The founder of the John Paul II Media Institute and priest of the Halifax-Yarmouth archdiocese urged the hundreds gathered for the Canadian Catholic School Trustees’ Association conference Oct. 5 to take a prophetic stance by preaching the Gospel in schools and making space for students to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.
Mallon challenged the trustees, educators and administrators to be able to sum up the Gospel in one sentence.
“The Good News about Jesus is Jesus Himself,” he said. “The proclaimer became the proclaimed after the Resurrection.”
In the “great commission” outlined in Matthew 28:19-20, Mallon said the Church is good at “going” because she is found all over the world, she is good at baptizing and other sacraments, and she is good at teaching because Catholics schools are renowned. “What is our one weakness? In making disciples,” he said.
In the past, the Catholic Church could get away with not making disciples because shared cultural values covered up the cracks, he said.
The disciple is one who “learns continuously,” and who eventually becomes a missionary, who is sent to evangelize others.
“If our churches are filled with disciples, our churches will be renewed,” he said. “Many people in the pews are not disciples. They have checked out.”
Young people in our post-modern, post-Christian culture might as well be wearing t-shirts saying, “Been there; done that” regarding Christianity, he said. They think Christianity as “all about external rules and no inner transformation.” If they are looking for inner transformation something like yoga is more likely to appeal to them, he said.
That means teachers have to witness to the hope that is within them (1 Peter 3:15), he said.
“Our lives must be in some sense provocative,” he said, noting there is an innate distrust of just words.
“Actions must come first, but they must be followed up by words,” he stressed.
“Evangelization cannot take place without words. If you’re not doing it with your actions, shut your big fat mouth! Don’t start with words.”
Mallon pointed to how Pope Francis described himself in a recent interview with Jesuit magazines, noting when he was asked “Who is Jorge Maria Bergoglio?” he replied, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”
The Pope stressed the first proclamation — “Jesus Christ has saved you,” Mallon said. Kerygma is the Greek word for proclamation. When someone had gained a victory in battle, they would send a messenger ahead, galloping on a horse to bring the good news.
The Pope as Cardinal Bergoglio was the chief author of the Aparacida document put out by the Latin American bishops in 2007 on new evangelization, which uses the words “missionary disciples 121 times,” said Mallon. The document stressed conversion to Christ, conversion to Christ’s Church and the conversion of others. While more than 40 per cent of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America, Catholics are leaving the Church by the hundreds of thousands, Mallon said, with “the biggest exodus is to evangelical and Pentecostal churches.”
The document’s authors did “exit interviews,” Mallon said, to find out why Catholics were leaving. They discovered most had left because they found a religious experience, they found a better community life, better biblical and doctrinal formation and a better missionary community, the sense the entire group was involved in missions, he said. In other words, “they never had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ” in the Catholic Church but had one in other churches.
Part of the problem is the Church stresses catechism and sacraments, he said. Instead, talk first about the kerygma and conversion, then talk about the sacraments, he said. Lead children to the living Jesus, an encounter with the living Jesus, not a dead Jesus of history.
The Pope told the Jesuit magazine not to put moral issues like abortion, homosexuality and contraception ahead of the proclamation of the Good News.
“There are other kinds of moral issues that are also a threat to deeper Catholic identity,” he said, adding social justice is also a moral issue that can obscure the “main thing” which is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Mallon urged Catholic schools to stop preparing students for sacraments but to leave that to the parishes. In his parish, St. Benedict’s in Halifax, he has stopped automatically preparing young people for sacraments because they have reached a certain age. The present approach of catechizing students who come for their first Holy Communion even though their parents never attend Mass, and confirming them, without their having had a transformative religious experience is not working, he said.
“We wonder why 90 per cent of our young people walk away from the faith after confirmation.”
Evangelization and catechesis are not the same thing, he said.
“When is the kerygma proclaimed in Catholic schools? How is it proclaimed? Is it clearly articulated? When and how are young people brought to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ or are they learning about a spiritual leader who lived 2,000 years ago, a guy with a beard?”
Modern social science shows that people change first through developing a sense of belonging, then through having their beliefs change. After that, their behaviour changes, he said. The Eucharist is for the initiated, he said. He urged parishes to have other activities for those who are not yet initiated, to develop a sense of belonging.
The schools, which have many students who come from non-Catholic, or non-practising Catholic homes, should not stress the Mass but create other opportunities for students to meet Jesus and make a decision to follow Him.