In a few days the first phase (the diocesan phase) of the XVI Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will culminate in Rome in October 2023, will begin. The document Faithful to missionary sendingwhich contains the pastoral orientations and lines of action of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) until 2025 and was recently presented, constitutes a framework of understanding for this process, as well as other current works of the CEE and its organizations.
Reading this document is interesting for everyone, first of all because of the interesting analysis it contains in its first section about the social situation from the point of view of its attitude towards religion, but it is not the simple fruit of a sociological study. Likewise, neither can the orientations and actions it suggests for the EEC itself and the dioceses be received solely as a set of organizational guidelines. The intent is to examine what is the most effective way to fulfill the divine mandate to proclaim the Gospel to all, in the current context of Spanish society: an effort of fidelity to the divine will, for which the help of the Holy Spirit and the light and strength of prayer are invoked.
We should also be grateful that the document shows precisely how the work of the Spanish Episcopal Conference is linked to the general lines proposed by Pope Francis, both in the pontificate as a whole and in the development of the synodal process. It is a matter of welcoming the invitation to a missionary outreach, and of understanding that this must start from a pastoral conversion; in the full sense, these are terms that speak to and of persons, and from them they refer to structures.
Starting from the personal assumption of this responsibility, the understanding of the real situation passes, in fact, through the realization that society has undergone an enormous change, with the effect that evangelization must begin from the beginning, with the proclamation of the existence of God, creator and lover, who expresses his goodness above all through his Incarnation in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer; in the understanding of the Church's responsibility as a mediation that must facilitate the encounter with the living Christ; in the strengthening of the bonds of fraternity, family and community, which man and Christian life need, and without which society is also impoverished; and, finally, in the effort to make the Church's entire activity an expression of divine love, "a love received, shared and offered, which seeks the good of the Church and the good of every person we meet along the way, and which we must transmit with particular commitment"..
