Overcome worldly challenges with love, says Cardinal Tagle

Christian love goes beyond all frontiers to witness Jesus, he told religious superiors during a gathering in Goa, India

Dec 03, 2024

By Michael Gonsalves
Catholic Church faces tremendous challenges posed by hardening of borders across the world coupled with suspicion, exclusion, politics and fear which could be overcome only with love, said Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization.  

“Even within the same parish and the diocese, the Christian universal love is forgotten,” Tagle said.

The Philippine cardinal made the remarks during an address to about 200 delegates at the biennial Meeting of the International Societies of Apostolic Life (MISAL) in the western Indian state of Goa on Dec. 2.

The Dec. 2-6 event is hosted by the Society of Pillar, an indigenous missionary religious society founded by Father Benito Martins in 1887.

Delegates from 22 religious congregations from across the world joined the gathering, themed “Journeying Together: Encountering Frontiers.”

Tagle said conflict within the Church is a cause of concern nowadays.

Priests and laity refused to accept some bishops appointed by the pope because they were not from their ethnic groups, he pointed out.

“Pope Benedict appointed one Bishop to a diocese [which I am not going to name] but the priests, nuns and laity blocked him from entering his diocese," Tagle said, smiling.

"When there was a vacancy in another diocese in that country, the pope appointed him the bishop of that diocese which accepted him. Later he was elevated as a Cardinal and those bishops who rejected him were rubbing shoulders with him at the consistory ceremony,” he added.

The gathering coincides with the 18^th Exposition of the Sacred Relics of St. Francis Xavier at Old Goa, the Patron of the Missions.

In his keynote speech, Tagle said Christian love goes beyond all frontiers to witness Jesus through their mission.

He emphasized the importance of understanding “frontiers” in the context of walking together for evangelization and offered a threefold explanation of the term.

“A frontier is a border between two territories, encompassing civil, historical, cultural, and ethnic dimensions,” he said, adding that understanding these borders aids in describing local churches and facilitates inculturation.

He pointed to Jesus’ example of moving across territories to foster appreciation and to disentangle Christianity from being identified with one culture.

Highlighting the need for attentiveness to frontiers, Tagle stressed the importance of redefining cultural elements for better understanding.

“While respecting the first frontiers of borders, we fail to give testimony to the universal frontiers of Christian love,” he remarked.

Tagle identified the second frontier as unexplored areas needing to be conquered and the third as the frontier of knowledge.

“This refers to new fields requiring further investigation, such as digital technology,” he said.

In some cases, division within the Church reaches the extreme, he noted.

He recalled the case of a diocese in Rome that was without a bishop for 10 years. After a bishop was appointed, he was shot in the leg by a gunman before being rescued by two priests.

“This attack was planned by the diocesan administrator. How do we respond to this violence?” Tagle asked.

The prelate explained to the delegates the meaning of journeying together and encountering frontiers with many real-life examples.

He said in the US, frontier refers to areas settled by the Europeans or an edge/area of a country not settled or unexplored or lawless, or even inferior.

“So, this frontier has to be conquered to be civilized. So, people say frontier means going to people who need to be civilized. But with wars and ongoing gun battles, which area is settled?” he asked.

Tagle said that “in settled areas, there is poverty of Christian life and producing no vocations, but the unsettled places are producing more martyrs and more vocations.”

Therefore, he said the mission of journeying together and encountering frontiers calls for mutual love, understanding, and an approach with Christian love.

“In our Dicastery we have a program of exchanging priests. A priest from Asia or Africa can be in Europe without incardination. But a priest in Europe said a priest from Africa brings African Church in Europe,” Tagle said, stressing that no place was fully settled.

“But we are all unsettled, challenging us to approach one another with love and understanding,” he added.--ucanews.com