Synodality (May) Mean Liberation Theology

Mission and Ministry​

One of the Catholic buzzwords at the moment seems to be “Mission”. So this recent quote is typical: “Synodality is essentially missionary and vice versa mission is always synodal.” Apart from the incomprehensible English usage (“missionary” is a noun not an adjective.

“Missional” is the word they were looking for) Anyway, in the usual word salad that is put together by synodal Catholic–“Mission” seems to be the tomato.

This assumes we actually know what “Mission” means and agree not only on the meaning of he word, but on the method of mission. So what do the Synodal Catholics mean by “mission”? I suspect it is all tied in with what Fr Arrupe the godfather of the Jesuit revolution in the church means by mission. By the way, if you want to understand Fr Arrupe and the Jesuit revolution you ought to read a book called The Synodal Pope by Jean Pierre Moreau and published by TAN books. Moreau has researched the radical Jesuit leader who was a primary influence on Pope Francis and chronicled the modernist, liberation-theology ideologies that drove him.

So what does “Mission” mean for contemporary synodal Catholics? It means liberation theology. It means not simply feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, caring for the environment, reaching out to the margins and being a warm, welcoming church, it also means challenging and changing the structures of economic, political and social injustice. That’s all well and good you might say, and “Of course that’s the mission of the Church.” Isn’t that what our Lord taught in Matthew 25 when he said “What you have done (or not) for the least of these you have done (or not) to me”?

There is no disagreement from me about the need for Catholics to do all these things, but allow me to quibble about terminology. These worthy projects: feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, working for justice etc. etc. are really part of the ministry of the church. They are the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The mission of the church is something else.

Continued below.