Basic ecclesial community

Basic ecclesial communities (or base communities; Spanish: comunidades eclesiales de base) are small neighborhood groups, originating in the Catholic Church in Latin America, who meet to reflect upon scripture and apply its lessons to their situation.[1]

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The proliferation of base communities is due in part to the documents of the Second Vatican Council which called for the Catholic laity to take a more active role in the Church, and also from the shortage of priests. They spread to Africa, and then to Asia where some have morphed into models for neighborliness in modern urban and ecumenical environments, with the hope that Christian renewal at the peripheries will impact cultural centers.

Latin America

In the 1960s Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) spread rapidly, encouraged by the emphasis which the Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council and at the Latin American Medellin Conference gave to more active engagement of the laity in living the gospel imperatives.[2] BECs realize the presence of the church in all its aspects, as communion, servant, herald, sacrament, and institution. They present a pattern of Christian life which is less individualistic, self-interested, and competitive, as preferred by the poor in mutual support and co-responsibility. Due to a shortage of priests, the sacraments are not always accessible in some of these communities but for them the word of God is an "immediate point of reference, the source of inspiration, nourishment, and discernment, ... to shape a just society that will turn the word into reality and embody the gospel project in a coherent way, ... conscious of the gift given to us in Jesus Christ."[3]

BECs were not a product of liberation theology; they existed before it arose, and have thrived despite some Vatican reaction against the liberation theology movement. The liberationists built upon the BEC movement, giving it a more explicitly social edge. Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, who coined the term “liberation theology”, once said that ninety percent of the movement is the preferential option for the poor. The Latin American bishops, following up on their 1968 statement at Medellin which called for an “effective preference to the needy and poorest sectors” of society, issued in 1979 at Puebla a document entitled “A Preferential Option for the Poor”. Then in 2007, with Pentecostal and Evangelical movements threatening the faith of Catholics within the impoverished peripheries of Latin America’s mega-cities, these bishops at the Fifth Episcopal Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean ("Council of Aparecida") embraced the base communities as a pastoral model.[4]

A decline in base communities in some parts of Latin America has been attributed to Pope John Paul II's appointment of more conservative bishops[5] and his difficulty in understanding the complexities of liberation theology.[6][7]:52 The Argentine-born Pope Francis’s message "often has stood in marked contrast to the words of his two predecessors. Francis has in fact sought to revive liberation theology in its pastoral application – ... what theologians call 'base community' work in the region’s slums and marginalized areas." He has averaged a trip a year to Latin America during his papacy.[8] Speaking from his experience in Latin America, Francis has highly extolled "popular movements", which demonstrate the “strength of us” and serve as a remedy to the “culture of the self”. He sees such movements as an "antidote to populism" and as capable of revitalizing democracies which he finds "increasingly limp, threatened, and under scrutiny over countless factors."[9] The communities have received strong endorsement from the Catholic hierarchy, beginning with the Latin American bishops at Medellin in the wake of Vatican II, who strove "to encourage and favor the efforts of the people to create and develop their own grassroots organizations for the redress and consolidation of their rights and the search for true justice."[10] In 2016, the bishops' committee for the accompaniment of base ecclesial communities on the continent issued the statement: "In this ecclesial spring, aroused by the gestures and doctrine of Pope Francis, the communities have been strengthened and renewed in their evangelizing and missionary enthusiasm. We reaffirm our conviction that the communities are the Church of Jesus at the base, the poor and poor Church."[11] One example of the need for these communities would be Guatemala where a single parish among the native Mayans has 100,000 members in 53 distinct communities served by 3,000 lay ministers. The diocesan bishop here is Álvaro Leonel Ramazzini Imeri who was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in the 5 October 2019 consistory. The cardinal has long been an advocate for the poor, and has survived several death threats.[12]

Brazil
See also: Liberation theology § Base ecclesial communities

The Brazilian Paulo Freire's classic work Pedagogy of the Oppressed increased literacy and raised the awareness of human rights. This furthered the BEC movement and "provided a springboard for Liberation theologians, most of whom were inspired by the theological insights they learnt from the struggles of poor communities."[13] Brazil has had members of the Catholic clergy who gained an international reputation as defenders of the poor, such as Archbishop Hélder Câmara, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, Cardinal Aloísio Lorscheider, and Leonardo Boff. BECs have afforded protection for social activists, as in the Amazon region where land seizures are a contentious issue.[14]

The Message of Pope Francis to the Participants in the 13th Meeting of the Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil, in January 2014, declared that "the motto of this meeting, 'BECs Pilgrims of the Kingdom, in the Countryside and the City', must resound like a call so that they might increasingly assume their very important role in the Church’s mission of evangelization." Quoting the Document of Aparecida, Francis stated that BECs allow people “to attain greater knowledge of the Word of God, a greater social commitment in the name of the Gospel, for the birth of new forms of lay service and adult education in the faith.” He had chaired the committee that drafted the Aparecida document.[15] Francis also recalled his more recent statement to the whole church, that base communities “bring a new evangelizing fervor and a new capacity for dialogue with the world whereby the Church is renewed.”[16]

Violent opposition

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904) established a pattern of the United States imposing a capitalist model of development on Latin America, often to the detriment of the poorest peoples. "In Brazil and Central America, as U.S.-endorsed dictatorships made it increasingly dangerous for workers to gather, organize, and/or protest while their living conditions worsened, the sacred space of religious meetings often became the only environments left where workers could still somewhat safely convene, organize, share information, and plan protests," while finding vital support and healing. However, "hundreds of thousands of defenseless BEC members were killed by state-sponsored, U.S.-trained and supported military, paramilitary, and police forces in no less than ten Latin American countries,"[17][18] including missionaries from the United States, local pastors, and a bishop.[19]

Worldwide

Africa

Many authors have pointed out the "sacramental service station" model of church established by colonialism, contrary to the African cultural preference for close, participatory community. When The Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) Documentation Service "circulated a questionnaire in 1975 to ascertain how the dioceses ranked their priorities they were pleased to find that the highest priority in AMECEA was ‘building Christian communities’."[7]:81, 90 Then in 1994 at the first African Synod, the Bishops Conference in Africa described Small Christian Communities (SCC) as "the theological mainstay of the model of Church as Family of God". They are seen as "the ecclesiastical extension of the African extended family or clan", where the Christian faith is more intensely lived and shared.[20] In Africa's patriarchal culture, the challenge is to attract more men to these communities and still have the voice of women heard in them. "Due to the emergence and growth of SCCs, the church is no longer considered a remote reality subject solely to the direction of the ordained clergy. ...Women and men feel a sense of belonging, celebrate their shared faith and take responsibility for the mission of the church in the local context."[21] Already in 2001 there were over 180,000 SCCs in the nine AMECEA countries in Eastern Africa.[22] A leading African theologian has suggested that they can still learn from Latin America "to include attention to the socio-political, ecological and economic conditions of their context."[21]

Asia

At their assembly in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1990, the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences endorsed the promotion of Small Christian Communities (SCC) throughout Asia.as a new way of being church, as a "communion of communities" – participatory, ecumenical, and a leaven for the transformation of the world.[23] Then in 1999 after the meeting of the Asian Synod of Bishops in New Delhi, Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Asia that "the Synod Fathers underlined the value of basic ecclesial communities as an effective way of promoting communion and participation in parishes and Dioceses, and as a genuine force for evangelization. These small groups help the faithful to live as believing, praying and loving communities like the early Christians (cf. Acts 2:44-47; 4:32-35)." John Paul II went on to describe them as "a solid starting point for building a new society, the expression of a civilization of love, ... and I encourage the Church in Asia, where possible, to consider these basic communities as a positive feature of the Church's evangelizing activity."[24]

The diversity of religions and the small number of Christians in most parts of Asia have also led to experiments in forming local Basic Human Communities (BHC) open to people of all faiths. From these it is hoped that the new humanity will emerge, with small communities at the periphery feeding back to transform the center into the likeness of one world under God.[25]

Philippines

In the Philippines, the formation of BECs has been adopted as the pastoral priority of the Church throughout the country. In 1991, the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines decreed: "Basic Ecclesial Communities under various names and forms – BCCs, small Christian communities, covenant communities – must be vigorously promoted for the full living of the Christian vocation in both urban and rural areas."[26] The Council directed the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to "issue an official statement on BECs, on their nature and functions as recognized by the Church, making it clear that they are not simply another organization. This official statement of the CBCP shall be, among other things, for the proper orienting of priests and seminarians. Training for work with BECs shall be made part of seminary formation." [27] In 2007, the CBCP established the Episcopal Committee on Basic Ecclesial Communities with the task of assisting the dioceses in the promotion and formation of BECs. The small Christian communities in the Philippines often began as administrative or liturgical centers for the parishes, and have needed to evolve into consciousness-raising communities more like the Latin American model.[28]

India

The 1980 Bombay Priests Synod recognized SCCs as necessary to build community in city parishes characterized by individualism, impersonal relationships, superficial religious practice, and unconcern for others. "Believers were defined by the doctrinal truths they adhered to" with a privatized Christianity that ignored the social and communitarian dimensions of being disciples of Jesus Christ. The sense of community experienced at Sunday Mass was found to be too superficial to realize the sense of Christian community.[29][7]:122 From 1984 to 2006, virtually the whole Bombay archdiocese was formed into 1,800 SCCs. The program involved bringing together Catholics in neighborhood communities for Gospel sharing and service to the poor and needy, while maintaining links with the universal Church. Experience led to dividing SCCs into smaller clusters of about ten families, to facilitate presence and participation at the monthly meetings.[30]

Western world

It has been suggested that to revitalize the Church in the Western world, neighborhood communities should become places where the Bible is reflected upon and applied, the faith shared and celebrated, in a more democratic rather than hierarchical structure. Priest and bishop become enablers, encouraging full missionary discipleship among the laity, overseeing from a distance rather than accustomed to control. The question which the clergy in the North must answer is what model of church best responds to the needs and expectations of the secular society.[7]:209

A program that originated in the United States, now RENEW International, offers materials and training for parish-based discussion groups.[31] Their programs have reached an estimated 25 million Catholics in 160 dioceses in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Guatemala.[32] Since 2007 it has sponsored the program Theology on Tap which involves young adults in faith discussions held in restaurants and taverns.[33] RENEW International has a strong presence in England and in Africa.[34][35] A similar effort originating in Italy in 1987 now involves thousands of people on five continents. Pope Francis has commended these cells for their ability to revive parishes, adding that: “If we have encountered Christ in our lives, then we cannot keep him only for ourselves. It is crucial that we share this experience with others as well."[36]

References`
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  4. "CELAM update: The lasting legacy of liberation theology". National Catholic Reporter. 2007-05-24. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
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  14. R. Pace (1992), "Social conflict and political activism in the Brazilian Amazon: a case study of Gurupá". American Ethnologist, 19: 710–732. doi: 10.1525/ae.1992.19.4.02a00050
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  19. http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html UN Truth Commission on El Salvador.
  20. L. Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation, Transforming the Church in Africa, (New York: Orbis, 2014), 43. See also: G. Cieslikiewicz, Pastoral Involvement of Parish-Based SCCs in Dar es Salaam, in J. Healey and J. Hinton, Small Christian Communities Today, (New York: Orbis, 2005), 101.
  21. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Marquette U. publication.
  22. Healey, Joseph G. (2001). "Promoting Small Christian Communities in Africa through the Internet". International Journal of African Catholicism (IJAC).
  23. FABC V Plenary Assembly Final Statement ‘Journeying Together Toward the Third Millennium’ July 17-27 1990 Bandung, Indonesia 8.1.11.
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  25. "Basic Ecclesial Communities – an Asian pastoral need". Herald Malaysia Online. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
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  27. Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (1991), "Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II)", Makati: CBCP.
  28. Quevedo O. (2008) ‘Renewing the Church: Pastoral Thrusts for BECs’ In: Arquiza Y. (ed) Creating a Culture of Sustainability for BECs. Manila: CBCP-BEC Desk. 195-196.
  29. Bombay Priests Synod Document 138, quoted in A. Nazareth, Handbook of Small Christian Communities for the Archdiocese of Bombay, (Mumbai, India: FILMC, 2003), 1.
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  33. "Theology on Tap 'Renewed'". 2007-06-04. Archived from the original on 2007-06-04. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
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  35. "Small Christian Communities in the Church in Africa Today". www.renewintl.org. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  36. "Pope urges 'Evangelization Cells' to revive parish life - Vatican News". www.vaticannews.va. 2019-11-18. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
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