Ad Gentes is the Second Vatican Council'sDecree on the Missionary Activity of the Church. Passed by the assembled bishops by a vote of 2,394 to 5, it was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965. The title is Latin for "To the Nations," and is from the first line of the decree, as is customary with Roman Catholic documents. (The full text in English is available from the Holy See's website.) The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II, (Vatican two) was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church opened under Pope John XXIII in 1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI in 1965. ... Pope Paul VI (Latin: ), (Italian: Paolo VI), born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (September 26, 1897 – August 6, 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and as sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. ... November 18 is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The name Catholic Church can mean a visible organization that refers to itself as Catholic, or the invisible Christian Church, viz. ...
Ad Gentes focused on the factors involved in mission work. It called for the continued development of missionary acculturation. It encourages missionaries to live with the people they are attempting to convert, to absorb their ways and culture. It encourages the coordination of mission work through agencies and the cooperation with other groups and organizations within the Catholic Church and other denominations.
Contents
The numbers given correspond to the section numbers within the text.
Preface(1)
Principles of Doctrine(2-9)
Mission Work Itself(10-18)
Christian Witness (11-12)
Preaching the Gospel and Gathering Together the People of God (13-14)
Ad eam persequendam impelluntur membra Ecclesiae caritate, qua Deum diligunt et qua cum omnibus hominibus cupiunt communicare in spiritualibus bonis tam praesentis quam futurae vitae.
Intima permaneat ecclesiarum novellarum communio cum tota Ecclesia, cuius traditionis elementa culturae propriae adiungant ad augendam, mutuo quodam virium effluvio, vitam Corporis Mystici.
In terris iam christianis laici ad evangelizationis opus cooperantur, cognitionem et amorem erga missiones in seipsis et in aliis fovendo, vocationes in propria familia, in associationibus catholicis et in scholis excitando, subsidia cuiusque generis offerendo, ut donum fidei, quod gratis receperunt, aliis donari possit.
Missionary institutes adgentes have tried to redefine adgentes as ad extra (that is, simply going out from where one is), or more recently, as ad altera (that is, to those who are made "other").
The fact that thinking of mission adgentes in terms of territory is something that only became prominent in the second half of the second millennium of Christianity means that, on the threshold of the third millennium, we should be prepared to think differently again.
Here it seems to me that the mission adgentes is called to address the consequences of that fragmentation, where people reshape and construct new identities to resist the encroachments of globalization, where refugees and displaced persons have to rebuild lives and heal memories.
Feeds |
Contact