In this Continent of Hope

30 Years since Medellin

One day, thirty years ago, Pope Paul VI kissed the soil of Latin America in El Dorado airport, in the city of Bogota, Colombia. For the first time in history a Successor of Peter had visited Latin America, an event of transcendent importance for the portion of the pilgrim People of God on this Continent of Hope. This event took place almost five centuries after Christopher Columbus planted the Cross into the soil of the New World.

It was an historic event also because it was the same Paul VI who, in Bogota, would inaugurate the Second General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate which concluded a few days later in the city of Medellin.

With the distance of the years that allows us to see the Episcopal Conference in Medellin with some perspective, we have to joyfully recognize the great importance it has had for the continent. For an entire generation the authentic Medellin has been a voice of enthusiasm and hope. It has without doubt been a decisive stage in our Latin American ecclesial history. The gathering has even been called the “Pentecost of Latin America.”

A few years ago the then Secretary General of CELAM (Latin American Episcopal Conference), now Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, emphasized the “spirit of renewal” of the Church manifested in Medellin. The Conference’s documents were a prophetic interpretation of the signs of the times in the continent. It dealt with a first step in the renewal of the Church pushed forward by Second Vatican Council. It was an attempt to apply the Council to the concrete reality of Latin America.

The real Medellin can only be understood well when seen as an ecclesial event. Within the conference’s fundamental lines, what must be emphasized is a concrete option for the human being according to the faith of the Church, an issue that sealed the Bishops’ reflections. Medellin did not postulate a fractured vision of man, nor one reduced to one of his aspects; its vision is integral. The dependence upon the thought of Paul VI leaves no room for doubt, a reference which has become one of the indispensable hermeneutical bases for a correct reading of the event itself. The concern was with the “totality of man,” the salvation of the “whole man.” Nothing could be further from the dualisms of yesterday or of today’s reductionisms than Medellin, which discarded them with its integral vision of the human person and of development. Its conception of the person is founded on the vision of the Lord Jesus and therefore establishes the horizon of a transcendent humanism that while deepening in this-worldly realities does not limit itself to them.

The Conclusions of the meeting at Medellin aim towards action, towards their expression in the lives of men and of peoples. The praxis that inspires Medellin is derived from its principal driving ideas and is concretized in the diverse aspects of Latin American ecclesial and social reality upon which it bears. What is evident is a clear consciousness on the part of the bishops of the process of social and cultural change with an aim towards the effective evangelization of the continent. The ecclesial praxis fostered by Medellin was not a call to activism, to action for the sake of action. It was an invitation to put to work what in the light of faith was seen and judged adequate for the integral evangelization of Latin America, an answer to the challenge of the transformation of the continent.

Despite the lamentable reinterpretations of the message of Medellin and of the difficulties encountered in its application, the richness of the reflection carried out by the Bishops has been an important step in the renewed evangelization of Latin America. Far from any form of ideologized reading, the depth of its approach and the accuracy of many of its diagnoses enable us to consider Medellin a great prophetic gesture. It dealt with a coming to awareness, a clear acceptance of the necessary unity of faith and life, as well as of the perspectives of love and communion that are born from the mystery of the Lord. It has been a clarion call towards concrete horizons of work for justice, peace, development, Christian liberation, reconciliation, personalization, and humanization for all. It was about living the faith of the Church and becoming aware that everything that contrasts with the Plan of God for the human being and his social coexistence must be removed, and the ample horizons of communion with God and of men among each other must be opened up.

The whole road travelled in Latin America from Rio (1955), to Medellin (1968), passing through Puebla (1979) and Santo Domingo (1992) can be contemplated. Each has been an important milestone in the itinerary of hope towards the Third Millennium of the Faith. Today, like yesterday, the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Father, rises in the midst of the great difficulties lived by nations like a living torch that illuminates the paths of persons and peoples giving light and warmth, ardently preaching the Lord Jesus, the Son of Mary, who invites us to travel the path of full evangelization that leads to adherence to the divine Plan and to the construction of a more just, free, and reconciled society, to the Civilization of Love.

1998

Notice: These articles have been translated by members of the Christian Life Movement and have not been revised by the author.

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