WITHOUT SOCIAL SUPPORT?
How could the Church recover its social prestige and exercise once again that influence that it had in our society until just a few years ago? Perhaps without confessing it out loud, there are all too many who yearn for those times in which the Church could announce its message from privileged platforms that counted on the support of political power.
Don’t we need to fight to recover once again that lost power that allows us to make religious «propaganda» and effective morality, capable of overcoming other ideologies and streams of opinion that get imposed among us?
Don’t we need to develop some more powerful religious structures, to strengthen our organisms and make of the Church a «more competitive and profitable business»?
Undoubtedly at the bottom of this concern is a sincere will to bring the Gospel to the men and women of our time, but is that the path to follow? Jesus’ words, when he sent his disciples without bread or knapsack, without money or extra coat, insist all the more on «walking» impoverished, with freedom, agility, and complete availability.
What’s important isn’t the baggage that gives us security, but the very force of the Gospel lived out with sincerity, since the Gospel penetrates in society not so much by means of effective methods of propaganda, but by means of witnesses who faithfully live out the following of Jesus.
Organization and structures are necessary in the Church, but only in order to sustain the Gospel life of the believers. A Church burdened with excessive baggage runs the risk of making itself settled and conservative. In the long run it will be concerned more about providing for itself than walking freely in the service of God’s reign.
A Church with more trimmings removed, more lacking privileges, and more impoverished of social political power will be a Church that is freer and more capable of offering the Gospel in its most authentic truth.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
