How should the Church configure its mission in secular, pluralistic and post-Christian societies? Pope Francis has offered some important insights as he grappled with this question during a homily in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Québec, the mother church of a region in Canada that has experienced rapid secularisation.
Although Québec was traditionally renowned for its Catholic culture, churchgoing has fallen sharply with just 10 percent attending Mass regularly compared with 90 per cent just a few decades ago. The experience of Québec has parallels with Ireland, and to an increasing extent Poland, where the Church’s influence over politics and culture has waned fast. A similar story can be told across the west and northern Europe.
For some, the changes in Catholic affiliation and practice are something to lament and rail against. For Francis, however, a “discerning view” must replace the “negative” one. The latter, the Pope warns, sees faith as “under attack” and “as a kind of ‘armour’, defending us against the world”. It is often expressed in bitter complaints that the “world is evil” and clothes itself in the spirit of a crusader.
“We need to be careful, because this is not Christian,” Francis told bishops, priests, deacons, religious and pastoral workers gathered in the cathedral for vespers on the evening of 28 July.
A discernment of the contemporary world, the Pope says, means seeking out the good and nurturing it and requires distinguishing between secularisation, the separation of Church and state and the protection of the freedom of belief, and secularism, an ideology that denies the existence of God.
Francis argues that secularisation demands a creative rethinking of the Church’s mission and saying that it "represents a challenge for our pastoral imagination. To develop this point, he quoted Charles Taylor, the Canadian philosopher and Templeton prize winner, one of the world’s leading thinkers on the phenomenon of secularisation. In contrast to some sociologists, Taylor argues that secularisation does not mean religion and spirituality is disappearing but is expressing itself in different ways.
Quoting from Taylor’s book, A Secular Age, the Pope said secularisation is “an occasion for restructuring the spiritual life in new forms and for new ways of existing”.
Francis explained: “if we yield to the negative view and judge matters superficially, we risk sending the wrong message, as though the criticism of secularisation masks on our part the nostalgia for a sacralised world, a bygone society in which the Church and her ministers had greater power and social relevance. And this is a mistaken way of seeing things.”
It was that alliance between the Church and colonial powers that led to Catholic involvement with indigenous residential schools in Canada, which has left a toxic legacy that is a warning for anyone nostalgic about the loss of ecclesial power. By contrast, Francis is offering a different path to follow and in his homily in Québec emphasised themes that he has stressed throughout his nine-and-a-half year pontificate and found in Evangelii Gaudium, the manifesto document of his papacy.
In Québec he stressed three elements. The first is to make the message of Jesus known by focusing on the essentials of the Christian faith rather than emphasising “secondary aspects” which mean very little to non-believers. This effort requires creativity, listening, and dialogue. Above all, Francis said, “it is necessary to return to Galilee, to meet the Risen Lord”.
The second element is a Church able credibly to witness to the message of the Gospel that means honestly facing up to the clerical sexual abuse crisis and the scandalous mistreatment of indigenous people. He once again begged forgiveness from victims and survivors of abuse.
“The Church in Canada has set out on a new path, after being hurt and devastated by the evil perpetrated by some of its sons and daughters,” Francis said. “ And thinking about the process of healing and reconciliation with our indigenous brothers and sisters, never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”
Implicit in Francis’ remarks is that the abuse crisis makes internal reform in the Church essential. He is arguing that evangelisation is not possible unless the Church addresses the elements in its own life and structures that hamper its ability to credibly witness to the message of the Gospel.
In other words, it is not enough to say sorry and keep the status quo. A “new path” has to be followed. All of this hints at a fault line coming to the fore inside the Church as a result of the synodal reform processes. Some of the resistance to synodality rests on a deeply held view that Church structures, and the way all Catholic teachings are currently formulated, must remain the same. Although the synod might be able to help the Church with how it engages with the world, some influential prelates believe it cannot really touch on internal reform. As disputes over various synod processes around the world show, the battle over this question continues.
In the third element, the Pope emphasised the Church as a place of fraternal welcome. This is not a new idea. He cited Québec’s first bishop, Saint François de Laval, who spoke up against attempts to denigrate indigenous communities and who told Canada’s missionaries that “a word of bitterness, an impatient gesture, an irksome look will destroy in a moment what had taken a long time to accomplish”. Francis urged the Church to become a “school of humanity” where people build relationships with those who are not “one of our own” and do not get split into camps. It might sound obvious but, in an increasingly polarised world, practising fraternity goes against the grain.
The Pope’s words in Québec set down a challenge to Catholic leaders across the west. In the face of secularisation, or a decline in churchgoing, Francis is warning against focusing on the statistics of the past or pursuing a restorationist agenda out of touch with reality. Instead, the Church’s energies must be focused on finding innovative, pastoral and dialogue-focussed ways to articulate the message of the Gospel. It is about a Church that makes the necessary changes so it can find its way into the future.
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