Uruguay: progressive secularismThat morning of September 15, 2011, Benedict XVI's diagnosis was exact. Looking me in the eye, he exclaimed: "Uruguay is a secular country... We must survive!". Ten years down the road, with the spread of secularism, the Pope Emeritus' warning would seem to have, like the pandemic we are suffering, an unprecedented scope. Will there be an effective vaccine to counteract the disease?
There is no doubt that, in Uruguay, the anti-Christian and anti-Church effort was well planned and has reaped not a few successes, as we have already seen. The final result is, to this day, a widespread religious ignorance, the destruction of the family institution and, as Francis pointed out in his programmatic Exhortation, the forgetfulness of God. "has produced a growing ethical deformation, a weakening of the sense of personal and social sin and a progressive increase of relativism, which cause a generalized disorientation." (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 64).
But, thanks be to God, all is never definitely black. After almost 48 years of priesthood and as a bishop for the past ten, perhaps I can pass on some experiences.
The first is that the Holy Spirit continues to actThis experience, repeated countless times, teaches that the preferred style of action of the Spirit of God is silence.
– Supernatural popular piety. Francis is quite right, when he writes that it is to be underestimated. "would be to disregard the work of the Holy Spirit". Their expressions "have a lot to teach us and, for those who know how to read them, they are a theological place to which we must pay attention, particularly when thinking about the new evangelization". (EG, n. 126). In Minas, very close to the city, is the National Sanctuary of the Virgin of Verdun. On the summit of the hill, since 1901, when an image of the Immaculate Conception was placed there, on April 19, when her feast is celebrated, no less than 60 or 70 thousand people come to venerate her: entire families who continue transmitting to their children their faith in the intercession of our Mother... And thousands of pilgrims visit her throughout the year (and they need spiritual attention and priests are lacking, oh Lord!).. "It is not convenient to ignore the tremendous importance of a culture marked by faith", insists Franciscobecause this evangelized culture, beyond its limits, has many more resources than a mere sum of believers in the face of the onslaught of today's secularism." (ibid.)
The survival of the faith requires the commitment of everyone, so that its light may be kept alive. And it requires, to be precise, that the ministerial priesthood be truly at the service of the common priesthood of the lay faithful.. It is not easy to break a centuries-old inertia, synthesized in a concept that is frequently on the lips of the Pope himself: the clericalism. It is, above all, a work of education of those who are preparing for the priesthood; a long term work, as laborious as it is essential.
The basic idea of the "new evangelization" to which Francis calls had been explained by John Paul II to the CELAM Assembly in 1983, and he detailed it especially in Uruguay in 1988. "new in its ardor, in its methods, in its expression".
"Feeling apostolic zeal means to be hungry to spread the joy of faith to others", said in his last preaching in our country. "Apostolic zeal is not fanaticism, but coherence of Christian life. Without judging the intentions of others, we must call good good and evil evil evil. It is a well-known fact that by disfiguring the truth, problems are not solved. It is openness to the truth of Christ that brings peace to souls. Do not be afraid of the difficulties and misunderstandings that are so often inevitable in the world when striving to be faithful to the Lord!".
"New in its methods."."It is an apostolate that is within the reach of all Christians in their family, work and social environments." John Paul II explained. It is an apostolate whose indispensable principle is the good example of daily conduct - despite personal limitations - and which must be continued with the word, each one according to his situation in private and public life.". And Francisco: "It is about taking the Gospel to the people that each one deals with, both to those who are close to us and to strangers. It is the informal preaching that can be done in the midst of a conversation and it is also what a missionary does when he visits a home. To be a disciple is to have the permanent disposition to bring the love of Jesus to others, and this happens spontaneously in any place: in the street, in the square, at work, on the road". (EG, n. 127).
What did you mean "new in its expression"? John Paul II explained in Salto: "?Every Christian man and woman should acquire a solid knowledge of the truths of Christ, in keeping with his or her own cultural and intellectual formation, following the teachings of the Church. Each one must ask the Holy Spirit to enable him or her to bring the 'joyful proclamation', the 'Good News', to all the environments in which he or she lives. This deep Christian formation will allow him to pour 'the new wine' of which the Gospel speaks to us, into 'new wineskins' (Mt 9:17): to proclaim the Good News in a language that everyone can understand. Francis insists: "we are all called to grow as evangelizers. We seek at the same time to better trainingWe need to be able to deepen our love and give a clearer witness to the Gospel. In that sense, we all have to let others constantly evangelize us; but that does not mean that we should postpone the evangelizing mission, but rather that we should find the way of communicating Jesus that corresponds to the situation in which we find ourselves." (EG, n.121).
Making Jesus Christ known also brings with it the concern for the material needs of individuals and of societythis behavior "always accompanies evangelization", continued John Paul II. "The Church has understood evangelization in this way throughout history, and so, together with the proclamation of the Good News, initiatives were undertaken to meet these needs. As my predecessor Paul VI, of happy memory, rightly pointed out, 'to evangelize for the Church is to bring the Good News to all the strata of humanity, it is, by its influence, to transform from within, to make humanity itself new: 'Behold, I am making a new world' (Rev 21:5)" (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 18). Francis devotes the entire fourth chapter of Evangelii gaudium to explain "the social dimension of evangelization, precisely because, if this dimension is not duly explained, there is always the risk of distorting the authentic and integral meaning of the evangelizing mission".. It is impossible to summarize the persevering insistence of the Pope, who, in a thousand ways and through exemplary initiatives, explains it in its many aspects.
"You have to survive!"Benedict XVI told me that morning. From time to time, like everyone else, I feel like "doing the ironing"... I think it is unnecessary, because they are known and shared, to enumerate their causes. But I try not to forget them and to put them into practice two essential truths: "Without moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the Word, of sincere dialogue with the Lord, the tasks easily become meaningless, we are weakened by fatigue and difficulties, and our fervor is extinguished. The Church desperately needs the lungs of prayer."(EG, n. 262). The second truth is a fact that provokes the same feeling in me as it does in Pope Francis: "I am very happy that prayer groups, intercession groups, prayerful reading of the Word, perpetual adoration of the Eucharist, are multiplying in all ecclesial institutions." (EG, n. 262). It is true, in Uruguay as in so many places in the world, here and there initiatives of prayer, pilgrimages, recourse to the Virgin Mary, perpetual adoration of the Eucharist are born....
The difficulties faced by the Church in Uruguay, although with their own accents, as we have already seen in previous services, are no different from those found today in those and other latitudes. In all cases, the incentive to survive is formidable: it is "the Church's own way of life".the struggle for the soul of this world", as St. John Paul II wrote in inviting us to cross the threshold of hope. It is the same spirit that inspires Francis: indeed, "How often we dream of expansionist apostolic plans, meticulous and well-drawn, typical of defeated generals! Thus we deny our Church history, which is glorious for being a history of sacrifices, of hope, of daily struggle, of life frayed in service, of constancy in work that tires, because all work is 'the sweat of our brow'". (EG n. 96).
Bishop emeritus of Minas (Uruguay).
