Uncertain Terms: A Guide to Modern Roman Catholic Missions
With very few exceptions, anywhere the church goes in the world it will encounter Roman Catholics and Roman Catholicism. Is your church committed to sending? Are you considering being sent yourself? In sending and going, and with approximately 1.4 billion Roman Catholics worldwide, you will most likely encounter Roman Catholicism. If the church is not prepared to encounter Roman Catholicism, its mission can get quickly sidetracked. Consider this: Both evangelicals and Roman Catholics can affirm that we are sinners saved by grace through faith in Christ. That is a very disarming affirmation. If we can agree on this, surely any differences we have are secondary and can be set aside for the sake of reaching a lost world with the gospel. The missionary task is too urgent to be sidelined with theological quibbles.
What the church must understand, however, is that behind every word in that sentence lies a theological reality that presents a very different gospel. They are the same words, but they represent different worlds. The church cannot afford to neglect these realities but for the sake of gospel clarity must study them carefully. Where do these differences come from and how did they develop? Much could be said in response to this question. For our purposes here it will be helpful to look at key developments in the Roman Catholic Church, starting with the Second Vatican Council. Indeed, modern-day Roman Catholicism cannot be understood apart from Vatican II.
Vatican II
The history of missions in Roman Catholicism goes back centuries to Matteo Ricci in China, Francis of Xavier in India, and Bartolomeo de la Casas in Latin America, among others. Therefore we need to be precise on what is intended by the state of missions in modern-day Roman Catholicism. For this precision we can look to the 1960s. This decade is of great significance for the Catholic Church because it marks when the Second Vatican Council took place (1962-65). Of the 21 councils that the Roman Catholic Church recognizes, Vatican II is among the most important.
In the 1960s the Roman Catholic Church was examining itself in light of the cultural revolution that was taking place in the West. It determined that it was out of touch with modernity and needed to update itself to be more culturally relevant. Vatican II was the Church's answer to this dilemma. It was different from the preceding 20 councils in many ways, but perhaps most notably for the lack of anathemas it produced. All previous councils included anathemas; that is, all councils produced dogmatic statements that were followed by “if anyone says otherwise, let him be anathema.” To be anathema is to be considered outside the Church and condemned.
Prior to Vatican II the First Vatican Council took place from 1869-1870. This is the Council that declared Papal Infallibility as dogma. Prior to Vatican I we have to go all the way back to the 16th Century and the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which was the doctrinal source of the Counter Reformation. Trent is famous for its many anathemas that responded to the challenges the Reformers presented to the Catholic Church. Vatican II, however, broke precedence with all previous councils and did not declare any anathemas.
Why is this important for modern-day missions in Roman Catholicism? With the anathemas of the past Roman Catholicism was able to be very clear on what it meant to be Roman Catholic and what it meant to not be Roman Catholic. Membership was defined in sacramental and juridical terms. You either observed them and were in or didn’t and were out. With Vatican II the clear lines of inclusion and exclusion were blurred. Vatican II saw past councils as being too restrictive, narrow-minded, and inward looking. The Church needed to take a more inclusive and outward-looking approach to engage the world around it. That is, it wanted to stress its catholicity, or all-embracing attitude. This change in posture had–– and continues to have–– a direct impact on the Church's approach to missions.
Inclusivity
The Church's missional activity was central to Vatican II. This is seen most clearly in the decree Ad gentes (1965) produced by the Council which provided a roadmap for the missionary activity of the Catholic Church. In Ad gentes the Church was not as concerned with defending its Roman identity in ways previous councils had. Instead it turned its focus outward to the world to embrace it, and in doing so created theological openness.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is found in Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium (1964). In paragraph 16 of this document the Catholic Church is reflecting on how it understands and relates to those who have not yet received the gospel. In its reflection it states that “the plan of salvation…includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God…” It continues, “Nor does Divine Providence deny the help necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life.”
This has tremendous missiological implications which have been confirmed and developed in the decades since Vatican II. If Muslims are already part of the plan of salvation, what exactly drives and inspires missions? If they are included in the gospel promise, what is the point of sharing the gospel with them? For more than 60 years now Vatican II has served as the blueprint for missions in the Catholic Church. It is at the core of documents on missions that the Catholic Church has produced since, such as Pope Paul VI’s Evangelii nuntiandi (1975), Pope John Paul II’s Redemptoris missio (1990), and Pope Francis's Evangelii gaudium (2013). These documents swing back and forth between Roman clarity and Catholic inclusiveness.
All Brothers
In 2020 Pope Francis's encyclical Fratelli tutti (All Brothers) was published. Here we see the implications of Vatican II on full display. Although not a missional encyclical per se, Fratelli tutti has tremendous missiological implications which are summarized in the encyclical's title. In the span of 40,000 words Francis makes the claim that humanity shares a common brotherhood. It is not, however, a brotherhood galvanized by the confession that Christ Jesus alone is Lord and Savior of all. Nor is it defined by sacramental belonging to the Church. It is instead a brotherhood defined by being part of humanity and the shared experience that offers. On this basis we are all brothers, regardless of our religious convictions and adherences. Francis makes this clear when he writes, “The Church esteems the ways in which God works in other religions, and ‘rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions.’” Here Francis is borrowing directly from Vatican II’s Nostra aetate (1965) which articulates the Church's relation to non-Christian religions.
In the entirety of Fratelli tutti, sin is not mentioned once. Brotherhood and religion are mentioned, but not sin. If sin is absent, the biblical gospel is by default absent as well. The gospel cannot be understood apart from sin. Once since is omitted, other terms that are essential to the gospel and to biblical mission (i.e. repentance, the cross, redemption, judgement, justification, etc.) are also omitted because they make no sense apart from sin. This is the case with Fratelli tutti and other modern missiological initiatives of the Roman Catholic Church.
A Divergent Path
The most recent example of Vatican II’s missiology on display is the Synodal Path the Catholic Church has been journeying along since 2021. Together with Communion and Participation, Mission is one of the official themes of the Synodal Path that defines its objectives and trajectory. The documents produced by the Synodal Path promulgate the notion that the mission of the Church should be outward focused. This is in line with Vatican II. To articulate its outward focus the Synodal Path adopted “no one excluded” and “radical inclusion” as key concepts and slogans. In order to be radically inclusive, Synodal Path documents such as Enlarge the Space of Your Tent instruct the Catholic Church to focus less on being “theological gatekeepers” (see paragraph 31) so as to include more people, including those who practice alternative lifestyles. Throughout the Synodal Path's documents it is difficult to find any mention of sin, and when it is mentioned it is not presented in a way that clarifies and promotes the gospel.
This is the state of missions in Roman Catholicism today. Walking in the implications of Vatican II, modern-day Roman Catholic missiology seeks inclusivity rather than the defense of the Roman traditional identity. It is not the biblical gospel that drives mission, but a missiology that avoids sin and repentance and steers clear of “theological gatekeeping” so as to promote radical inclusion.
Same Words, Different Worlds
When considering Roman Catholicism (and Roman Catholic missiology is no exception), evangelicals must demonstrate theological responsibility. One of the great challenges evangelicals face is the reality of “same words, different worlds.” Evangelicals share an almost identical vocabulary with Roman Catholics and so the temptation is to assume that those words carry with them the same, or similar enough, theological meaning. Evangelicals must put in the work to understand what is meant by certain terms, such as sin, salvation, Christ, cross, and mission. The words may be the same, but the theological meaning that undergirds them are vastly different, and lead to very different gospels.
Read many of the Roman Catholic documents on mission (i.e. Ad gentes, Evangelii nuntiandi, Redemptoris missio, Evangelii gaudium, etc.) and you will find language that is agreeable to evangelicals. However, these documents and others must be pressed through the filter of Vatican II and the Roman Catholic theological system that is grounded in and defined by the sacraments and the Eucharist and therefore are not committed to Scripture Alone and Christ Alone. Once these filters are applied it is impossible to arrive at a shared mission. They share many of the same words, but the missions are very different.
Let's conclude by revisiting the previous affirmation we are sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When we press this affirmation through the filter of Vatican II what comes out are the same words but with very different theological worlds and realities attached to them. What does it mean that we are sinners if sin is now largely absent in modern-day Roman Catholicism? And when sin is mentioned it must be read through the lens of scholasticism that defines sin as a wound to human nature which does not produce spiritual death (see Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 1849).
A wounded human nature means that man's fallen nature has retained the capacity - at least in part - to contribute to his salvation. In this case we are no longer saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, but play our own part by participating in the sacramental economy where we obtain grace as the Catholic Church administers it. This is a different gospel and the sending church and those sent must be aware of this as they engage Roman Catholicism around the world. Same words, different worlds is a very real reality that cannot be overlooked, for the gospel is at stake.