This post is by our frequent commentator Phillip Augustine

friend of mine, who is a Deacon in the Catholic Church, is a big fan of Pope Francis. In conversations with him on topics of Catholicism and theology he often refers to the current pontiff with a boyish name of “Frankie.” The Deacon knowing that I have a great devotion to Pope St. John Paul II and his struggles in Poland has often attempted to find ways to introduce Pope Francis into the conversation. One of the conversations with the Deacon, he requested that I read Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. Of course, as one who likes to dabble in academia, I already have a very long reading list– but nonetheless, I’ve now begun to peruse the pages of this text at my friend’s request.

I surmise that one of the reasons why the Deacon wishes for me to read the Pope’s Exhortation is due to our theological conversations, which no doubt, has shown my theological output to be gilded in High Christology. However, when reading the first few pages of the Exhortation, I am reminded that it would be foolish to attempt to separate Christ’s compassion, miracles, and sacrifice from High Christology. The problem that I opine is that in our post-Vatican II era is the “Jesus loves you Gospel” or the “Hippie God” that has been co-opted by either enemies of the faith such as secular atheist or those in grave error due to poor catechesis. Notwithstanding, I would like to articulate that I do not oppose Pope Francis—at least not in the manner as many of my faithful Traditionalist brothers and sisters in the faith. Pope Francis’ words, when clear, do have value for the Body of Christ in the world, and we must trust in the Holy Spirit for its selection of this particular Pope for the good of the faithful and the bride of Christ.

In my very early reading of the Pope’s words, there is a thought that I wish to touch on for Catholic readers. Pope Francis writes:

“25. I am aware that nowadays documents do not arouse the same interest as in the past and that they are quickly forgotten… I hope that all communities will devote the necessary effort to advancing along the path of a pastoral and missionary conversion which cannot leave things as they presently are. “Mere administration” can no longer be enough.”

 There is wisdom in these words, and not because they’re the Pope’s words, but because they are the Truth and they get to the heart of Christianity. A great many are of the opinion that our culture is dying; I being one of them. However, what the Pope says here, speaks to the reversal of such a death. The early Christian church did not defeat persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire by its administrative prowess, but it convinced a great throng of people by the authentic faith living as a suffering servant. It’s certainly true that early Christians went to their deaths because they believe Christ to be God, but that’s simply not all of the story. They also listened to the teachings of Christ, which relates to a path of pastoral and missionary conversion throughout the world.

Finally, I ask readers to consider a pastoral and missionary conversion within the context of two instances of Christ’s preaching.

The first is from the Sermon on the Mount—The Beatitudes:

Mt. 5:3-10 NAB

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, 

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
^4 [e]Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
^5 [f]Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
⁶ Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
for they will be satisfied.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
^8 [h]Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, 
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The second is from the Judgment of the Nations:

Mt. 25: 34-46 NAB

 ³⁴ Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous^[p] will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ ⁴⁰ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ ^41 [q]Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³ a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ ^44 [r]Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ ⁴⁵ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

In the continued absence of the parousia, Christians have had to do something which was not looked for by the first Christians – that is to exist in time across the ages and in divers cultures. Initially mainly Jewish in terms of adherents, the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jews in the aftermath of revolts, shifted the composition of the Christian community; to put it bluntly, the mission to the Jews generally failed, and the mission to the Gentiles was hugely successful. By the end of the second century the faith had spread to the borders of India in one direction, and to the islands of Britannia in the other; the Mediterranean Sea was fringed with Christian communities, and if we are to credit their own tradition, there were Christian communities in southern India. Although the first Council at Nicaea in 325 was called ‘ecumenical’, it consisted only of bishops from within the Roman Empire; we know that there were Christians in the Persian Empire who were not invited, and who learned of the results of the Council only years later. It was, ironically, the greatest danger Christianity faced which had the most decisive influence on it – Islam.

If we were to survey the Christian world in the seventh century we should find its intellectual powerhouse was Alexandria and its most sophisticated thinkers were mainly in the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital, Constantinople, had a magnificence lacking in the decaying splendour that was the old Rome, where a succession of Popes had to come to terms with a succession of barbarian invaders, some of whom were Arians. It was the irruption of Islam which destroyed that rich Eastern influence. By the eighth century Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria had all been conquered, and for the next five hundred years, Constantinople found itself constantly under threat, with its lands slowly being taken from it until, in 1453, the great city, a shadow of its former self, was finally conquered. One of its great service to the faith was that its resistance allowed the church in the West to develop within the new states which came into existence out of the wreckage of the old Roman Empire in the West. The King of the Franks had defeated the Muslims at Poitiers, and although Spain was lost for centuries, the West survived, prospered and became the centre of the Faith, with the Bishop of Rome, universally recognised as primus inter pares (first among equals), able to assert his version of what that meant, even if it resulted in a schism with the East in 1054.

The longer-term results of this have been interesting. During the age of discovery, it was Western Christians, especially Spanish and Portuguese ones, who came across the ancient Christian communities in India and China and attempted to bring them into line with their version of the faith – the cultural damage was tremendous, but it was one of the features of the Western Christian tradition that, assured of its own superiority, it thought nothing of imposing its ways on Christian communities which had survived for centuries. We see the same thing in the nineteenth century in the dealings of the Western Churches with the Eastern Christians in the decaying Ottoman Empire.

The dark side of such assumptions of cultural superiority are obvious now, but there was also a positive side – which is that in some of the places, especially those in Africa and Asia where the faith had had little or no history, the roots struck deep and the crop is abundant. Ironically, as we see in the recent debates in my own communion and that of Rome, the Africans have also imbibed the view of their Western founders that there is one way, their way, so, just as many in the West had begun the process found in every age, of finding ways of living in a changing culture, they find their own spiritual grandchildren insisting on the ways of their grandfathers. History in rich in ironies.

We have, though, I think, almost reached a tipping point. Were it not for the vast power and wealth of America, and for its rich an vibrant Christian cultures, then already the West would have ceased to be the centre of the faith – Europe has proven a good source of seeds for the growth of world Christianity, but vitality lies elsewhere now. We can only speculate on what the Christian world will look like in a century of so, and in so doing, bear in mind that no one, a century ago, would have thought it would look as it actually does today.

In one thing alone can we be sure – that guided by the Holy Spirit – Christianity will continue to grow and, having reached the ends of the earth, may even return to the places where once it was dominant.