CHRISTIAN SOCIAL TEACHING AND THE FUTURE OF CPT

by Father Vic Missiaen M.Afr

Fr Vic Missiaen is a Belgian Missionary of Africa, born in 1938, ordained in 1964. He was Assistant to the Superior General from 1974 to 1986. Since 1990 he has been involved in matters of JPIC at the level of the Bishops' Conference in Tanzania and he is the Chaplain to the CPT ( Christian Professionals of Tanzania) in Dar es Salaam.

1. Tanzania to-day is at an important crossroad

After the ineffective economic policies of socialist centralisation and nationalisation, we have had a planned reform of structures and policies to liberal market capitalistic policies and its structural adjustments via privatisation and liberalisation allowing market forces to play their role.

Many legal adjustments and economic policies were made that aim at providing the opportunity for economic growth to flourish.
Is the price for this change in policy to put national social responsibilities on a low burner?

We do have a poverty reduction strategy and some services that aim to give quality to some social needs in our society.
Is there a real balance here?

Is the economic push taking the main share with a little share going to the social needs in our nation.

The Christian Professionals of Tanzania, by virtue of their education and position, are part of that leadership problem of our nation.

CPT was born during the one - party state policies, and accepted the political choice of socialism, that was based upon a moral decision to consider each one equal, with a strong sense of social services being the right of all. CPT was critical about issues of application of the policy and the weaknesses of the system. But CPT was not critical of the basic moral choice of the ujamaa philosophy.
Now that we have a basic change in policy, where opportunity creation and productivity and economic growth are the guiding force of our national policy, we are faced with a moral question: is this new policy sufficiently balanced from an ethical point of view and from the point of view of the social Teaching of the Church? Is our new policy paying enough attention to the Social Responsibility? Which any good government must have towards its citizens?

Are such values like: human dignity of every human life, the common good, solidarity, preferential option for the poor, integral development, subsidiarity principle in government, justice for all really our guiding principles as committed professionals?

Or do we allow ourselves to be drawn by the material opportunities which our professional positions provide us. Does our desire for prestige, power, good name, material possessions guide us in our concrete conduct and life of every day.
Are we professionals who have a sense of social responsibility?
Do we live according the social teaching of the Church? Do we know this Social Teaching? Do we want to know?

We must not run away from this question.
If we want the CPT to have a future, we must give an answer to this question and show a commitment to the answer we give.
Only a gospel inspired answer will provide CPT with the credibility as Christian witnesses and with the inner inspiration to attract others to follow our example.

Are you ready to be an example and offer your life and action as an example to others?
That does not mean that you must be a perfect witness, holy and sinless - no human being on earth can be like that - moreover there would be no need for the Church and for Christ's Salvation if we would be perfect.

To be ready to be an example is to make a commitment, publicly, that I will try to live up to the principles I profess to be mine.
If we have Professionals who agree to this, then CPT has a future.

But because we are human, this will always be a struggle between good and evil within each one of us, within our group of professionals, and within our Church and Society.

This very struggle is part of our sincere commitment, because the Spirit of God is active in an incarnate, concrete human situation.
It has always been like that in the History of the Church. It is essentially part of the mystery of the incarnation.

Let us look briefly at some biblical history and subsequent Church history.

2. Biblical and historical experiences

In our booklet - "Theological Reflection on money, authority and work" I have already provided many scriptural and moral teachings and historical reflections. I noticed that this booklet did not become a best-seller. It would be good to make on evaluation of that.

From the beginning the disciples of Jesus struggled with his teaching - from the beginning they had difficulties to really accept what he was saying. That is also true of the disciples of Jesus of to-day.
I will take two sections of the New Testament to show this and then some historical events is the Church's life.

The two gospel texts are: Mathew ch. 18 and John ch. 21.

Chapter 18 of Mathew starts with the disciples asking Jesus who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That question comes back again and again in the mind of every human being, every institution and human structure - in the church, in the Christian local community, in the halmashauri, in CPT, in politics, in university - "who is the greatest" every human structure generates anxiety about status, prestige, professional advancement and recognition and appreciation.

And then comes Jesus' surprising answer: "unless you become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven."
Jesus is not talking here about being innocent or humble or simple like a child - no Jesus is saying: become like a child, that means to be at the bottom, insignificant with no power.

He is saying unless you are insignificant you will not even enter the Kingdom of heaven.
The disciples did not ask any more questions, they aspired and had a vision "upwards" and Jesus invites them to a vision "downwards".
Kingdom of heaven authority is based upon insignificance of the human capacity and totally based upon the God - power, God - authority.
Then Mathew continues in this chapter and says:
A disciple does not scandalise

Does not take advantage of those who are weak
Does not use power to make others lose their power
Goes out to those who are lost, listens to sinners and is ready to forgive

Make regulations that build up relations. Forgiving sinners is an attitude of mind and heart, not a question of juridical cases or number of times.

Our exercise of power therefore is based upon and will be judged on how we relate to others and especially to the weak and marginalised.

Authority in the mind of Christ is not power but a service to build human relations in the community. This is true of all types of authority. For any authority to be based in God, it must be a service type.
All abuse of authority, power for oneself and one's own profit is pagan.

Chapter 21 of John
As we can see from v. 30 - 31 of the 20 ch. the author of the Gospel of John brought the book to a close. So chapter 21 was probably added by a Johanine disciple. He takes the disciples back to Galilea, where Jesus started his ministry. Here the disciple in ch. 21 wants to show how Jesus provided for the needs of leadership in his Church - there is the miraculous catch of fish (which in Luke we find in ch. 5, v. 1 - 11) and there is the meal with the few disciples and the dialogue with Peter.

By the time this chapter was written, around 100 AD - there was already a lot of discussion going on in the Church about how the Church was to be ruled. For our purpose it is enough to refer to a difference we see in the stress we find in the Synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark and Luke) and the Gospel of John. From the Synoptic Gospels the tradition was growing of the importance of the apostolic succession and the need for a structured authority whereas the Johanine community stressed more the role of the Paraclete, the Spirit as the head and leader of the Church community.

In ch. 21 of John we see that the author indicates that Peter was given the authoritative pastoral care in the church, but Jesus was still giving a preference to the Beloved disciple (the prototype of the Christian community), but who did not receive such a pastoral role.

This brief explanation shows how the early Church struggled and built up slowly her understanding of the role of authority.

The text of chapter 21 presents the threefold questioning of Peter - do you love me - a symbolic? un doing of his threefold denial.
It is not his dignity or merit that makes him the first pope - but simply that God chose Peter.
Jesus asks - do you love me - he does not ask do you love the sheep, the people. It is his attachment to Christ that is important. And the mission Peter receives is not to rule the flock, but to encourage the people to remain attached to the shepherd - Christ - "take care of my sheep."

The service of helping people to remain attached to Jesus. He shows clearly that the Beloved disciple has his place in the Church - another role than the one of Peter.

- In the history of the Church we have the experience that most divisions in the Christian community centred around two major points: who is Christ? And who is the Church and what is the nature of its authority?
Those who refused the divinity of Christ or those who denied the humanity of Christ.
Those who made the Church into a powerful structure, or those who persecuted the Church. Those who stressed too much the Hierarchical structure or too little? Those who accepted the Pope and Bishops as sole rulers and those who said that the word of God was above that authority, or the Spirit of God being the real ruler in the Church.

That is part of the ongoing struggle in the Church. It will always be part of the Church's life.
To be faithful the Church must always go back to the basics of Mt. 18 and John 21 and combine those two: all authority is based upon human insignificance and God's authority as the real basis, not human capacity and secondly all authority is a serving response of love to a calling from God to serve the community to care that it remains related to God and to one another in a true family of God relationship.

3. The future of CPT

In the light of what we have said so far how do we see the future of CPT - our future.
Our future - it is we who will make or break our movement - but how?

a) The foundation of CPT commitment is our attachment and our commitment to Christ. To be a Christian judge, lawyer, doctor, economist does not make us more professional, but it makes our profession to be an expression of Christ's presence in the human situation in which we live. A Christian professional, belonging to the Body of Christ, carrying Christ within him/her gives a divine measure to what he/she does - it intensifies the presence of Christ in the world, incarnates the divine presence and thus perfects the Body of Christ. Christ chose to need human beings to make himself present and tangible in the world.

To love Christ is to be animated to love one another and bring love to others in our professional conduct, Christianity is a religion of love, of warmth and concern. Christianity is first and foremost a religion of relationship, with God, the Trinity, with one another. In understanding this relational basis of Christianity, we stress the family model and from that flow the deeply Christian values of love, service, solidarity, concern for the weak and poor.
What we have, we received as gift to share.
Life, health, talents are gifts, not possessions, for myself, they are given to be enjoyed, by myself and by others, they are given to build up the human family.

b) Community mindedness is essential to a Christian life and to the life of CPT.
Community mindedness is inclusive, it is does not exclude anybody.
Community mindedness is larger than the family, the clan, the tribe and even the nation. It is a mentality and an attitude to feel related to every human being because every person is God's child.
It is an essential part of our Christian vision, but also of the democratic culture and a basic quality of a civilised society. Individualism, its opposite, is characterised by selfishness and self interest, Individualism as a mentality and an attitude can be practiced by an individual person, by a family or by a group or tribe and even a nation or group of nations. Politics and economics and public life are strongly influenced by this individualistic mentality and attitude. Only an ethical choice in favour of community mindedness can effectively counteract this. This counter - action needs structures and policies and strategies to establish community mindedness and to fight individualism.
CPT stands for the defence of this community mindedness and pushes for proper defence of the common good and solidarity with all the members of society.

c) Members of CPT in Tanzania must become evangelisers of the Christian use of power and money and prestige.
Thirst for power, money, fame are strong forces in any human being and therefore in any human society, also in Tanzania. We must evangelise these areas and learn to use these forces for good and not for evil.
To evangelise is not only to preach or to witness, it is also to find and create the structure that guarantee that these forces of power, money, fame are used for the good. This is basically what we call to build a democratic culture and democratic structures, so that all ideas, views, interests, concerns and needs have a say in the running of a country in the making of policy and plans, create the checks and balances needed so that one group or interest may not abuse or exploit others.

Therefore to evangelise is a professional work, it is the duty of every Christian. But in a very special and important way it is the vocation and the task of the professionals and intellectuals and leaders.
It is an ongoing work, always renewing and correcting social life and structures, because the forces of evil are constantly part of us and active in us. That is the very nature of the incarnation. God gave us this world, and it is in this world that we must realise the growth of the Kingdom of God. CPT are builders of God's Kingdom.

d) CPT is a movement, a network and not so much a structure or an organisation.
I see CPT as an intellectual and critical nerve in society and in the church. It is a moral light for others, a Christian conscience in professional life. It wants to be a network of influence for good policy making, a think tank to improve Tanzanian creativity and a critical contributor to ideas on how to live together and improve our life together. Animators of good governance, daring innovators and offering alternative ideas, without fear or timidity.

A movement is like a spring of water where people get their thirst quenched, it is like a fertile piece of land in which good leadership can grow and be nurtured.
A movement is something else than a structure of leaders and members. It must have its own momentum, its own inner life and strength, its own renouncement and nursing activities, so that it has an inner power to influence others and have moral authority by the force of its intelligent argumentation.

Leaders will naturally come out of the movement who take up positions in other organisations be it the church or civil or political organisations.
This shows the health and strength of our movement. But such leaders should not be leaders of the movement at the same time. CPT needs leaders who are animators rather than governing leaders. Animating leaders have a different role and lead from behind rather than up front. They are coaches rather than commanders, mentors rather than managers, delegators rather than directors, giving self - respect rather than demanding respect.
The present weakness of CPT is due to this lack of animating leadership.

If a movement like CPT wants to influence society or the Church, it must have the freedom to think, to analyse, to express itself. It must have the freedom from financial sponsors who dictate its agenda.
Because we are a moral and ecclesial movement we freely chose a moral vision and moral option based upon our Christian vision. It is the basic of our work and our commitment. But we want to be tolerant and respectful of other visions and other faiths and open to collaborate with them.

Our role is not about projects or running development services or political parties, but about reflection, research, animation, a think-tank in society and in the Church, a critical control of governance, making creative suggestions and provide analytical light on the life of society and of the Church. Let us not be a group of consultants on serving other people's agendas, but let us be creative, original, critical thinkers.

CONCLUSION

How can we summarise the needs of CPT to guarantee its future?

= We need a clear vision and inspiration for our movement.
A faith inspired vision, clear about our role in society and the church as a movement.

= We need training and formation in theology and spirituality - not only intellectual knowledge, but also formation of attitudes through prayer and reflection and meditation.

= We need leader who give their time and interest to CPT, leaders who give CPT their first choice as apostolic service, for whom CPT is a priority.

= We need leaders who animate the movement, who take initiative and stimulate and encourage professionals to use their talents creatively and generously in the service of others.

= We need better communication and more mutual collaboration and support among the dioceses and among the various groups.

= We need core - groups in parishes and within professional groups, and our recruitment of members must be through personal contact and through valuable CPT activities in dioceses and parishes. Good products advertise themselves by their quality.

= We need regular spiritual discernment and evaluation of our movement. We must seek the opinion of outsiders what they think of CPT and reflect and act upon that. Some say CPT is much diminished, has no strength - let us look at such comments to see what it contains.

I personally believe in the future of CPT and in its growing capacity. I see the signs of that in many ways. To me questions relating to structures, positions, elections are of secondary importance. I prefer to look at the deeds and professional conduct of a person to see if he or she has a CPT mind and hearty if he or she is committed to the vision and principles of CPT.

When CPT is worried about its status, its self preservation, its structures, becoming self-centred it will lose its soul and inner spring. If we look outward and ask how to serve the people, especially the needy, loving and serving others, letting others drink of our resources, than we will experience a tremendous inner strength, because it will be Christ in us we share in our loving service.
The more of love we give to others, the more we receive.

Yes we have a future - if we live our attachment to Christ in the every day and professional life which is ours.
"Do you love me?" - "Yes Lord, you know that I love you."

Fr. Vic Missiaen

26/10/2004