To the Church of Gabon (17 February 1982)
ShareOn Wednesday, 17 February 1982, the Holy Father addressed the Church of Gabon in Libreville, focusing on the greatness of a priest, who is not just a man like any other.
1. Each people is legitimately proud to have on its territory places and monuments which bear witness to the great moments of its life and invite succeeding generations to make the link between the past and the present. To the extent that they remain faithful to their history, they fulfill a duty of justice and honesty, they consolidate or rediscover their unity, they become capable of moving this history forward by wisely integrating the values of the past with attractive but sometimes new developments. ambiguities of successive eras. Precisely, this Sainte-Marie cathedral in Libreville is a high place in your history. It is at this place that, on September 29, one thousand eight hundred and forty-four, the unforgettable Father Bessieux celebrated for the first time the sacrifice of Christ on Gabonese soil. This sacred monument remains as the symbolic cradle of your nation. I congratulate you for having engraved on its interior walls, on the right as you enter, a sentence which is a testimony as moving as it is true: “From here, the light of the Gospel has shone on the African countries”.
One hundred and thirty-eight years have passed! Happier than my predecessors of the last century, Pius IX and Leo XIII, who encouraged this attempt at evangelization, I have the immense happiness of contemplating in this numerous assembly the results of the patient work of the workers from the first hour and of all those who took over. The teaching that Christ gave in parables on the future expansion of the gospel message also concerned your continent. Today there are approximately five hundred thousand of you who have heard of the Good News and received Christian baptism. Today you are the living parable of the mustard seed that has become a great tree.
In this memorable meeting, I feel urgent to strengthen all those whom Christ has mysteriously called to the tasks of evangelization on Gabonese soil. In a spirit of recognition and loyalty to the pioneers of the last century, they continue the same work according to the methods renewed by the Church in our time. This is why I will address first of all the Gabonese priests and the Spiritan, Salesian, Claretian and “Fidei Donum” Fathers who provide them with such precious assistance. I will then address the religious men and women (I noted that eighteen congregations worked across the four dioceses of this country) and, of course, the many lay Christians, who are catechists or responsible for apostolate movements, or who have great responsibility in their Christian communities.
2. To you, dear brothers in the ministerial priesthood, who are not without worrying about your limited number nor without sometimes suffering from questions – even in Africa – about the identity and mission of the priest, I want to entrust a certain many things that are deeply dear to my heart. And first of all this: without in any way losing sight of the extremely serious problem of priestly succession, of which we will speak again; don't you believe – and this is true for many other regions of the world – that priests of Christ are called more than ever to a very high quality of priestly life? There are times when quality must necessarily replace quantity!
On the other hand, the questions to which I alluded, certainly excessive and debilitating, can and must also give us evidence that the priesthood is a true mystery in the Christian sense of the word, that is to say a reality of which we we know one side but the other escapes us because it comes from God and joins God. In the language of the Fathers of the Church, the words mystery and sacrament were often used equivalently. Dearest brothers – and I also say this for the entire assembly – we are all asked to believe in the priesthood, as we believe in baptism and the Eucharist. Now, can we ever exhaust, for example, the meaning of baptism: becoming sons of God in love, dying to sin with Christ to rise again in a new life, becoming ever more a member of the people of God, living the Beatitudes in 'hope? Richness and depth of God’s gift! It is the same for the priesthood. Let us rejoice if it raises questions and if no definition ever fully satisfies us because its total discovery is never completed. In any case, I would like to emphasize that the first fidelity required of a priest – whatever his type of life and apostolate – is to continue to believe in his own mystery, to persevere in faith in this gift from God that he has received and which the inevitable routine and other obstacles can certainly undermine. This is what the Apostle Paul carefully reminded his disciple Timothy. If in a past which is not so distant we were able to write lyrical pages on the greatness of the priest, today, by saying that the priest must be a man like any other, we risk relativizing the sacrament that he received and cast a veil over the indelible character of which traditional theology, confirmed by the Councils of Trent and Vatican II, speaks. From an authentic theological perspective, one is a priest for life or one is not, just as one is baptized or one is not. Only the acts of ministry are committed in succession and time. This has always been the faith of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Churches.
It is from there that I want to strengthen in your hearts fidelity to your priestly mission, which is fidelity of love to the proclamation of the Gospel, to the service of the sacraments, to the support of Christian communities in an unwavering attachment. fault in the Church and its leaders. The cry of Saint Paul: “Woe is me, if I did not proclaim the Gospel!” will never sufficiently mobilize the physical, intellectual and spiritual energies of a priest. And in your Gabonese annals, you are legitimately proud to preserve the memory of the first priest from your people, Monsignor Raponda-Walker. Yes, men – consciously or not – expect the priest to speak to them about God with great conviction and humility. And there is no shortage of opportunities, from the Sunday liturgy to the meetings of preparation for the sacraments and animation of apostolic or charitable movements, including the hours given to the very serious duty of catechetical teaching. To renounce the explicit proclamation of the Gospel in order to engage in socio-professional tasks would be to mutilate the apostolic and priestly ideal. I would add that the service of the sacraments is always an integral part of the ministerial priesthood, and that Christians who request it need to be listened to, understood, enlightened on the true meaning of their approach. A priest cannot resign himself to becoming an authoritarian and jaded functionary, forgetting that the sacraments and all liturgical acts are not only effective signs of faith, but calls to pray better and to love better for those who give them and for those who receive them. All these people who come to receive the light and the strength of God constitute human and Christian communities, undoubtedly very diverse, but who all need the fidelity of the priest to his mission, to his commitments. There are days when faith in Christ's call can become dim and the temptations of another life become pressing. But the presence of young people, adults and elders, whom the priest knows need him and trust him, constitutes an undoubted reason among others to remain faithful to his mission. And I will finish my confidences to the priests by emphasizing that the loyalties already mentioned cannot hold without a fidelity of ardent love to the mystery of the Church, to the continual rediscovery of its mysterious dimensions, at the same time divine and fraternal. Mystery of the Church, of which the Conciliar Constitution of Vatican II is perhaps the jewel! This is because the mission of the priest, whether he is buried in the Sahara, as Charles te Foucauld was, or lost in the African bush, as so many missionaries have been and still are, is always a mission of Church! Priests of Jesus Christ, priests in Gabon, the Pope loves you with all his heart, he prays especially for you, for your fidelity, for your fervor.
3. While preparing my pastoral trip, I was able to see that many religious congregations were working in Gabon, and that the oldest established – those of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit, the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Castres, the Brothers of Saint-Gabriel – have significantly contributed to the building of the Church in Gabon and to the human development of the country. On behalf of all of you, I must especially thank the local Congregation of the Little Sisters of Sainte-Marie of Gabon for their courage, their simplicity and their closeness to the Gabonese people. But it is to the eighteen institutes that have come to your service that I address my congratulations and my encouragement.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, still value what you are and what you do! You are Christians among others, who have had the grace to hear the call to the radical practice of the Gospel, characterized, today as yesterday, by the vows of poverty, chastity and 'obedience. Radical practice which, from year to year, leads you to a state of availability to the Lord and to your human brothers, such that they remain challenged.
Personal testimony and community testimony of detachment and availability must harmonize and strengthen each other. This is what modern societies, tempted to lock themselves into a practical materialism which often takes on the face of an idolatry of power, money and sex, need. If this testimony often appears difficult and limited to you, please return to the spirit of your Founders who burned with love for Christ and his Church.
You also need to consider what you actually do. Many teach in schools or colleges, many collaborate in parish or diocesan pastoral ministry in the field of catechesis, liturgy, apostolate movements, ongoing formation of young people and adults, charitable works, etc. I rejoice greatly and I congratulate you all on behalf of the Church. Perhaps the time has come to collaborate even more among you, religious men and women from various congregations, and also to collaborate more with those responsible for overall pastoral ministry in the diocese. Concerted union often allows savings in people, technical and financial resources, and it restores momentum and efficiency to works that are too dispersed.
In this place, I must support the efforts undertaken by the Episcopal Conference in terms of the pastoral care of priestly and religious vocations. I know the results are not encouraging at the moment. However, the increase in numbers in many African seminaries and novitiates should keep you in serenity and hope. In the reports you have sent me over the past few weeks, I have seen that several youth movements or youth centers are once again giving signs of hope. I also read that many young people disappointed by the consumer society were looking for absolutes or at least new reasons to live. The various vocation ministry organizations are certainly very attentive to this complex phenomenon which is increasingly observed in affluent societies. For some it can be the route to a radical commitment to following Christ. It also seems to me that the communities of priests, religious men and women, acquiring a true evangelical transparency and demonstrating selfless welcome and openness to young people and even to their parents, are an element of this pastoral ministry. Some of them, as well as several Christian communities, willingly welcome young people who have a certain vocational project for reflection and cooperation courses. It is a real convergence of judicious, improved, persevering initiatives, which will allow the Church in Gabon to find within it a good part of the evangelical workers which it so needs. I promise to continue to carry this intention in my prayers.
4. And now I address the lay Christians who so generously bear numerous and diverse responsibilities throughout the dioceses and parishes of Gabon. I congratulate them and thank them wholeheartedly, in the name of the entire Church, for the evangelical work that they have done and will continue to do. Many European countries are far from having such large numbers of committed lay people and, what is more, often in a spontaneous and voluntary manner. Reading the preparatory reports for my visit allowed me to convince myself of this and to note that the term “catechist” and that of “responsible” covered all kinds of functions recognized by bishops and other Christians: those of the actual teaching of the faith, the catechumenate, animation, prayer groups, apostolate movements and other associations, the co-responsibility of rural and urban parishes, in agreement with the priest and in the respect for its specific responsibility and ministry. And I am hopeful that my pastoral visit will generate new recruits, especially among young people who live in the city. I encourage you all, dear lay people, to take your full place in the organization and animation of your Christian communities. And I encourage you just as much to make the most of the means of ongoing formation that the Episcopal Conference has taken care to set up: here one weekend per month, there a ten-day session every two months, etc. Your doctrinal, pedagogical and spiritual qualification is essential for yourselves, for the influence of your action, and to enable you to train other catechists and leaders. It is also in these groups of young committed lay people that vocations should normally sprout.
My last word will be a warm encouragement to priests and religious men and women to support the action of the laity, to trust them more; and a no less warm encouragement to the laity to surround their priests, their communities of Brothers and Sisters, with respect, friendship and a spirit of collaboration.
I ask the Lord that my passage among you will advance understanding between all and persevering mutual aid, which will give the Church in Gabon the impetus that so many Christians desire, and which will make this Church of Mission find even more the face of a local Church in its own right, in the concert of the universal Church. It is growth, without rupture and without precipitation, that I wish and ardently hope for the four Gabonese dioceses and their faithful.
May God fill you with His Blessings and may the Virgin Mary, specially honored in this place, support the apostolate of all evangelical workers in Gabon!
© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
