Hope 
envisages an infant Church, still weak, exposed to 
reverses of many kinds and often the victim of enmity 
or persecution. Charity sees every man as 'my neigh- 
bour', and recognizes that all, whatever their racial 
origin, are sons of the same Father, called to the same 
life. In so far as he lives these virtues, the Christian 
bears witness before the world. By them, the moral 
virtues are vivified and restored to their fulness of being. 
Under their influence, institutions become impregnated 
with a new spirit. They are the source of the apostolic 
vigour which is exhibited in an outburst of activities of 
all kinds, and leads to the supreme witness of martyr- 
dom, if that is what God should ask. 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 127 

The Christian life reaches its normal development 
in a country only with the appearance of the religious 
life in all its forms, communities both of men and of 
women, devoted to contemplation or apostolic work. 
Although these ways of life are only for those specially 
called to them, the religious life is a sign to all Chris- 
tians, and indeed to all mankind, of the eternal in time. 
It is, in fact, the most perfect realization of detachment 
from the earth, and that is always necessary to the 
Christian; a life entirely devoted to God, as will be that 
of the elect hereafter; a complete abandonment of the 
self into the hands of God, without expecting anything 
from man, or even from oneself; it is, literally a practice 
on this earth for the life hereafter. Thus, the religious 
life witnesses to men of the end which all human life 
ought to envisage, the end it has to reach if it is not 
to be a failure. In particular, it shows married persons 
the fulness of spiritual love which they should be 
approaching. 

In the religious life, in the strict sense of the word, 
as in the Christian life generally, God * makes no distinc- 
tion between man and man* (Acts 10:34; Rom. a: u); 
he pours forth his grace abundantly on all peoples. The 
Church's ancient monastic tradition, with its various 
historical developments, will impart to peoples lately 
introduced to Christianity an initial experience which is 
practically indispensable. But the Holy Spirit will, in 
addition, raise up new forms of the religious life, in 
harmony with the needs of the local Church and with 
individual vocations. 



128 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

It must not be forgotten that each people has its 
special human characteristics, and, in consequence, its 
special way of adhering to Christ; for grace, when 
grafted on nature, perfects and sublimates its specific 
properties. The life of the Church in all its aspects 
vivifies all nations, but each of these has a vocation to 
exhibit, in a special way, one or another of them. 
Surely, the past history of India shows it as called to 
emphasize the mystical side of Christianity, and that 
of China to bring out its family spirit. 

The clergy, whom the priesthood fits to discern differ- 
ent kinds of vocation, has to work for the ' rectification ' 
of the special religious traditions of a people, that is, to 
bring out, over and above its too human tendencies or 
the errors intermingled with it, the spiritual aspirations 
set in their hearts by God, who, therefore, has given them 
a special aptitude to make manifest to the world. As 
Pope Pius XII declares, ' the Church has never disdained 
the doctrines held by pagans, but instead, after freeing 
them from all admixture of error, has completed and 
perfected them by the work of Christian wisdom' 
(Evangelii Praecones). In this way, the Church gives 
birth to new expressions of her ancient spirituality. 

New Forms 

The Church, being both one and Catholic, keeps 
unimpaired the unity which accrues from her union with 
Christ, and makes her capable of communicating the 
divine life to all peoples. She ever retains the univer- 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 129 

sality which is bound up with her nature, which is hers 
by right from the beginning, by reason of her mystical 
identification with Christ. Yet her unity and catholicity 
both allow and demand differences which make up her 
adornment, and these arise from the differences between 
the peoples which it is her mission to take up ' as a body ' 
into Christ. She unifies, without levelling, them, with- 
out stultifying their specific and original characters. 

The catholicity of the Church demands of her the 
exhibition of her inexhaustible richness by expressing 
herself in all cultures, and by raising each of them to a 
really universal status through the elimination of what 
is exclusive. None of them will become identified with 
the Church, any more than the paste is identified with 
the yeast. Each will be a partial, limited expression. 
But all conjoined, each in its special way, have to lend 
their voices to the song the Church sings to the glory 
of the Creator, from whom all that is good comes to 
man. 

Strictly speaking, the Church does not add to its 
intrinsic qualities when it takes different cultures to 
itself, when it incorporates the multitude of peoples, any 
more than the Son of God enriched himself in taking a 
human nature. What, then, do they bring to it? Their 
love for it, and for Christ? Certainly, this is a most 
precious thing, but, after all, it derives ultimately from 
the Church, which is alone able to communicate the 
Spirit. They may be said to bring their treasures of 
wisdom and knowledge, patience and endurance, beauty 
and heroism, accumulated through the centuries; and 



130 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

it is true that, under the dirt and blood sadly characteris- 
tic of human history, there gleam some grains of pure 
gold. These, however, are the work of God himself 
and of his Spirit which never ceases to guide men even 
when they stumble in the dark. All the goods of Christ 
belong of full right to the Church, his Spouse, which, in 
receiving the treasures of the various peoples, is but 
taking possession of what already belonged to it; and, in 
detaching them from their crudities, restores their true 
worth, benefits the whole of humanity, and offers each 
people unlimited possibilities of advancement. 

Still, there is a sense in which each people brings 
something of its own to the Church. God himself, who 
is lacking in nothing and to whom all things belong, 
desires the love of men, and awaits their homage. In 
his Son 'it was God's good pleasure to let all complete- 
ness dwell, and through him to win back all things . . . 
into union with himself, making peace with them 
through his blood, shed on the cross' (Col. i: 19-20). 
Yet, St Paul could say : * In this mortal frame of mine, 
I help to pay off the debts which the afflictions of Christ 
leave still to be paid, for the sake of his body, the 
Church' (Ibid. 24). 

What does this mean? All comes from God, and 
must return to him. No one can add to his fulness, 
but his gifts he makes over to his Church, to the peoples, 
for them to put to proper use, and restore to him as an 
act of freely given homage. The Church, born of God, 
is, as such, holy and perfect in itself. As God's gift to 
men, jointly with the Spirit, it is handed over to the 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 131 

peoples for them to make use of its riches on their own 
account, and to exhibit its inexhaustible wealth by the 
immense variety of goods they draw out from it. All the 
peoples are not too numerous for the work of showing 
forth in its full splendour the gift of God; it will never 
be perfectly achieved in the present life. 

So it is that the Church makes all cultures fruitful, 
and enlightens them with the light of God. It thereby 
offers them the possibility of a hitherto unimagined 
development. Out of their treasures, always in a hidden 
way its own possession, it retains the best, the most 
typical, elements, to take them up in its own life, and 
give homage to God. 

In so doing, the Church's life is, in a certain sense, 
modified, and it remains for us to examine the extent 
of this. The Christian life of the peoples is nourished 
from three sources, all deriving from the Church, but 
not all equally essential to it. Divine Revelation is 
absolutely primary, for, apart from it, there would be 
no supernatural life on earth. It is incapable of any 
modification, for it is strictly transcendent of all that is 
human. The sole question that arises in this connection 
is that of faithfully translating it into the various 
languages. 

At the opposite extreme, what the Church uses as 
merely a cultural expression is, of its own nature, change- 
able, and capable of taking on many forms. The 
Church, in fact, expects, from its transplantation among 
new peoples, a luxuriant harvest. Feasts outside those 
of the liturgy, sacred art, spiritual and corporeal works, 



132 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

family observances, all take on a fresh and unusual 
colouring, and bring in unaccustomed harmonies to 
Christianity. Here a free rein is allowed to individual 
and social initiative, subject to the control of the 
hierarchy. 

Between these two, ecclesiastical tradition acts as a 
mediator, for it binds closely together human elements 
and what comes from God. As entrusted with revela- 
tion, and handing it down in its totality, it defines 
doctrines in formularies where philosophy is called on 
as an auxiliary agent. It receives the sacraments from 
the hands of Christ, but directs their liturgical applica- 
tion by means of gestures and symbols borrowed from 
various sources. It preserves the Church's essential 
structure and the fundamental laws bequeathed by 
Christ, but has also to complete the formation of its 
different elements, and, in so doing, it is inspired by the 
administrative and legal systems worked out by the 
nations of the world. Though founded on the corner- 
stone which is Christ, and in so far unchangeable, tradi- 
tion is, also, in part the work of the Church, which has 
received from its Head power to add subordinate parts 
to its structure to assist its functioning. 

From this latter point of view, tradition is not rigidly 
uniform, and admits some degree of change. Almost 
from the very beginning, its unity was seen to be com- 
patible with a plurality of forms, agreeing In the 
essential, but varying in outward character; these derive 
from manifold sources, Latin and Oriental, whose 
original nature the Church has striven to preserve all 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 133 

through her history. Very significant, too, is the way 
the liturgy has developed, both recurring to its sources 
in the past and adding certain new elements. A strik- 
ing instance is the restoration by Pope Pius XII, first of 
the Paschal Vigil, then of the whole liturgy of Holy 
Week. The importance of the results intended makes it 
clear that it belongs to the hierarchy alone, while seek- 
ing the views of priests and the laity in general, to sort 
out the human resources at hand, and to decide at what 
moment, and how far, they ought to be incorporated in 
the living tradition. 

The work to be done here cannot be hurried, and 
would only be delayed or hazarded by imprudent action. 
When the missionary casts on the earth the seed from 
which a local Church will spring, he may be able to 
introduce, there and then, a few changes of a quite 
superficial kind. A profounder development, however, 
needs to take place much more slowly, as it is the out- 
come of a vital assimilation. The different concrete 
possibilities must be carefully examined and their 
suitability estimated. 

Of the various elements contributed, over the 
centuries, by Western civilization, to the Church, some 
have been applied universally, and made inseparable 
from those of divine origin; such are the allotment of 
distinct regions to individual members of the episcopal 
college, scholastic philosophy in its essential teachings, 
and the basic features of canon law. Other elements 
are an integral part of Christian life in the west, but 
are not applied elsewhere. Thus, the structure of the 



134 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

divine office is not the same in the Latin Church as in 
the Churches of the East; and there is reason to suppose 
that, in course of time, the Churches of Asia and Africa 
will have their own liturgy, in which their distinctive 
forms of prayer will be conjoined with the unchange- 
able form of the sacraments and the ancient Christian 
traditions. Yet other elements there are that seem 
better than any possible substitute, and specially suited 
to promote the spiritual life of all. Though not at all 
necessary for salvation, devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, 
for example, or to Our Lady of Fatima, being neither 
typically French nor Portuguese, is naturally suited to 
persons all over the world. However ' western ' may be 
a custom or an institution, it is not thereby unsuited for 
the Churches in other regions, and this applies still more 
to particular forms of the liturgy; the desire, in fact, 
to give such practices a native mode of expression must 
not degenerate into a narrow particularism. It is well 
to make use of what has been approved by long custom 
in other lands, and to recognize the superiority of cer- 
tain elements of a western colouring; but this does not 
imply the rejection of new accretions, nor does it dis- 
pense from the need of receiving them gladly. 

On the other hand, the assimilation of elements from 
Asiatic or African sources will not only bring into being 
forms of life suited to various peoples, but will throw 
light on valuable treasures practically ignored up to the 
present, though inherent in the nature of Catholicism, 
and destined to benefit all the Churches. The conditions 
for this, however, are not yet present. The missionary, 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 135 

however free from prejudice of any kind, and lovingly 
studious of the people he is sent to teach, yet, as a 
foreigner, can only with difficulty penetrate their inner 
nature, and very rarely becomes intimately acquainted 
with them. He can only prepare the way and form the 
local clergy who are capable of bringing the work to 
completion, inasmuch as they will have assimilated the 
living tradition of the Church, without losing their 
rootedness in the past of their own people. 

The spontaneous reactions of the newly-converted 
deserve special attention, for they are not always pre- 
cisely what the foreigner might expect. Their spiritual 
progress may, at times, baulk at certain customs that the 
missionary invites them to adopt, but, even more often, 
they reveal an aspiration to a thorough and complete 
change. The reason is that modes of conduct and action 
perfectly good and excellent in themselves easily appear 
to them as tainted with the religious errors with which 
they are historically connected. They are more keenly 
alive than ordinary Christians to the unique character 
of the Christian Revelation, and therefore desire to find 
an entirely new way of expressing it. In a newly con- 
stituted Church, especially, there is a strong desire to 
feel in communion with the universal Church, by using 
the same gestures, repeating the same prayers, and 
observing the same ceremonies. That is, undoubtedly, 
why one so often finds the natives of Chad and the 
Cameroons preferring the Latin chant to any other. 

The missionary cannot remain merely passive in 
regard to this state of mind. ' All that in the customs 



136 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

of the peoples is not indissolubly bound up with religious 
error must always be studied in a friendly spirit, and, 
whenever possible, preserved and fostered' (Pius XII, 
Summi Pontificatus). Anything extreme in the nature 
of an 'iconoclastic' reaction against the past must be 
tempered. In any case, such a reaction is not perman- 
ent. From the days of the early Church, its members 
have taken up very different attitudes to the prevalent 
philosophy, forms of art, and customs. Some have been 
inclined to make a clean sweep of them; others, without 
underestimating the need for 'changing them, perceived 
the intrinsic value of these human acquisitions, and their 
aptitude to enrich the Christian life. The missionary 
to-day, while avoiding undue haste, and sedulously 
fostering the sense of Catholic unity both in the local 
clergy and in their flocks, will, at the same time, help 
them to perceive in their ancestral traditions gifts of 
God for the adornment of his Church. 

Their philosophy may serve to introduce the minds 
of men to the Christian faith, to advance the traditional 
philosophy and make it an even better instrument of 
Revelation. The gestures of adoration and oblation 
inherited by the peoples from their forefathers, their 
traditional feasts and rites, may well have been, in cer- 
tain respects, a rendering of true homage to God, and 
should be restored by incorporation with Christian wor- 
ship. To sing the glory of God, all the languages and 
arts of men should contribute to the universal harmony. 
As the Church grows in stature, it needs to create the 
additional elements indispensable to its activities, and 



GROWTH OF A LOCAL CHURCH 137 

to reorganize those already in existence; it welcomes, 
for the purpose, any suggestions arising from native 
sources. Thus, it suffers none of God's gifts to man to 
perish, and continues to add to that variety of colour 
which makes the splendour of Catholic unity. 

This does not imply any yielding to a temptation to 
archaeologize, nor does it involve an obstinate uphold- 
ing of ways of thought and conduct already dying out. 
Neither philosophy, nor art, nor law, nor social customs, 
can be subjected to mere repetition, under pain of being 
thereby doomed to extinction. Life supposes movement, 
and, in consequence, continual development. The 
Church's adoption of elements of a culture is not just a 
matter of recognizing that this rule of law, or that type 
of art, is good in itself, and deciding to retain it. It is 
rather a matter of a fresh discovery, a new creation, 
inspired indeed by the experience both of the Christian 
and the national past. 

A new cultural creation would be merely an artificial 
production, without life of its own, unless it were 
associated with the trend of the culture already in 
existence. At the present time, by reason of increased 
facilities of communication, and of the growing 
economic and political interdependence of all peoples, 
mankind is strongly impelled towards a world-wide 
culture. In consequence, abundant possibilities of 
advancement are offered to all peoples, but there is the 
danger of their becoming estranged to their own inheri- 
tance and of losing their specific personality. The flood 
which bears them on is irresistible, and makes useless 



138 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

any attempt merely to hold on to the past. The Church, 
however, is called to enter the stream in order to make it 
serve a Christian purpose. She is, in fact, providentially 
equipped with the means of canalizing it, and imprinting 
on it the seal of a catholicity which brings all things to 
a unity, without eliminating their varied richness. So 
it is that, as the ' fulness of Christ ', she will have * estab- 
lished all things J in him. 



CONCLUSION 

^_p ^HE Church's sole mission is that of bringing all 
I men to share in the salvation brought by Christ's 

A redemption, by spreading the kingdom of Christ 
over the entire world ' (Pius XI, Rerum Ecclesiae). * A 
disciple is no better than his master, a servant than his 
lord; enough that the disciple should fare like his master, 
the servant like his lord ' (Mt. 10 : 24-25). The Church's 
vocation is to walk in the footsteps of Christ; its whole 
mission, like his, is summed up as Redemptive 
Incarnation. 

The Church is incarnate in the world, in the true sense; 
not an invention of man, but a creation of Christ; no 
mere assemblage of men, but the mystical body of 
Christ. Born of God, she makes God present among 
men. God is not changed thereby, but mankind is 
taken up, transformed, and made divine. The function 
of the Church is to take hold of human activity, whose 
source is God himself, to bring men to their final end, 
to make them participate in the life of the Trinity. 

' See how all the gifts that make for life and holiness 
in us belong to his divine power; come to us through 
fuller knowledge of him, whose own glory and 
sovereignty have drawn us to himself! Through him 
God has bestowed on us high and treasured promises; 
you are to share the divine nature, with the world's 



14O THE MISSION OP THE CHURCH 

corruption, the world's passions, left behind' (2 Pet. 

1 = 3-4)- 
The Church, enlightener of men, shines out suddenly 

in the darkness, and her flame has a blinding quality. 
No man has the power to extinguish it, or to let its rays 
filter through at his own good pleasure. To attempt 
anything of the sort is to stand self-condemned. Thus, 
the Church, by her mere presence, acts as a judgment 
on mankind. She is made accessible to men through 
the medium of languages, which, without lessening her 
splendour or exhausting her mystery, refracts her in the 
manner of a prism, enabling men to look on her and 
divine something of her richness. Human signs, whether 
words or gestures, being of God's creation, are of them- 
selves apt to signify what is divine, but, if they are to 
convey the transcendence of the divine word, they have 
to be taken over and transformed from within, under 
the guidance of the Spirit. 

As the Word of God took hold of human nature to 
raise it to himself, so the Church empties herself in 
order to bring God the whole of mankind. As Christ, 
too, took on himself our human condition, so the Church 
subjects herself to human cultures to express herself 
in tangible form. She assumes them to purify and 
vitalize them, to bring to their highest potential the 
qualities, both natural and supernatural, with which 
God has endowed individuals and societies. In this 
way, she gathers mankind together in the unity of 
Christ, and makes it capable of receiving the life of the 
Trinity. 



CONCLUSION 141 

By becoming incarnate, the Church, like Christ, 
engages in warfare with the powers of evil which desire 
to keep the world under their sway. She will gain the 
victory only by Redemption in sacrifice. The success 
of her mission is not just a question of method. The 
most perfect love, the highest degree of knowledge, the 
most studied techniques, though they have their share 
in the ultimate result, are inadequate to guarantee the 
victory. The work of the mission cannot be estimated 
according to its visible results. Whatever be the wisdom, 
human and supernatural, that directs it, it must con- 
front opposition and meet with setbacks; for victory 
comes from the Cross. 

Like Christ, the Church is, and always will be, a 
scandal to men, for she refuses to serve their material 
interests or to compromise with their desires. The 
assured advance she brings to man is not of the temporal 
order. It involves a breach with the old, a dying, in 
order to live again on a higher plane of being. 

The way of salvation passes by the Cross, which 
releases floods of living water on the world, and gives 
access to the Resurrection. At the side of Christ, * his 
was the first birth out of death ' (Col. i : 18) the Church 
takes up her place, as his Spouse, and gathers with- 
in her the whole of mankind to reign with him in 
eternity. 

* It was not you that chose me, it was I that chose you. 
The task I have appointed you is to go out and bear 
fruit, fruit which will endure* (Jn. 15: 16). 

' A grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die, 



I/P THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

or else it remains nothing more than a grain of wheat; 
but if it dies, then it yields rich fruit' (Jn. 12: 14), 

*I saw in my vision that holy city which is the new 
Jerusalem, being sent down by God from heaven, all 
clothed in readiness, like a bride who has adorned her- 
self to meet her husband. I heard, too, a voice which 
cried aloud from the throne, Here is God's tabernacle 
pitched among men; he will dwell with them, and they 
will be his own people, and he will be among them, their 
own God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, 
and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries 
of distress, no more sorrow; these old things have passed 
away' (Apoc. 21 : 2-4). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Academia Studies, vols. i sq., 1943 sq., (New York, The 

America Press.) 

AUPIAIS, Le Missionnaire. (Paris, Larose, 1938.) 
BOULARD, F., Introduction to Religious Sociology. London, 

to be published by Darton, Longman & Todd, 1960. 

Tr. Fr. M. I. Jackson. 
BRODERICK, J., Saint Francis Xavier. (London, Burns Gates, 



CAPERAN, L., Le Probleme du salut des infideles. (Toulouse, 

Grand Seminaire, 1934.) 

CHARLES, P., Les dossiers de faction missionnaire. (Louvain, 
Aucam, 1938.) 

Missiologie. (Louvain, Aucam, 1939.) 

Etudes missiologiques. (Paris, Desclee de Brouwer, 

*95 6 -) 

China in the sixteenth century: the Journals of Matthew 
Ricci. Ed. by Gallagher. (New York, Randon House, 

I953-) 
CLARK, Fr. X., The Purpose of Missions. (New York, Mis- 

sionary Union of the Clergy, 1948.) 
CONGAR, Y, Lay People in the Church. (London, Blooms- 

bury, 1957.) Tr. D. Attwater. 

CONSIDINE, J. M., Across a World. (London, Longmans, 1946.) 

Call for Forty Thousand. (London, Longmans, 1946.) 

COSTANTINI, Mgr., L'art chretien dans les missions. (Paris, 

Desclee de Brouwer, 1949.) 

CRONIN, V., The Wise Man from the West. (London, Hart 
Davis, 1955.) 

The Pearl of India. (London, Hart Davis, 1959.) 
DANI^LOU, J., God and Us. (London, Mowbray, 1957.) Tr. 
Fr. W. Roberts. 

Advent. (London, Sheed and Ward, 1950.) Tr. 
Rosemary Sheed. 

The Lord of History. (London, Longmans, 1958.) 
Tr. Nigel J. Abercrombie. 
143 



INDEX 



4 Acculturation ', law of, 59-60; 

influence of, 62 
Ancestor-worship, Church and, 

72 

Anjiro, Paul, 40 
Apartheid, 97 
Apologie de 1610 (de Nobili), 

quoted, 41 
Armenia, 91 
Atheists, xix 

Baptism, 7, 116; desire for, 125 
Benedict XV, and clergy, 120 
Bishops, Church and, 117-18 
Broderick, J., quoted, 38 

Catechists, 116, 123 

Catechumens, 13; and sacra- 
ments, 126 

Catholic Action, function of, 117 

Christianity, cultural expression 
of, 21-30 

' Christian ', meaning of, xvii- 
xviii 

Christian, the, characteristics of, 
xviii-xix; and politics, 90; 
national and social responsi- 
bilities of, 97; and witness, 
126-7 

Church, a, beginnings of, 12-51; 
growth of, 103-38 

Church, the, supernatural work 
of, xviii, 52-103 passim; mission 
of, 3-7, in, 02, 122-8, 139- 
141; necessary to salvation, 5$.; 
missionary activity of, 8; 
double work of, Jhji; how pre- 
sented, 15-20; divine seed of, 
15; in a new country, 19; and 
temporal factors, 52-102; and 
family life, 64-77/112-17; and 



polygamy, 68; and ancestor- 
worship, 72; and social life, 77- 
86; and unnatural customs, 78; 
and non-Catholic ceremonies, 
82; and State, 86-98; problem 
confronting, 107; as sacrament, 
1 08; fruits of, 109-10; and 
bishops, 117-18; universality of, 
128-9 

Clergy, 117-22; education of, 120- 
121; function of, 122 

Confirmation, 116 

Congregation of Propaganda, 
117 

Constantine, Emperor, 90-1 

Conversion, as change of life, 44, 

54ff- 

Cultural anthropology, 22 
Cultural expression, 131 
Cultural Integration, Law of, 24 
Culture, a iff., 58-64 

Dainichi, 40 

Damien, Fr., 36 

de Foucauld, Charles, 36 

de Nobili, Fr., 41 

Divine revelation, 131 

Ecclesiastical tradition, 132 
Education, value of, 74-7 
Ethnology, 22 
Evangelii Praecones (Pius XII), 

quoted, 34, 48-9, 99-100, 103, 

115, 128 

Faith, the, preparation for, 30-7 
Family, as part of Church, 112-17 
Francis I, 94 

Gandhi, Mahatma, and caste 
system, 80; quoted, no 




34 548