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The
development of a Mission Education Web Site provides an opportunity
to gather materials that would serve mission educators in
their ministry. This section referred to as Mission Education
101 will provide background information and appropriate resources
for the educator to update themselves on current mission thought
and/or methodology for presenting or teaching mission concepts.
This Mission Education Web Site seeks to carry out recent
Church teaching with regard to communication and mission education.
Why Mission Education Today?
Globalization
is the current reality that challenges the Church to be
more missionary than ever in its history. “At a time
of dramatic changes and challenges, Catholics in the United
States face both special responsibilities and opportunities.
We are members of a universal church which transcends national
boundaries and calls us to live in solidarity and justice
with the peoples of the world.... As Catholics and Americans
we are uniquely called to global solidarity.... We urge
all Catholic educators to share the church’s teaching
on the global dimensions of our social mission more intentionally,
more explicitly and more creatively.” Called to Global
Solidarity: International Challenges for U.S. Parishes,
statement of US Bishops, 1998.
Pope John
Paul II has been clear: “In the future, too, the Church
must continue to be missionary; indeed missionary outreach
is part of her very nature. Furthermore, as the encyclical,
Redemptoris Missio, affirms, the modern world reflects the
situation of the Areopagus of Athens, where Saint Paul spoke.
Today there are many “areopagi,” and very different
ones; these are the vast sectors of contemporary civilization
and culture, of politics and economics. The more the West
is becoming estranged from its Christian roots, the more
it is becoming mission territory, taking the form of many
different “areopagi.” Tertio Millennio Adveniente,
TMA, #57.
- 1998 Synod
for America: “The Church in America is called not only
to promote greater integration between nations, thus helping
to create an authentic globalized culture of solidarity,
but also to cooperate with every legitimate means in reducing
the negative effects of globalization.... Using the media
correctly and competently can lead to a genuine inculturation
of the Gospel. Ecclesia in America, #55, 72.
1999 Mission Congress of America (Conclusions of COMLA 6-CAM
1), “To take advantage of the possibilities offered
by globalization,(MCS, Internet, etc.) To open the local
churches to the global reality favoring the creation of
new means of communication.”
- The Mission
Congress 2000 mentioned the high priority for mission education
material through use of the web.
Why Use the Internet?
“The
first areopagus of the modern age is the world of communication
which is unifying humanity.... The means of social communication
have become so important as to be for many the chief means
of information and education, of guidance and inspiration
in their behavior as individuals, families and within society
at large.” For this reason, in addition to the numerous
traditional means in use, the media has become essential for
evangelization and catechesis. In fact, “the Church would
feel herself guilty before God if she did not avail of those
powerful instruments which human skill is constantly developing
and perfecting.... In them she finds in a new and more effective
forum a platform or pulpit from which she can address the
multitudes.” 1997 General Directory for Catechesis, #160.
Resources:
Excerpts from the Church and Other Religions
Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission
By Cardinal Francis Arinze and Archbishop Marcello Zago
www.usccb.org/wm/mcexcerpts.htm
Proclamation of the Reign of God as Mission of the Church:
What for, to Whom, by Whom, with Whom, and How?
By Rev. Peter Phan
www.sedos.org/english/phan.htm
Mission and the U.S.A.
Keynote Address at Mission Congress 2000
By Archbishop Marcello Zago, OMI
Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
www.usccb.org/wm/mczago.htm
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