A new language

Faith “generates future”. It is “the greatest challenge that European Christianity is called to address today”. These were the opening remarks pronounced during the 25th Colloquium of European Parishes (CEP), held a few days ago in Mons, Belgium, on the theme “Why transmit the faith? Seduced by God, fascinated by the Gospel”. Established in 1961 on the initiative of two parish priests, one from France and the other from Germany, the Colloquium of European Parishes – held every two years – is aimed at promoting co-operation among Christians from different regions and confessions in Europe and to develop the parish, where the faithful permanently experience Christianity on a daily basis. Almost 200 attended the event from eight West-European Countries and from seven East-European ones. The need for mission. According to H. Windisch, professor of Pastoral Theology at the Faculty of Theology in Freiburg (Germany), “the transmission of faith can no longer continue on its own” since “in our European societies religious belief is no longer the norm”. “The tools enabling the transmission of our experience of faith to the younger generations are lacking”. And “the knowledge that stemmed from centuries of Christian reflection” is ignored. There is an urgent need “to explicitly convey the concept of mission as a figure of contemporary faith”. Today, the theologian pointed out, “The mission is carried out not only outside the church, but also within it”. “Our society is far from being secularized”, remarked Klaus Vellguth, Missiology professor at the Theological Faculty of Vallendar (Germany), recalling the survey Religionsmonitor 2008. Accordingly, although in different forms, “the demand and the quest for faith experience are still widely felt throughout Europe”. These are viewed as “the founding elements of human identity, that every person seeks to respond to”. The scholar declared that difficulties are related to inadequate “communicative channels, which are currently employed by Christian ecclesial institutions”. Indeed, these “only succeed in identifying a small part of this demand”. Hence, “new forms and languages” for Gospel proclamation ought to be developed. “Baptismal priesthood”. The importance of “acknowledging the primary role of the Holy Spirit in the transmission of faith”, since “the Spirit precedes and succeeds all forms of proclamation”, was underlined by Fr. André Fossion, Belgian Jesuit priest, director of the Lumen Vitae institute in Brussels. The “Evangelical style and content” of Gospel proclamation “deserve being cultivated”, giving priority to “diaconal witness in the approach to the faithful”, said Father Fossion. Stijn van den Bossche, theology professor at the University of Louvain (Belgium), noted, “Christian vocation” is the point of departure of faith proclamation, “a vocation primarily acknowledged in its trait of sanctity, namely, the baptismal priesthood that transforms Christians into prophets”. From this perspective, also the vocation to marriage, “when experienced to the light of the love of Christ and the traits that this love takes on”, has “valuable evangelization elements”. In this framework, added another theologian from the same university, Paul Scolas, “Christian history becomes a tool for the transmission of faith, the foundation where” contemporary men “can find points of reference and intersection” with their personal experiences and their “quest for meaning”. In first person. The various experiences presented during the meeting in Mons shed light on the importance of a Christian community called to take on the responsibility of transmitting faith to the next generations, in order to grant meaning to the veiled heritage they received from their parents, who are often “poorly equipped” before such a demanding endeavour. Panellist highlighted the need to “view the youth from a different angle”. To this regard, two concrete examples were made: the meetings of Taizé, which “followed the attractive path of liturgical language”, in order to “share with the youth the language of our memory” and the experience of “The Schools of the Word” of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini in Milan, which follow “the experience of faith recorded in the Scriptures”. The speakers highlighted the importance of dialogue with the Islamic world, which requires the quest “for new approaches, leading to the establishment of dialogue based on mutual understanding, respect and esteem”, whilst promoting the ongoing development of one’s own religious tradition, so that the dialogue “may take place with an open and serene attitude aimed at mutual exchange”.