CEBs AND POLITICS (POLITICONAS? (English Text)

CARTA AO PE. VIGEY SOBRE AS CEBS NA AMERIA LATINA E CARIBE E A INTERPRETAÇÃO QUE LHES FOI DADA PELO DOCUMENTO DISTRIBUIDO NA ÁSIA.

FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE WITH OUR BROTHER VIJAY

Dear Vijay,

We send you the warmest greetings from both of us as we continue to travel in this blessed continent of Asia and we recognize that it is because you gave such encouragement to Gerry that our visit was made possible in the first place. We shall remain always grateful to you.

Upon arrival in Sri Lanka (28.10.08) Marins was given some materials which were thought useful to the team as an introduction to the Asian SCC reality and especially the contribution of the hierarchies and Magisterium. One of them was the booklet you co-edited with Sr Agnes Peter Chawadi called ‘The Teaching of the Church on Small Christian Communities’. In it you write a personal introduction and it is about this that we would like to share with you some reflections.

Firstly the booklet is excellent and a much needed support for the SCC process across Asia as a whole. It is vital that in every country Catholic practitioners realize the full teaching of the Church on SCCs from the Magisterium to the more local conferences of bishops and indeed to individual bishops as teachers of the faith. You have both provided a truly valuable and essential service to SCCs in the region.

Having now read and studied your book we regret very much that we were not able to discuss its contents with you while in Nagpur (10-17.10.08). We would have appreciated the opportunity to dialogue personally with you about certain aspects of your analysis especially of the South American reality as you refer to it. From the outset we want to make it clear that we are delighted with the progress and unique development of SCCs that is taking place across the global south in particular. At no point does anyone in Latin America feel any sense of rivalry or jealousy or indeed any ownership of this diverse and fruitful process of transforming the Church in our time.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit and we rejoice with the whole Church in welcoming and encouraging this marvellous initiative. We know how hard people are working for this new way of being Church in India and all over Asia and want to support this process with our experience and insights which come from almost 40 years of living this level of Church in a different continent. Perhaps of all places we in Latin America are very sensitive to what is said and written about the process in our countries because we have the experience that as a result of comments and analysis coming from very diverse and often opposed groups many of our people have lost their lives for SCCs. We are the unworthy custodians of a martyrology that spans not only 3 extraordinary bishops (Mons Oscar Romero of El Salvador, Mons Angel Angelelli of Argentina and Mons Juan Gerardi of Guatemala), but more than 70 priests and over 25 religious and at least 500 lay members and leaders of the SCCs. So we have paid a heavy price with our blood for the way our SCC process has been interpreted.

If we can just share with you some of the things that caught our attention in your introduction; ‘Although the trend to form small communities emerged first in South America…’ we need to say that our region is much larger than only South America, we must also include all those countries from Central America as well as the Caribbean and of course Mexico which is in North America. There are at least 34 diverse and different countries. ‘…it took new forms in the African Church since the time of Vatican II…’ in fact it was almost a decade after the Council before we get a serious response in any document from the African bishops. Bp Patrick Kalilombe of Lilongwe, Malawi delivered the first theological reflection to the AMECEA bishops in 1976 when they gathered in Nairobi, Kenya for the 5^th Plenary Assembly on the theme of ‘Building SCCs in Eastern Africa’. His position paper was entitled ‘An Overall View on Building Christian Communities’ (AFER. 18 (5) pp.261-275).

In this document it is clear that there are no substantial differences at all from the understanding which was common in Latin America at the time but that the context in East Africa gave rise to different reasons and insights into why this form of Church was opportune for the Africans; namely that there was a realisation that the colonial structures of the Church were inadequate and collapsing and that Africans needed to own their Church and make it indigenous. They rightly felt that the Europeans had left them a model of Church that did not place any significance on community which was an essential element of African culture.

‘The leaders who animated these communities there went to South America and analyzed critically and objectively the experiences of Basic Christian Communities there’. Firstly who are the leaders to whom you refer? Which countries of the 34 did they visit? To whom did they speak? At what period in the 40 year process did they make their analysis? Where is your evidence to support the statement that they analyzed critically and objectively? Fr Joe Healey MM was the first (1984) of many (Kritzinger, Lobinger, Kwame Kumi, Guiney) making comparisons between Latin America and Africa but from a close reading of their various articles we can see that there is far more in common than divides us. It is good to see how Latin America was helpful at a critical moment when SCCs were starting in Africa as a place where some could come for evaluation and so for learning and growth.

‘They found for example…many groups remained more a social or political type of organization.’ While not commenting on the actual evidence you might have for this statement it none the less gives the impression of a large number of SCCs malfunctioning. It does not take into consideration the energetic efforts made by bishops and SCC leaders at all levels to guide the SCCs through their process to becoming more the Church in the neighbourhood that all the Latin American documentation states we are about. It also sets up a false dichotomy between social action and being a church community. All the Popes from Leo XIII to the great John Paul II make clear the responsibility of all Catholics to live fully the social teaching of the Church, which as you know necessarily involves a political dimension.

‘In many parishes these communities were not linked to the parish.’ Again you choose to give the impression to your Asian readers who have little knowledge about this period of Latin American church history of a seriously dysfunctional process. This is not supported by any of the documentary evidence from the Latin American church indeed the exact opposite is what we find. In both Medellin and Puebla very clear statements are made defining SCCs (CEBs as they are referred to there) as the smallest level of the Church and of the parish as a network of communities and as SCCs as belonging to the nature of Church as sacrament (Med 15:10).

Also the praxis of SCCs throughout the continent bears witness to the contrary of your position where for example the SCCs preside at the Sunday Celebration of the Word in the absence of a priest. In Brazil 75% of Sunday Catholic services are of this kind and in Honduras 80%, to name but two countries. In many countries the SCCs are charged with celebrating funerals, baptisms, taking the Eucharist to the sick and to the remote communities as well as being the official witnesses at marriages. They are also the places where catechesis occurs as an essential element of sacramental preparation. In the diocese of Ciudad Guzman in Mexico and in the Dominican Republic strenuous efforts have been made to give the SCCs grounding in Church law through the use of diocesan and national synods of the Church. Is this a process disconnected from the parish and Church?

Of course there have been errors and mistakes over a 40 year period as there no doubt will be also in Africa and Asia as we are all only human and therefore limited and fallible. We noted your comment that ‘…the African experience was more inspirational…’ for you in Asia, you will no doubt be aware of the African writers who are already talking about the failure of the SCCs in Africa and have analysed very carefully why they think that is happening (mostly due they say to an inattention to the crucial question of differing ecclesiological perspectives amongst the bishops and clergy asked to implement the pastoral priorities). As early as 1992 in the 11^th Plenary Assembly held in Lusaka, Zambia the AMECEA bishops stated: ‘we also realistically acknowledge that we shall have a long way to go before the SCCs are all that we want them to be’ (P.Lwaminda, ‘A Theological Analysis of the AMECEA Documents on the Local Church with Special Emphasis on the Pastoral Option for Small Christian Communities’ AMECEA Spearhead (1996) 140-141 p.87).

‘It is the African Church that first introduced the term SCCs since the term BCCs was misleading for many people at the time.’ A serious study is being made at present about the terminology used in the various countries and no one has yet claimed to be the first with SCCs. In fact before the first recorded use in Africa it was being used in Latin America as an alternative in some places though CELAM decided that they would use the term CEB which was used by Pope Paul VI (1975) in Evangelii Nuntiandi, and in other papal letters and encyclicals since and employed consistently in all CELAM documents with papal approval.

The phrase ‘…an inspiration for the European Church…’ should perhaps be qualified to the German Church as SCCs already exist in Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and Netherlands formed mostly by returning Fidei Donum priests from Latin America but without the approval of the national hierarchies. Many of those countries have a national organisation which feeds into the European Network of SCCs in which Gerry has participated.

We very much look forward to receiving your response and hope this letter will lead to a deepening friendship and collaboration in our mutual vocation of building Church at the smallest level throughout the world.

Fraternally yours in Christ Jesus,

Fr Jose Marins & Fr Gerry Proctor.