Chapter Two: Amid the Crisis of Communal Commitment
Lisa Beech
Evangelii Gaudium’s Chapter Two, Amid the Crisis of Communal Commitment , outlines challenges facing the global community as well as temptations and tendencies specific to those involved in pastoral ministry.
We encounter Pope Francis exhorting us as a Church to become vibrant people and communities who go forth joyfully to engage with some of the big economic and social issues of our time, while not neglecting our own spiritual growth and self-reflection.
Some of the section titles in this chapter wouldn’t be out of place as slogans at a public rally or protest. ‘No to an economy of exclusion’. ‘No to the new idolatry of money.’ ‘No to the inequality that spawns violence.’ The chapter also includes similar slogans in the same vein addressed more internally to the Church. ‘Yes to the challenge of a missionary spirituality.’ ‘No to a sterile pessimism.’ ‘No to warring among ourselves.’
The first section of the chapter provides a strong critique of our economic system, with messages becoming now familiar in Pope Francis’ ministry – especially his outspoken rejection of a ‘throw-away’ culture, which discards people seen as unessential. ‘Those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised. They are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers’.’
Pope Francis outlines his deep concern for the growing gulf between rich and poor, both globally and within societies, labelling our relationship with money as a significant contribution to the breakdown of relationships. ‘We calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies.’ Foreshadowing the concerns he expresses in greater detail in Laudato Si’ he describes our financial system as one that devours everything that stands in the way of increased profits. ‘Whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a deified market.’
In responding to the pastoral needs of people living in such a society, Pope Francis challenges those who carry out the Church’s pastoral work to look beyond individualism, to seek the good of all. He asks everyone to see this work as part of our very identity, saying the spiritual life cannot be associated only with ‘a few religious exercises that can offer a certain comfort, but which do not encourage encounter with others, engagement with the world or a passion for evanglisation’.
Not mincing words, he calls on us to avoid becoming ‘sourpusses’, as a result of letting defeatism turn us into pessimists. ‘Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully convinced of victory beforehand.’ He says the energy and vitality of communities can call young people to vocations, and revitalise faith. ‘Challenges exist to be overcome!’
Lisa Beech is a Launch Out lay pastoral leadership candidate.