Pope Francis - A glimpse of the future

Columban Fr Noel ConnollyI am writing from Seoul, Korea, from the Presbyterian Theological University where I am attending the quadrennial conference of the International Association of Mission Studies.

There are about 200 of us, professors, lecturers and researchers in mission, here. We come from every continent. This morning the keynote lecture was given by a Korean Pastor/Professor from the Korean Holiness Church, an Evangelical Protestant Church. Over the past few days I have listened to and befriended a Swedish Lutheran priest who worked in Tanzania, a protestant missionary from the Congo presently working in South Africa (he gave a fascinating talk on how difficult it was for him to learn to be effective in the townships outside Pretoria despite being a black African), a couple of Romanian Orthodox theologians, a New Zealand priest who works with the effects of witchcraft in Papua New Guinea, with Koreans who talk about the church in Korea and this morning a Norwegian missiologist who explained  the emergence of Filipino and Nigerian Pentecostal churches in his country.

The conference reminds me that the future of our church will be worked out in the South or what they prefer to call it, the Majority World. A couple of years ago the Christian demographer, Philip Jenkins, reminded us that by 2025 approximately 60% of Catholics will live in Latin America and Africa. By 2050 80% of all Catholics will live in or trace their origins to the Global South. And by 2050 there will be three billion Christians and only somewhere between 1/5 and1/6 will be non-Hispanic whites. By that time Catholics in Oceania will only account for around 0.08% of all Catholics. The most typical Catholic will be a poor black or coloured woman from places like Manila, Buenos Aries or Kinshasa.

The most important decisions and influences in the future Catholic Church will come from the “South”. We already have our first Pope from the “Third World” or “South”. Two things that this conference has reinforced for me are: 1. There is nothing to be frightened of in such a future. It is full of life and friendships; and 2. Part of the missionary vocation is to be a bridge between these two worlds; between home and the majority world where the Spirit is clearly doing something that will shape the future of the church. The world needs people who can live happily in both worlds.

The second thing I was reminded of is how ecumenical the future must be. Mission Studies is the most ecumenical of all the theological disciplines. Catholic missiologists rarely meet on their own. Our mission studies meetings are always at least half protestant.

Actually the World Council of Churches began because of the influence of the Edinburgh Mission Conference of 1910. It lead to the forming of the Faith and Order Commission and eventually in the 1950s to the World Council of Churches. For missionaries our division is a scandal. Preaching Jesus and the Gospel and building the Kingdom of God is much more important. It is remarkable how well we got on together when the focus is mission.

Finally and perhaps most surprisingly I learnt the truth of Pope Francis’ challenge to us that we must befriend and draw close to the poor. Yesterday, I toured three of the most famous of the mega churches of Korea, Youido, Onuri and Sarang. All of these would attract more than 40,000 people to worship each Sunday. They are Evangelical or Pentecostal churches along the lines of Hillsong. They are seemingly the leading examples of the miraculous growth of the Korean churches yet even they are talking about how their numbers are falling and of the difficulty of attracting the youth because of the growth of secularism in Korean society. When asked privately some will admit that the bigger problems are their increasing affluence and power. Pope Francis warns us that we have much to learn from the poor and that we have to draw near to them and know their names and faces. They can save us and remind us of the most important things in life.

Forty two years ago, when I was a parish priest in Korea most Catholics were poor. We did not have to talk about the poor, they were sitting in front of us. And the Church led by remarkable Bishops like Cardinal Kin Sou Hwan and Bishop Tji Hak Soun who were prophetic in critiquing the excesses in the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee and fighting for the rights of workers and farm labourers. The church was very relevant and much respected and to a certain extent the expansion of the church is due to those times. But unfortunately, the Korean churches like our own in the western world have been too successful. We have become middle class by education, by interest, by recreation and by politics. We are too compromised. I suspect Pope Francis is correct. Our future is in knowing the names and faces of the poor.

Fr Noel Connolly SSC is a Columban missionary priest. He is a member of the Columban Mission Institute in North Sydney and a lecturer in Missiology at both the Broken Bay Institute and the Catholic Institute of Sydney.

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