Love the Church and Try to Make Her Loved

by Cardinal Angelo Sodano

"LOVE THE CHURCH AND TRY TO MAKE HER LOVED"

by Cardinal Angelo Sodano

On March 24, the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, gave a talk at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome (part of a series to the diocese of Rome on preparing for the Great Jubilee of the year 2000). The talk received considerable attention because of its brief citation of dissenting theologian Hans Kung. Almost no one, however, has read the entire text, which was not available in English. Now Inside the Vatican has translated the text for our readers. Sodano emphasizes the historical and contemporary witness of the living Church as communion among those "within" and an openness of charity toward those "without." For Sodano, the Church exists to continue Christ's work of salvation for the whole world. He affirms the necessity of theological study and development even as he also affirms the necessity of loving the Church in order to achieve understanding.

Among the parables handed down to us by the Gospel of St. Matthew there is one that well describes a characteristic aspect of the presence of the Church in history. "The kingdom of heaven," Jesus taught, "is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is one of the smallest of seeds, but once it has grown,... it becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nestle among its branches" (Matthew 13:31-32).

This is one of the parables with which the Messiah sought to present to his first disciples the characteristics of his Kingdom: a Kingdom which began from almost insignificant beginnings, but which was destined over time to become a great tree, planting it deeply into human history and offering its branches as a secure refuge to the men of all ages.

1. THE BIRTH OF THE CHURCH

And in reality the development of the Christian community over the course of the centuries remains a truly surprising fact. At the end of his earthly mission, before his Ascension into heaven, Christ left in Jerusalem a nucleus of just 120 disciples, according to the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:15). However, immediately after Pentecost, the same St. Luke in his writing tells us that there "were added to the Church" another 3,000 persons (Acts 2:41), while after the first preaching of the Apostles, in the same text we read these words: "A growing multitude of men and women embraced the faith" (Acts 5:14).

From that time on, their number can no longer be counted and is known only to God. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing of the times of the emperor Nero (54-68 A.D.), affirmed that at Rome there were "an enormous multitude of Christians" (Annals, 15, 44), while Pliny, writing to the Emperor Trajan (98-117 A.D.) from the banks of the Bosphorus [Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey] circa 111-113 A.D., told him that the Christians there were already an enormous number, from every social class, so that it was now impossible to persecute them.

How can this rapid growth be explained? How can we explain the attractive force of this new community of believers? The Church faced ancient pagan humanism, that "wisdom of this world" that did not comprehend the "foolishness of the Cross," to use the terminology of St. Paul in his letter to the community in Corinth (I Corinthians 1:18-25).

Jesus was a Jew condemned to the ignominious punishment of that cross which, according to Cicero, in his oration Pro Rabirio, should be kept "far from the thought, the eyes and the ears of men" (Pro Rabirio, 5, 16).

The first Christian communities were the object of such calumnies among the people that the Christians came to be blamed for every great disaster. The blunt-spoken Tertullian wrote in his Apologeticum in the year 197, still in the epoch of the Roman persecutions: "If the Tiber overflows its banks, if the Nile does not flood its fields, if the sky is still, if the earth moves, if famine and plague arrive, immediately the cry arises: 'The Christians to the lions!"' (Apologeticum, 40). And yet, the Christians are Christians because of their own free choice, a choice that ought to be respected. The Christians — Tertullian protested — are Christians because they want to be. "Fiunt, non nascuntur christiani" ("They are not born but become Christians") (Ibidem, 18).

Then, with no respect for individual freedom of conscience, a violent hurricane — which would have been able to demolish any other institution — blew against them from the very beginning. And yet the tree held firm and grew and produced abundant fruit of goodness.

2. THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH

Seneca, the greatest moralist of the Roman Empire, noted bitterly in his De ira, describing the moral conditions of his times: "Everything is full of crimes and vices, so many are committed that it is impossible to stem them. There is a strange and monstrous war of iniquity: every day the desire to sin is greater and every day righteousness is more rare. With all respect for what is best having been crushed, everyone acts as passion suggests, nor are crimes any longer committed in private, but in full public view of all. Innocence is not only rare, it no longer exists." (De ira, II, 8, 24)

Now, even though planted in such a depraved world, the tree of the Church was able to grow and produce numerous fruits of holiness. The Acts of the Apostles tell us of the concord and the voluntary poverty of the first Christians (Acts 4:32-37).

The description of the life of the early Christians given in the second century after Christ by the unknown author of the letter to Diognetus is well known: "They live in their own country, but as pilgrims; they participate in everything like citizens, but bear everything as foreigners: every foreign country is their homeland, and every homeland, foreign. They marry like everyone else, and have children; but they do not discard their children. They have their meals in common. but not their beds. They are in the flesh but do not live according to the flesh. They pass their lives on the earth, but they are citizens of heaven.... To put it briefly, the Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body. The soul is spread through all parts of the body and so Christians are spread throughout the cities of the world. But as the soul dwells in the body, but is not part of the body, so Christians live in the world, but are not part of the world..." (Epistola ad Diognetum, 5).

Some of the disciples of Christ in the course of human history have borne witness in a heroic way to their Christian identity: the saints whom the Church venerates as the most beautiful fruits she can offer to humanity. And around the most celebrated figures, in whom God has shown the pleasing yoke of his omnipotence, there have been many other less well known persons; God alone knows how many.

They are the fruits of the vitality, latent but vigorous, that Christ inserted into the humble mustard seed, cast onto the soil of the world.

3. THE VITALITY OF THE CHURCH

If, moreover, to the number of saints in general we add, in particular, the number of the martyrs, the recognition of the Church's interior fruitfulness becomes even more eloquent.

From the proto-martyr St. Stephen up to the martyrs of Nazism and Communism of the 20th century, there is an immense multitude of men and women who, out of fidelity to Christ and His Church, have given the example of martyrdom to the world.

Nero, in the year 64 A.D., began here in Rome the official persecution of the Christians. The persecutions were not to end until the edict of the Emperor Constantine in 313 A.D.

Those were 249 years of sorrowful oppression. The catacombs of Rome are still today an eloquent witness to those years.

A number of scholars have made an effort to quantify, at least in an approximate way, the number of victims. The number they arrive at is between 100,000 and 200,000. (So I read during my studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in an article by a well known Jesuit historian, Professor Hertling, S.J., entitled "Die Zahl der Maertyrez bis 313" in Gregorianum 25 (1944), pp. 103-129.) It is thought that the population of Italy at that time did not exceed seven million (Enciclopedia Treccani, XXVII, 915).

This heroic sanctity did not, however, flourish only in the first centuries of Christianity; it is a constant characteristic that we rediscover in Christian communities of all times.

4. MARTYRDOM IN THE CHURCH

Among the millions of deaths that were sacrificed to the ruling ideologies in our own 20th century, how many Christians suffered martyrdom solely for their faith! In the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulags, how many died leaving us an example of fearless fidelity to Christ and to His Church!

Fortunately, there are still living some survivors who can bear witness to such heroism. Just this month, for example, I was able to hear the confessions of the new cardinal, Adam Koziowiecki,

who recounted the things he had seen and endured for five years, from 1940 to 1945, in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau.

At almost the same time, I had the chance to hear the story of Cardinal Jan Chryzostom Korec, bishop of Nitra in Slovakia, of the 12 years of hard labor to which he was condemned by the communist regime and of the heroic example of many Christians condemned to very harsh punishments merely because they were faithful to the Gospel.

A few days ago — on March 15, to be precise — we assisted in St. Peter's Basilica at the beatification of the bishop-martyr Eugenio Bossilkov, shot in Bulgaria in 1952 during the communist persecution. After months of confinement and torture in the prisons of Sofia, he was shot for the sole reason that he was a "counter-revolutionary." The Bulgarian regime led by Dimitrov never officially gave the exact details of the execution. They feared even the dead. Something definitive was finally known only on June 27, 1975, when Paul VI of blessed memory received in audience the president of the Bulgarian Republic, Mr. Zhikov. When the Pope asked for precise news about what had happened to Monsignor Bossilkov, Zhikov confirmed that the heroic bishop of Nicopoli (today Rousse) had been shot by a firing squad 23 years before!

Certainly these totalitarian regimes did not make Christians their only victims. Entire peoples were almost destroyed by the homicidal madness of the dictators, as has recently been summed up in the well-known book of Yves Ternon, Lo Stato criminal. I genocidi del XX secolo (The Criminal State: The Genocides of the 20th Century) published in Milan by Corbaccio in 1997.

The book contains horrifying accounts of the genocide of the Jews, the massacre of the Armenians, the crimes of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the victims of the Soviet gulags, and includes the recent African and Bosnian slaughters.

Before these victims of terror, each one of us senses the duty to bow down, and to make our own their cry of pain: that such crimes may never occur again!

Many of these victims were slain solely because they were Christians; they accepted their suffering with a profound spirit of faith, offering their lives in order that such tragedies might never again come to pass. This is another proof of the vitality of the Christian ideal when it is lived intensely. It is another proof of the grace of Christ who sustains the Church from within, vivifying her with His Spirit.

5. SIN IN THE CHURCH

Some of you will ask, however: is not such a description of the Church in history perhaps triumphalistic? Beside the numerous ranks of saints, are there not also legions of sinners? Beside the fidelity of so many of the Church's children, has there not also been a series of heresies and schisms? Beside the missionary ardor of so many apostles, has there not also been the apathy of very many Christians?

Certainly even a luxuriant tree can suffer some diseases. A branch or two can dry up. Parasites can penetrate beneath the bark and attempt to corrode the trunk. The essential thing, however, is that the tree remains healthy and have the capacity to recover, even after a disease has attempted to penetrate the trunk.

Certainly in the Church, composed of human beings, sin, error, limitations are present. For this reason, theologians have rightly spoken of the need for a continual reform of the Church. In the last century, Rosmini spoke of the five plagues that the body of the Church was suffering from in his time. And the renowned philosopher Rovereto was a great lover of the Church, and desired to see her, precisely for this reason, ever more able to measure up to the greatness of her mission. (Cf. A. Rosmini, Delle cinque piaghe della Chiesa, ed. Mons. Clemente Riva, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1966, and the recent critical edition edited by Nunzio Galantino, San Paolo, Milan, 1997).

6. THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH

In the history of modern theology, the ample study which already prior to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council Father Yves Congar, O.P., had published regarding the need for a continual reform of the Church, and the criteria which ought to inspire it, is well known. It was his famous book: "Vrai et fausse reforme dans l'Eglise" (True and False Reform in the Church). The publisher, Jaca Book, made it known to Italian readers in the handsome edition edited by Massimo Camisasca entitled Vera e falsa riforma nella Chiesa with the significant subtitle: "To recover the conditions of every ecclesial reform, beyond vain cleverness and presumptuous rigidity" (Edizioni Jaca Book, Milan, 1972).

The profound study by the famous French theologian — later created cardinal by Pope John Paul II on October 30, 1994 — highlighted the perennial identity of the Church in her fundamental trunk, together with the need for a continual effort of renewal so that the tree might be ever verdant and produce the fruits of goodness willed by Christ.

It was an ecclesiology that tried to distinguish what is divine in the Church, and therefore immutable, from what is human, and therefore transitory and always in need of renewal. It was an analysis that sought to see what is given by God in the Church from what is done by man. It is, in a profound way, the very development of the Church that requires, on the one hand, continuity, the faithfulness to the Church's origins and constitution and, on the other hand, an effort of reform, of movement, of growth, to respond to the ideal sketched out by Christ for his Church.

Certainly, every institution runs the risk of not renewing itself, if it is inert, if it allows its external structures to obscure its original aspect. The tree must often be pruned, the very trunk must be cleansed, so that the vital sap may run throughout the plant and produce abundant fruit. It is true that this theme of the reform of the Church is always very delicate: it is a theme that, if it is badly framed, can cause profound lacerations, tearing the seamless garment of Christ. The history of the Church shows this.

7. THE CONDITIONS FOR A TRUE REFORM

For this reason, Congar, in the second part of his work, sketched for us in a magisterial way the conditions for a reform without schisms.

(1) The first condition is to give primacy of place to charity. Often the reformer is tempted to act alone and to not be fully integrated into the Church. To be a solitary constitutes a strength, but also a danger. It is the danger of being separated from the ecclesial unity up to the point of falling into heresy.

Instead of taking Christianity as it is constituted in the Church, as an existing reality to which we must assimilate ourselves, the reformer tends to consider Christianity a type of human artifact to mold according to one's pleasure. For the reformer, the Church is to be invented: for the faithful she already exists, as Christ willed her to exist. One must only serve her, love her, and act within her confines. He who loves the Church will always attempt to stay within the limits of an authentic reformism. He who loves the Church does not seek to make another, but rather to render her ever more lovely and resplendent before the eyes of men. St. Francis of Assisi represents the opposite of Luther, just as reform by way of sanctity contrasts with reform by way of criticism.

Not for nothing was the so-called Catholic Counter-Reformation characterized by an attempt to renew the Church from within, by means of sanctity. Rightly Pope Paul IV, at the time of the Council of Trent, recalled that the Church did not need to be reformed by men, but men by the Church.

(2) The second condition indicated to us by Congar is linked to the first: a true ecclesial renewal requires that one remain in the communion of the whole. If one remains in communion with all the members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Spirit can act in the Christian and teach him what is just and holy.

Ecclesial union requires moreover a close union with the Pastors whom the Holy Spirit has placed at the head of the Holy Church of God.

There is not true Catholic communion, in fact, if it is not in communion with the Apostles and with their Successors, in communion with their preaching and with the communitarian regime that they regulate in the name of Christ. The Church is formed by those who are with the Apostles and the Apostles are those who are with Peter. (Mark 1:36; Luke 9:32)

Certainly in the Church there is an enormous space for individual initiative. Many ecclesial movements are not born directly from the hierarchy. Pope Pius XII expressed this in a celebrated discourse to the participants at the World Congress of the Apostolate of the Laity, in 1951: "In the decisive battles, sometimes the most important initiatives,. come from the front line. The history of the Church offers many examples of this" (AAS 1951, p. 789). Such initiatives, however, have always needed a connection with the Shepherds of the Church, who guarantee ecclesial unity.

8. TWO FINAL CONDITIONS

(3) The third condition of a true reform of the Church is patience. The law of gradual change holds also for the Catholic community. Waiting must be respected. In fact, does not the evangelical leaven act slowly from within toward humanity? Violent people who want to transform the civil society by force do not know how to be patient. It must not be so for the disciples of Christ who wish to transform humanity from within through the law of love. This is not a case of delay, but of a disposition of the soul which knows well the limits of human nature.

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," the Lord taught us (Matthew 26:41). Sometimes reformers want to immediately rid the fields of weeds. But the Gospel parable teaches us to respect the times of the growth of the harvest and not to anticipate the future with an impatient effort, typical of purists. There is the risk that by uprooting the weeds, the wheat as well will be uprooted, compromising everything (Matthew 13:29).

(4) The fourth condition of a true renewal in the Church is the return to the principle of the Tradition, The tree always needs to absorb from the soil where it was planted its vital sap. The Church must always return to her origins, to her primitive tradition. Tradition does not mean habit for us. Nor does Tradition mean the past, even if it involves a recognition of the past.

Tradition is something quite different: it is the continuity of the development of the tree "in eodem sensu eademque sententia" ("in the same understanding and in the same utterance") as St. Vincent of Lerins said in his classic formula in the 5th century (Cf. Commonitorium, n, 23). Tradition is fidelity to divine revelation, to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, to the expressions of the faith and of the prayer of the Church, in the light of the authentic teaching of her Shepherds.

"Keep the faith, depositum custodi," St. Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy (I Timothy 6:20). This is still today the admonition that the Church addresses to every new Bishop at the moment of his episcopal ordination.

Certainly the Church also has the duty of seeking every way to proclaim the Gospel: this is the necessity for inculturation, a concept very dear to contemporary pastoral thinking. The theme was much-debated in the special bishops' synod for Africa and Pope John Paul II discussed it in his post-synodal Exhortation "Ecclesia in Africa" of September 14, 1995. It is expected to be a much-discussed topic in the upcoming Synod for Asia in May, and in that for Oceania in November.

But inculturation has a precise limit with regard to the Christian identity. There are adaptations which the disciples of Christ cannot accept: adaptations to the spirit of the world, as St. Paul taught the Roman faithful: "Nolite conformari huic seculo" ("Be ye not conformed to this world") (Romans 12:2).

There are, in fact, in certain cultures some elements that Christians will never be able to assimilate, but rather will have to transform with the leaven of the Gospel. If a culture is impregnated, for example, with agnosticism, or defends class warfare, or exalts only material values or the ideal of brute force, Christians certainly cannot adapt themselves, but must rather labor to transform such cultures. Even among secular thinkers it is acknowledged that not every culture is civilized. Rightly it has been written in this regard: "A civilization is a culture, but not every culture is a civilization" (Herve Carrier, Dizionario della cultura, Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1997, p. 93).

9. THE LIVING REALITY OF THE CHURCH

Having come thus far, a question arises: but what is this Church, so present in the reality of human history?

The Gospel image of the tree which we have recalled tonight, does not pretend to define the Church. Like every image, it indicates an aspect, in the conviction that it is unable to describe all of the profound reality. The Gospel parable reminds us of an important characteristic, however, and that is of the Church's continual growth through the centuries.

The image of a tree that grows enables us to avoid the danger of considering the Church as something static and immobile over the centuries, but makes us see her as a reality that grows, that is renewed even after eventual winter lethargies, to return to blossom again in springtime, putting forth flowers and fruit.

In a recent ecclesiological treatise written by a German theologian, the Jesuit Father Medard Kehl, professor at the Philosophical-Theological Hochschule in Frankfurt-am-Main, speaks rightly of the danger of a "petrified" conception of the Church, as if she were an immobile structure, not intent on continually growing in her adhesion to Christ and in her missionary commitment to all men (Cf. Medard Kehl, The Church: Systematic Treatise of Catholic Ecclesiology, Italian translation, Ed. S. Paolo, Milan, 1995, pp. 23-24). In reality, if we are faithful to the vision of the Church that the divine-apostolic Tradition has transmitted to us, we avoid this danger.

Also the Pauline image of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ is very useful to answer the question we have posed: but what is this Church?

The human body, in fact, is a living reality, composed of members united with one another; an organism led by a head and vivified by a heart which carries blood to all the cells. And it is so also in the Mystical Body of Christ.

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council privileged the image of the Church as the People of God. This image, too, well indicates a living reality, a community that grows and moves, under the leadership of its Shepherds. And it is thus that the Catholic Church presents herself to us 20 centuries after she issued from the Upper Room in Jerusalem, after Pentecost, to begin her path in the world: a living reality which is continually developing and spreading throughout the world.

10. THE ANALYSIS OF THE THEOLOGIANS

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, beyond giving us a theoretical definition of the Church, presented to us her various aspects, her origin, nature, finality, making use of all the images used by the divine-apostolic Tradition.

Today, it is to those conciliar documents that we prefer to turn in our presentation of the reality of the Church. These well-known documents range from Lumen Gentium to Gaudium et Spes.

In so doing, we do not mean to forget the contribution that in every historical period the Church's Magisterium, on the one hand, and theology, on the other, have given to an ever more profound understanding of the mystery of the Church of Christ.

In our theological faculties, scholars rightly study this effort at self-understanding which the Church has made over the centuries. In the hands of our students today there are some profound texts on this matter. One is The History of Dogma under the direction of Bernard Sesboue, The Piemme publishing house has recently published the third volume of this work, analyzing in depth the history of the concept of the Church over the centuries, from apostolic times to our own (Cf. Storia dei dogmi. Vol. III, Piemme, Casale Monferrato, 1998).

Italian theologians recently made a contribution to this research, giving us the well known Storia della Teologia ("History of Theology") published by the Edizioni Dehoniane of Bologna. The first volume, from the origins to Bernard of Clairvaux, was edited by Enrico Del Covolo, a Salesian; the second volume, which follows the concept of the Church from Peter Abelard to St. Robert Bellarmine, was edited by Giuseppe Occhipinti; and the third, which goes from 1600 to the present, that is, from the Jesuit Vitus Pichler to Father Henri de Lubac, was edited by Don Rino Fisichella, the renowned theologian of the Roman clergy.

The effort with which theology, as the "scientia fidei" ("knowledge of the faith"), is trying to present to individuals and cultures of all times the phenomenon of the Church is truly marvelous.

In so doing, theology carries out its mission, which is to investigate in depth revealed truth in the light of the faith proclaimed by the Church. Certainly theological study must always continue. It is true that the revealed truth of the Church is immutable and absolute. But theology is a human word, and as such imperfect and limited. It must always make progress. In reality, the mystery of the Church, like every other element of the Christian revelation, contains so many treasures of truth that they can never be studied adequately.

Here lies all of the greatness of theology: to take dogmas which have been proclaimed by Revelation and handed down by the Magisterium of the Church, then deepening them and proposing them to the men and women of every generation. Theology thus becomes the collaborator of the official Magisterium of the Church in the exposition of the Christian mystery. Thus the understanding of the faith grows.

11. THE ECCLESIAL SENSE

Theology obviously has to keep in mind that the Magisterium of the Church is not only that of the past, but continues to be proposed in the Church of today by bishops scattered throughout the world and by the Roman pontiff, Shepherd of the universal Church.

The fundamental law of the scientific method is to be adequate to one's proper object. Now, the object of Catholic theology is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

The norm of faith for a Catholic is the living Magisterium of the Church, and not Revelation interpreted individually. Indeed, the widest adherence to the Magisterium of the Church was the light that inspired the greatest theologians of all times.

St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, examining a minor disputed point, wrote: "The very doctrine of Catholic doctors draws its authority from the Church. For this reason, one must rely more on the authority of the Church than on that of Augustine or Jerome or of any other doctor (Summa Teologica, II-IIae, q. X, a. 12).

"Sentire cum Ecclesia" ("To think with the (mind of) the Church") or also, as it is sometimes put, "Sentire in Ecclesia" ("To think within the Church") was the advice left by St. Ignatius to the Society of Jesus, In 1991, on the 450th anniversary of its foundation, various articles were published on that Ignatian motto. The rule dictated by St. Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises seems a provocative one to us today (no. 365): "To be certain in all things, we must always hold this criterion: what I see white I will believe to be black, if the hierarchical Church tells me it is so. In fact, we believe that the Spirit that governs and guides our souls toward salvation is the same in Christ Our Lord, the Spouse, and in the Church, His Bride" (Cf. St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, ed. G. Raffo, S.J., Edizioni ADP, Rome 1991, pag. 313).

It is a challenging text, one which sounds strange to the ears of the modern critics of the Church. But if we bear in mind the environment in which St. Ignatius found himself, in an age of "innovators" in the faith, if we consider that Erasmus of Rotterdam had said, in a polemical spirit with the Church, that white would not become black even if the Pope of Rome said it were so, then we can understand the Ignatian hyperbole.

And it was precisely to re-establish the general principle of pontifical authority that Ignatius resorted to this literary device, which obviously must not be detached from its context. His teaching, however, on the duty of profound adhesion, of mind and heart, to the Magisterium of the Church, because guided by the Holy Spirit, remains valid.

12. THE ECCLESIOLOGY OF POPE JOHN PAUL II

Today the Magisterium of the Church, with modern means of communication, can become ever more capillary. The bishops of individual dioceses and the Pope in the universal Church can more easily see to it that their voices as Shepherds reach everyone.

In Italy as well, thanks be to God, we are seeing a continual work of the diffusion of the ecclesiastical magisterium. There are the voices of the individual bishops, the collective voice of the bishops' conference, on the most pressing ecclesial matters. Recently the publishing house Piemme issued many of the interventions of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, President of the Italian bishops' conference, in a book entitled The Church of Our Time (Casale Monferrato, 1996).

But what has most contributed in recent years to illustrate the mission of the Church in the modern world has been the magisterium of John Paul II. During his 20 years of pontificate, the present successor of Peter has offered us a veritable treatise of ecclesiology, with his encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, profound homilies, delivered in Rome and before the multitudes in the countries he has visited.

It is an ecclesiology that recalls us the Christ, author of the Church, as appears clearly from the fist encyclical of the pontificate, Redemptor Hominis of March 4, 1979.

It is an ecclesiology that reminds us that Christ has given to this Church His Holy Spirit, in order to vivify her from within, so that the Spirit is called "The Soul of the Church." One of the encyclicals which I reread with ever greater spiritual joy is precisely the one dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem of May 18, 1986.

The ecclesiology of Pope John Paul II has certain typical aspects, especially his insistence on the position of Mary in the Church: the encyclical Redemptoris Mater is one continual call to look to Her whom Christ willed to be the highest figure in His Church. Moreover, in the vision of the Pope, the Church of Christ is by her nature destined for all the peoples of the earth.

She is a Church open toward the other Christians, in a commitment to the promotion of unity, willed and felt as a compelling need in view of the Third Christian Millennium.

She is a Church in dialogue with all the other religions, as with all men of good will.

She is a Church anxious for the progress of man and society, as the great social encyclicals of John Paul II show.

In short, it is an ecclesiology of communion "ad intra"' ("toward those within") and of openness "ad extra"' ("toward those without"), with the aim of contributing to the realization of the Church's specific task given her by Christ, that of continuing his work of salvation "pro mundi vita" ("for the life of the world").

13. A MISSIONARY CHURCH

This missionary characteristic of the Church as a tree destined to spread its branches to all of humanity was illustrated in depth by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio of December 7, 1990. The subtitle of the pontifical document speaks of the permanent validity of the missionary mandate. "The mission of Christ the Redeemer, entrusted to the Church," we read at the opening of the encyclical, "is still far from completion. At the end of the second millennium since his coming, a glance at humanity as a whole shows that this mission is still just beginning... Internal and external difficulties have unfortunately weakened the missionary outreach of the Church toward non-Christians, and this is a fact that ought to concern all believers in Christ. In the history of the Church, in fact, the missionary spirit has always been a sign of vitality, just as its diminution is a sign of a crisis of faith" (Ibidem, nn. 1-2).

In reality, the Gospel of Christ takes nothing away from the liberty of man, the due respect for cultures, for what is good in every religion. To proclaim Christ is to render a service to contemporary man, to help him to find the meaning of ultimate reality and of his own existence. Proclaiming and bearing witness to Christ, when done in a way that respects consciences, does not violate freedom, but rather helps to find that true freedom, which every man has the moral obligation to seek.

If salvation is offered to all, it must be concretely placed at the disposition of all. If the Gospel must become for all the "good news," it must be announced to all "sine glossa" ("without gloss"). This is the mission of the Church, which does not exist for herself, but for others, for the men of every time and place.

It is to the missionary understanding that Pope John Paul II wishes to recall the Church of the 20th century, which is preparing to begin the third millennium of her history.

14. RESPECTING TIMES AND PLACES

Certainly, the field which today opens to the activity of the Church is immense and, partly for this reason, demands the use of varying means to announce the Gospel. Paul, after he had preached in numerous places, reached Athens and to announce the Good News on the Areopagus he had to use a language which was appropriate and comprehensible (Acts 17:22-31).

So today new areopaguses present themselves to Christians: they are differing cultural areas, differing national and international realities, which must be illuminated with the light of the Gospel. I am thinking of the work for peace among peoples, of the promotion of human rights, of the protection of the environment, of your own world of communications, which is unifying humanity, rendering it "a global village."

To everyone the Church has an immense spiritual patrimony to offer, indicating to all Christ as "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6).

The Church however is the first to be convinced that such a great work requires time. The leaven does not rise all at once. And this aspect of the salvific work of the Church was recalled by Pope John Paul II in his Wednesday catechesis on March 12, speaking of "God's time" and recalling the words of Jesus, who, correcting the impatience of the Apostles, said to them: "It is not for you to know the time and the moment that that the Father has reserved to himself" (Acts 1:7).

"This patience was already shown in the Old Testament, during the long history that prepared the coming of Jesus (Cf. Romans 3:26). It continues to be shown in the time since Christ, in the growth of the Church (Cf. 2 Peter 3:9).

"Sent to all mankind, the Church knows different moments in her development. In some times and places she encounters special difficulties and obstacles, in others her progress is much more rapid. There are long waiting periods during which her intense missionary efforts seem to remain ineffective. These are times that put hope to the test, orienting it toward a more distant future.

"There are nevertheless also favorable times in which the Good News is well received and there are many conversions. The first and fundamental moment of grace was Pentecost. Many others have come since, and will come.

"When one of these moments comes, those who have a special responsibility in evangelization are called to recognize it, to better exploit the possibility offered by grace. But it is not possible to know the date in advance." (L'Osservatore Romano, March 13, 1998)

15. THE CHURCH OF MY CHILDHOOD

At the end of this analysis, there remains nothing but to return to my starting point: what is the reality of this Church, beyond her appearances and limits, beyond the errors and sins of her members, beyond the laziness or impatience of so many of her children?

Certainly the Church is an assembly of believers, as the Greek word ecclesia ("assembly") says. It was the word the Church began to use for herself. Assembly that prays, above all: it is the first meaning of the word "Church," a liturgical meaning. Assembly that lives and works around a bishop: this is the second meaning, the communitarian meaning, proper to a local Church. Assembly that lives and works in the entire world gathered around the Pope: this is the word's third and highest meaning, the one that designates the people of believers gathered in the universal Church. We have sought to describe the characteristic aspects of this "assembly," this "society," fully aware that the mystery of the Church is not able to be expressed in a brief synthetic presentation.

Still, even today I remember by heart the definition given in the Catechism of St. Pius X. It was a definition I learned as a child on my mother's knee and which was for a long time repeated at the desks of my parish, in catechism class. To the question "What is the Catholic Church?", I knew how to answer immediately: "The Catholic Church is the society of all the baptized who, living on this earth, profess the same faith and the same law of Christ, participate in the same sacraments and obey the legitimate Pastors, principally the Roman pontiff." It was a simple definition, which today seems quite narrow for the body of the Church, but which then allowed me to glimpse the nature of that reality that I was beginning to know and love.

16. A PHENOMENON TO STUDY

Ending my talk, I would like to leave two messages. The first message is to all those in search of the truth. I cannot ask them to make an act of faith in the Church, as a practicing Catholic does, when in the Apostle's Creed he professes to believe in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I ask, however, that they study this reality in depth, examining all its aspects.

Like an immense mountain range, the Church runs through 2,000 years of human history: it is impossible to ignore her. Her remarkable propagation, her stability in the face of persecution, schism and heresy, the heroic sanctity of many of her members, notwithstanding the miseries of many others, pose serious questions. May this not be the fulfillment of the promise made by Christ to his disciples, before he rose to heaven: "I will be with you always, even to the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20)?

An overview of 20 centuries of Christianity prompts this question spontaneously. Recently the German theologian Hans Kung, in his book Christianity: Essence and History published by Rizzoli last October (Milan, 1997), tried to give an answer. At the end of his voluminous study, after a long historical "excursus," he dedicates some lovely pages to the mystery of Christianity, concluding: "Why has this Christianity always endured despite all the non-Christian elements in its history? Because this religion has continually inserted itself into new cultural landscapes, like a great river which originates somewhere in a modest way and imbeds itself in an ever new way in the landscape through which it slowly flows... It is a river which has had some ruinous falls... But must not one also see the river of goodness, mercy, willingness to help, and solidarity that from the source — the Gospel — onward has run through history?.... What sort of power is this that is at work everywhere? Is it all just chance? All just fate?..." (Ibidem, pp. 784-787).

17. A CHURCH TO LOVE

The second message that I would like to leave, at the end of my exposition, is directed to all those who are members of the Church. It is an invitation to love profoundly this Church, like a second Mother. She has generated us in the faith and continues to nourish us with the word of God and the Sacraments. Indeed, loving the Church will bring us to know her more intimately. It is true that, in general, one does not love a person if one has not first known him, but it is also true that one does not truly know another unless one loves him. This was a principle expressed already almost 1,500 years ago by Pope St. Gregory the Great: "When we love the divine truths, in loving them we already know them, because love itself is a form of knowledge. Amor ipse notitia est" (Homilies on the Gospels, II, 27, 4).

The love of the Church brings us, then, as a consequence, to love the Shepherds and to be in solidarity with all the members, especially with the poorest and most suffering.

Speaking of Christ, St. Paul told us that He loved the Church, immolating Himself for her. "Dilexit Ecclesiam" (Ephesians 5:25)

On the tomb of a good priest, I once saw carved these two words of St. Paul, placed there to sum up the meaning of his life: "Dilexit Ecclesiam!" He loved the Church!

Personally, I would be content if upon my own tombstone the phrase could be completed, written thus: "He loved the Church, and tried to make her loved!"

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