Maximum illud
The apostolic letter Maximum illud of November 30, 1919 contained a new, forward-looking program of the Catholic mission . Pope Benedict XV demanded a better preparation of the missionaries, a consideration of the cultural and national characteristics of the peoples and the formation of a local clergy.
Invitation to proselytize
These demands, he wrote, meant turning away from the self-righteous European claim to omnipotence and opening up to the intrinsic value of foreign mentalities. “Remember,” he urged the missionaries, “you do not have a human kingdom to expand, but the kingdom of Christ!” If the church wanted to be truly Catholic, it must “be a stranger to no people or nation”.
About the understanding of mission
This is followed by a discussion of the change in the understanding of mission, he propagated these changes and clearly wrote that he wanted to implement them consistently. He called on the missionary bishops to respect and promote the independence of the local clergy, because after all he wanted to preserve and modernize the church as an institution and to spread the faith.
Missionaries' duties
With his apostolic letter he sends the missionaries and imposes duties on them:
“Now we turn to all of you, beloved sons, who cultivate the Lord's vineyard. Primarily in your hands, at the same time as the spread of Christian wisdom, lies the salvation of so many souls ... The mission entrusted to you is downright divine and far above the poverty of human considerations: to bring light to those who languish in the shadow of death, and to those who rush to ruin, to open the way to salvation. Therefore understand that you do not have to advertise for the fatherland here on earth, but for the fatherland that is above. It would therefore be really regrettable if there were missionaries who seem to forget their dignity so much that they think more of the earthly than of the heavenly fatherland. "
Colonization and proselytizing in contradiction
In this letter he clearly differentiates between state colonization and Christian proselytizing . It is easy to mislead the locals into the wrong opinion, so that they could assume the following: The Christian faith is the national religion of any foreign nation and accepting Christianity means submitting to the protection of a foreign state and renouncing one's own nationality.
For the 100th anniversary
In a letter dated October 22, 2017, to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Fernando Cardinal Filoni , Pope Francis reminded that on November 30, 2019, the hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of the Apostolic Exhortation Maximum illud will be celebrated. This event caused him, at the suggestion of the Congregation, to “proclaim an extraordinary month of mission in October 2019 in order to awaken the consciousness of the missio ad gentes again and to resume the missionary transformation of life and pastoral care with renewed vigor”.
literature
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace - Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church - (Social Doctrine and Social Pastoral Care No. 524-527), Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2006, ISBN 3-451-29078-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The German Bishops 76 - All Nations His Salvation - The Mission of the World Church September 23, 2004 ( PDF ( Memento of the original from December 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. )
- ↑ Letter 17 - Inculturation as a Franciscan Task ( Memento of October 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Archive.org website, October 22, 2007. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
- ↑ LETTERA DEL SANTO PADRE FRANCESCO IN OCCASIONE DEL CENTENARIO DELLA PROMULGAZIONE DELLA LETTERA APOSTOLICA "MAXIMUM ILLUD" SULL'ATTIVITÀ SVOLTA DAI MISSIONARI NEL MONDO [1]
