We are on a Mission

Dear Reader,

October is Mission Month, so it is right that in this issue there is a running thread of evangelisation. The proclamation of the Good News, in the many forms this can be done, is the ultimate purpose of a Catholic magazine, after all – as it is for the entire Church.

Our cover features October’s “Saint of the Month”, the much-loved Bl Carlo Acutis, the Italian teenager whose mission field was the Internet. Through his website on Eucharistic miracles, created in his bedroom in Milan, Carlo reached multitudes all over the world. And his mission lives on in the worldwide exhibitions of his work, including in Southern Africa.

Bl Carlo died in 2006, before the rapid rise of social media; but we can be certain that he would have used the various digital platforms available to us now to great effect.

The mission field “Digital World” has great reach, but most Church leaders still have no clear idea of how to use it. This is where the bishops’ new communications manager, Sheila Pires — whom we feature on page 8 — has her work cut out: to conscientise the clergy and laity, and especially the bishops, about evangelising by using the various available media, such as digital, broadcast and print, both Catholic and secular.

There are some excellent examples in Southern Africa to show how media can be used well in the service of our Church, but generally, its potential remains dismally unexplored and unappreciated.

But should we, the faithful, wait for bishops and clergy to get their communications act together? All of us are called to be missionaries — with the necessary caveat that, in our digital evangelisation efforts, we must beware of causing people to lose faith or of becoming obstacles to people finding the Church.

These concerns will doubtless be discussed at the Synod on Synodality. The title of this assembly is unappealingly technical, but it concerns all of us, since the Synod’s outcomes will shape the future of our Church in many ways.

That future calls us today to find creative solutions to the growing sense of apathy, hopelessness and alienation felt by so many people, including and especially the youth, in the rapidly secularising Western society — a development from which South Africa is not immune. We will need to reach these people to communicate the joy of our faith, and the peace of walking with the Lord.

There will be many ways of doing so — there is no single answer to appealing to young people, as though the youth were some homogeneous monolith. At the centre of all the possible approaches must always be the love and mercy of the Lord for all his Creation, even those whose lives don’t always conform with the doctrines of the Church.

There is a lot of woundedness in the world, and Pope Francis’ metaphor of the Church as a field hospital must be a central theme as we look to the future, as the Synod will be doing this month.

In this issue, we interview Jesuit Father Anthony Egan on the Synod and its process, which will continue until October 2024, and likely be followed by a papal apostolic exhortation.

But as Fr Egan suggests, the synodal process does not end when the 2024 assembly disperses or the pope issues his document. It is an ongoing development which will require closer collaboration and dialogue between bishops, clergy, religious and the laity. It will ask of the laity greater involvement in running the Church — and this will become increasingly necessary as the numbers of priests decline — and demand an openness by bishops and clergy to involve the laity in concrete decision-making.

In this way, the Synod on Synodality concerns us all, and it must not be ignored. It will define how we will evangelise in the future — and that is indeed a question of mission!

Thank you for reading The Southern Cross, and please tell your friends about your monthly Catholic magazine.

God bless,

Günther Simmermacher, (Editor)