Mission world - Reflections on “reverse mission”
When looking at the Christian mission from a historical point of view, it appears to be a topsy-turvy world.
What used to be called the “home” or “sending” country, such as Ireland, England, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, can now be called the “mission” or “receiving” country. For example, when I left New Zealand for Fiji in 1977, almost all the Catholic priests in Fiji were expatriates. The members of religious congregations who staffed the schools or provided other professional services were also expatriates. But now there are very few expatriate priests or religious in Fiji.
In the New Zealand of 1977, Catholic priests were falling over each other to get into parishes or schools. Likewise, with the religious congregations. Most of the schools were well supplied with sisters, brothers and priests. Now, all the bishops of Aotearoa-New Zealand are looking for priests from overseas to take responsibility for parishes. Even so, the numbers are so few that parishioners in some parts of the country are being told that the time is soon coming when they will only enjoy one celebration of the Eucharist a month. As for Catholic schools, these are now lay-run and staffed. It would be a similar situation in most of the other countries listed above.
From the same traditional perspective of mission, this situation also prevails in many of the other Christian denominations.
The term “reverse mission” is used in recent studies of mission to explain this topsy-turvy world. Matthew Ojo defines “reverse mission” as: “the sending of missionaries to Europe and North America by churches and Christians from the non-Western world, particularly Africa, Asia and Latin America, which were at the receiving end of Catholic and Protestant missions as mission fields from the sixteenth to the late twentieth century. The enterprise is aimed at evangelizing regions that were once the heartlands of Christianity and the vanguard of missionary movements.”1
I have already spoken about how the term “reverse mission” raises problems with how we define “mission” and “immigration” and the dynamics that operate in the relationship between centre and margin. Where is the centre now, and who lies at the margins?
But going back to our understanding of mission, I believe that, from a Catholic point of view, we are still grappling with the fundamental shift in our understanding of “church” that emerged out of Vatican II. Mission was no longer something that a few people within the Church did. It became central to our definition of “church”.
“The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature …” (Ad Gentes, the decree on the mission activity of the Church, n. 2)
There are other questions related to what it means to be a church of missionary disciples. I hope to come back to two questions: What is church? What is mission? We’ve still got a long way to go.
Columban Fr Tom Rouse is the Regional Councillor for Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Mission Intention
May - For working conditions: Let us pray that through work, each person might find fulfilment, families might be sustained in dignity, and that society might be humanised.
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - May 2025
