Vatican note defends evangelisation

Against opinions that evangelisation is an infringement of human rights and that we should seek to encourage others to be more faithful to their own religions, the Vatican has recently issued a note of clarification. In it we are told. "To lead a person’s intelligence and freedom in honesty to the encounter with Christ and his gospel is not an inappropriate encroachment, but rather a legitimate endeavour, and a service capable of making human relations more fruitful." Which is helpful given that some Vatican documents have seemed to head in a universalist direction and been quoted as such in some quarters. Of course, the actualy position is far more nuanced. The note

acknowledges that non-Christians can be saved “through the grace which God bestows in ways known to him”. None the less, it argues that “the Church cannot fail to recognise that such persons are lacking a tremendous benefit in this world: to know the true face of God and the friendship of Jesus Christ, God-with-us.” And it quotes Pope Benedict XVI: “There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the gospel.”

So far, it pretty much echoes the kind of approach that I have come to take: that evangelism, appropriately done (and the note says "The Church severely prohibits forcing people to embrace the faith, or leading or enticing them by improper techniques"), is actually offering people their 'right' to hear the gospel and that God's grace operates for salvation way beyond the formal boundaries of the church.

I think the interesting thing in this is about relations with other Christians and churches. "In this connection, it needs also to be recalled that if a non-Catholic Christian, for reasons of conscience and having been convinced of Catholic truth, asks to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church, this is to be respected as the work of the Holy Spirit."
I have to say that I'm less convinced that such a move would be necessarily to be interpreted straightforwardly as the work of the Holy Spirit. But then how do we interpret the work of the Spirit in and among [a] fractured church/es? I have felt in the past that I was called to be an Anglican. My claim implies a degree of divine legitimacy for the Church of England, presumably. It'd be interesting to ask whether the official RC view could accommodate my vocational self-understanding. I suspect there would be a tension in trying to evaluate it officially. On the one hand it can't be too positive about it else it may find itself granting a degree of okay-ness to another ecclesial entity not in communion with Rome which would undercut its own self-understanding as the fulness of the expression of church. On the other hand, to grant some kind of recognition to separated bretheren as Christians brings with it the need for pastoral care and sacraments ...
Church Times - Spread the word, says Vatican note: