Should Church not change?

Situations may arise in the Church where one may have as much zeal as those who first proclaimed Christ. Indeed, one may perhaps be better at stirring people up, perhaps with the help of better technical resources. Yet, a zeal which is active and sincere may not always be equally enlightened or free of human ways of looking at things. Moreover, there is a law, of universal application, that if you overstep the bounds of moderation you may defeat your own intentions. Therefore, one has to examine whether one’s message retains the purity of the message of the first followers.

Having said this, the fact remains that for some decades now the Church, also in Malta, has been experiencing a decline in religious practice and has been seeing substantial numbers of the baptised drifting away from Church life. Therefore, something needs to be done. Should the Church not change? Must she not adapt her structures to the present day to reach the searching and doubting people of today?

Pope Benedict XVI himself addressed these questions during a meeting with Catholics engaged in the life of the Church and society when visiting Germany almost a year ago (September 22-25).

The Holy Father started by recalling what Blessed Mother Teresa had to say when she was once asked what in her opinion was the first thing that would have to change in the Church. Her answer was: “You and I.”

Two things are clear from this brief story, explained the Pope. On the one hand Mother Teresa wants to tell her interviewer that the Church is not just other people, not just the hierarchy, the Pope and the bishops: we are all the Church, we the baptised. And on the other hand her starting point is this: Yes, there are grounds for change. There is a need for change. What, then, should this change look like in practice? Are we talking about the kind of renewal that a householder might carry out when repainting his home?

Or are we talking about a correction, designed to bring us back on course and help us to make our way swiftly and more directly?

Benedict XVI said that these and other elements certainly play a part. However, the fundamental motive for change is the apostolic mission of the disciples and the Church herself. The Church, in other words, must constantly rededicate herself to her mission.

“The Church is immersed in the Redeemer’s outreach to men. When she is truly herself, she is always on the move; she constantly has to place herself at the service of the mission that she has received from the Lord. Therefore she must always open up afresh to the cares of the world, to which she herself belongs, and give herself over to them, to make present and continue the holy exchange that began with the Incarnation.

“In the concrete history of the Church, however, a contrary tendency is also manifested, namely that the Church becomes self-satisfied, settles down in this world, becomes self-sufficient and adapts herself to the standards of the world. Not infrequently, she gives greater weight to organisation and institutionalisation than to her vocation to openness towards God, her vocation to opening up the world towards the other,” said Benedict XVI.

To accomplish her true task adequately, the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness and once again to become open towards God, he added. The Pope noted that one could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularisation, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform. “Secularising trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she as it were sets aside her worldly wealth and once again completely embraces her worldly poverty.” History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly. Once liberated from material and political burdens and privileges, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world.

She can live more freely her vocation to the ministry of divine worship and service of neighbour.

The missionary task, which is linked to Christian worship and should determine its structure, becomes more clearly visible.

The Church opens herself to the world not ito win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but to lead them to themselves by leading them to the Lord, continued the Pope.

It is not a question of finding a new strategy to re-launch the Church. It is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the present situation but living the faith in the sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit.

It is time once again to discover the right form of detachment from the world, to move resolutely away from the Church’s worldliness, said the Pope. This does not, of course, mean withdrawing from the world: quite the contrary. A Church relieved of the burden of worldliness is in a position to mediate the life-giving strength of the Christian faith to those in need, to sufferers and to their carers.