The Church has to be "of the poor and for the poor" as well as "of
everyone and for everyone" if it wants to fulfil the meaning of the word 'Catholic',
proclaim the Gospel, contribute to society and "renew our lives".
Mgr Paul
Bui Van Doc, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Vietnam (CBCV) and
new coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City, laid down these guidelines
and basic principles in order to inform the future pastoral work of the Church.
This was done at
a meeting that brought together several prelates and the leaders of the country's
main religious congregations on 5 November at the Salesian monastery in Duc
Trong, in the Diocese of Dalat, in the southern part of the Central Highlands.
The final statement,
published by Église d'Asie (EDA), constitutes the "pastoral orientation
of the Church of Christ" for the future, and can be accessed at the Facebook page of the
Vietnamese Bishops' Conference.
The message the CBCV
president sent to the country's congregations and religious communities reiterates
what the Conference said last month at
the end of its General Assembly.
Its
goal is to focus on the 'new evangelisation" centred on
the family, parishes and religious movements, without neglecting society as a
whole.
For Mgr Paul,
emphasis must be placed on certain points, namely the Church's universality and
its rootedness in Vietnam, the values of poverty and simplicity with a
reference to the Second Vatican Council as well as post-conciliar directives,
"in particular those of Pope
Francis."
"The Church
of Jesus was born among the poor," the coadjutor bishop of Saigon said.
For this reason, "it must make its voice heard" as well as "share"
the life and suffering of the oppressed and the persecuted, the prelate said,
in order to "provide help" when they need it.
Hence, it is necessary that
"the Church itself" and its men be first of all "poor".
For Bishop Paul,
the Church needs to be universal so that "it us of everyone and for
everyone."
The Church, he explained, "does not belong to individuals or elites but
to the people of God."
It looks to
everyone, "even those who do not yet believe". For this reason, it is
"absolutely necessary to engage everyone in dialogue" for, he added, "This
is what Christ himself indicated".
For the Bishops'
president, the Church must renew its commitment "to proclaiming the Gospel,"
which now more than ever is the task of Vietnamese themselves after centuries
of foreign missionary presence.
"The Church
in Vietnam has not yet fully grasped this task," the coadjutor bishop of
Saigon said. From this follows a need for a "bold breakthrough" that
goes in the direction of a "true missionary pastoral message" based
on renewed ardour, methods and expression. In
this sense, he noted, the Word of God should be reviewed in terms of its inculturation
and the way it is proclaimed.
This dual path leads
to "bringing the Gospel into a culture" as well as "introducing
the [local] culture in proclaiming the Gospel" to facilitate understanding
by a "multicultural and multi-ethnic" Vietnamese people.
Finally, the
president of the Vietnamese bishops noted the contribution "of the Church
in building society", not as a charitable and philanthropic association,
but rather through the "social dimension of the Gospel," to which must be
added the need to "renew our lives and the way we act," intensifying
prayer by addressing secularist excesses.
"We are
aware of our duty to bring the light of Christ, the light of faith to social
life," the prelate said. However, he warned, "In the life of the Church we
are used to include, not exclude. We must do something without necessarily
excluding others; we must worry about some people, i.e. the poor, without
forgetting the others."