By Fr Curtis Gaston Poyer
Former Director for Social/Social Justice Ministry in the Diocese of Tampico, Mexico, 2004–2023
PART 1
In the new millennium, the Mexican bishops, based on Mexico’s unique history and recent pastoral experiences and formidable challenges, decided to divide pastoral ministry into eight separate but interrelated areas.
The first three main areas were and are:
- Pastoral Profética (prophetic pastoral ministry). This includes areas such as evangelisation, catechetics, theology, preaching and biblical studies for laity and the teaching of biblical studies to parishes and communities;
- Pastoral Litúrgia (Liturgy and Sacraments);
- Pastoral Social (Social/Social Justice Ministry). This includes many different areas such as: Caritas or Catholic Charities; prison ministry; ministry to the sick, aged, physically, and mentally challenged, dying and grieving; ministry to migrants and refugees; human rights defence and promotion; justice and anti-corruption (properly applied and the promotion of legal reform where necessary), peace, and crime reduction; employment, labour, trade unions and defence of workers’ rights; social and environmental responsibilities of companies and industry; the promotion of indigenous and women’s rights; the promotion of truly representative democracy and social participation from all sectors of society; and more.
The complex term ‘social/social justice ministry’ originated in the Medellín document (Second Conference of Latin American Bishops) as Pastoral Social in Latin America in 1968. The document was received in the Caribbean and the Americas in the years following.
Inspired by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and Latin American faith based social-ecclesial movements, the term pastoral social meant the collective of a broad range of faith-based social actions geared to bring about much-needed social and ecclesial transformations in many Latin American countries. Plagued by all sorts of social and political evils and a Church that seemed all too inclined to limit itself to liturgical celebrations and to supporting oligarchies, racially based political parties and social actions (especially in countries like Brazil), and anti-democratic forms of government, the document, together with the implications of Vatican II, strengthened and broadened an already emerging new face of the Church in Latin America, and in some parts of the Caribbean.
When I first arrived in Mexico in 1993, just after ordination, I was disappointed to learn that the documents of Medellin and Puebla (Mexico 1979) did not have the same kind of impact in Mexico as they did in other Latin American and Caribbean territories.
Mexico’s own unique history—its separation of Church and State, strong religious persecution in the early part of the 20th century, and an extraordinary range of devotions and popular religiosity–all gave the Mexican Church a more popular devotional-liturgical-sacramental face, than a Church more preoccupied with social causes from a faith-based and mission perspective.
For example, Mexico’s Marian devotions are known worldwide. Notwithstanding this, there were some important exceptions: the growth of some base ecclesial communities in various areas in the central-southern hill countries and plains; growing pastoral attention to vulnerable groups since the 1980s, especially to migrants and refugees, indigenous groups; Catholic action for the improvements of the social, employment, and family situations of women and youth; social evangelisation of popular religious expressions and movements; and the application of improved and creative catechetical attention and methods in poorer areas and communities.
But five papal visits to Mexico by Pope John Paul II (1979, 1990, 1993, 1999 and 2002) shifted attention away from the need to promote faith and ecclesial-based social movements and action for the social transformation of Mexico, to the affirmation of Mexico’s devotional traditions, the New Evangelisation, and the need for Mexico to remain faithful to Catholic moral teachings.
Although the exceptions mentioned above did not really become part of the mainstream of Mexico’s Catholicism until the new millennium, starting with John Paul II’s own Novo Millennio Ineunte in the Jubilee Year and the Mexican Bishop’s From the Encounter with Christ to Solidarity with Humanity, also in 2000, social/social justice ministry began to move closer to the forefront of the Mexican Church’s pastoral planning and action.
TO BE CONTINUED.
