Chapter Four: The Social Dimension of Evangelisation
Monsignor Gerard Burns
The fourth chapter of Evangelium Gaudium (EG) treats the Social Dimension of Evangelisation (nn 177‒258). It is in a way a response to an earlier section in which the Pope analyses the challenges to communal commitment (nn 52‒75).
After first speaking of the encounter with Christ as the founding impulse for the Church community to evangelise, Pope Francis took up how that evangelising mission must transform the Church to make it fit for that purpose (chapter one).
In chapter two the pope looks at the social, economic, cultural and personal challenges facing the Gospel.
The fourth chapter reminds us that evangelising is first a communal activity (nn 177‒258). Mission is not an individualistic but a communal project.
Not only that, but the mission must also take into account the social setting in which people find themselves.
Evangelisation – preaching the Kingdom of God – includes working to transform those social circumstances.
Here, the social teaching of the Church (CST) is central because it starts from the scriptures and the teaching of Jesus and applies these to current questions with the help of the social sciences (nn 182‒185).
Lest this seem an academic exercise Pope Francis makes the test of evangelisation the inclusion of the poor in society (nn 186‒201).
This measure matches the Pope’s earlier analysis that the current world social system could be defined as an economy of exclusion (nn 53‒57) and that inequality is the root of all evils (n 202).
A central principle in CST for evaluating social and economic systems is that of the Common Good (nn 217‒221) – not the private good, the good of the few or even the good of the majority.
The Common Good takes into account the good of each and every person, especially the most vulnerable.
This preferential commitment to the poor is for all Christians. It means knowing and listening to the poor, ensuring their voices be heard and working so that the structural causes of poverty and exclusion be overcome. In solidarity with the poor there is meant to be a common work for justice and liberation for entire peoples.
Pope Francis says the poor should be the focus and centre of all social, economic and spiritual planning.
He states, too, that the worst discrimination the poor can suffer is the lack of spiritual care (n 200).
The second way in which Pope Francis seeks to strengthen the Church’s evangelising mission is in the promotion of social dialogue to promote peace (nn 217‒221). Dialogue rather than imposition is to be the means of evangelisation. It is not dialogue just for the purpose of talking. Dialogue is a form of encountering the other person, ourselves and God. Its purpose is to develop consensus around a just, responsive and inclusive society (n 239).
The particular dialogues EG underlines are: dialogue between faith, reason and science; ecumenical dialogue; dialogue with judaism, inter-religious dialogue and social dialogue.
To assist this, Pope Francis gives four principles, which he sees as based in CST. The principles (nn 222‒236) are: that time is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; reality is more important than ideas; and that the whole is greater than the part.
Monsignor Gerard Burns is Vicar General Archdiocese of Wellington, parish priest St Joseph’s, Mt Victoria ,and Te Parihi o te Ngakau Tapu parish personal to Māori.