Dominican Mission today
for O.P.inion, 1989
Dominican Province of St. Albert the GreatGod disposes, but we still must plan. Numerous Church documents provide a vision of how we should move. Yet we must move in a world of multiple cross currents. A good navigator will harness these currents to move with optimum efficiency to the goal we are called to.
Agents of mission
First let's talk about clergy. As a vocation boom makes Church leadership in Africa and Asia more numerous, foreign personnel become less necessary. Indigenous leaders have an edge over foreigners in reaching the minds and hearts of the people. The new churches are themselves becoming missionary. Yet these same churches, like those of the "first" and "second" world also suffer from stagnation, as some of the clergy are prey to the allures of sex, money and social power, and do not attend adequately to study (in spite of multiple degrees), to the needs of the people and the drift of many from the Church.
Nonetheless there is reason for some continued foreign clergy: Membership growth in Africa continues to outstrip the growth of clergy. Foreigners still have a unique image and attraction to the people, and they often have skills or areas of interest and concern which are not duplicated in the local clergy.
As for lay people, in a country like Nigeria which has a glut of doctors, nurses and teachers and thousands of unemployed graduates, foreigners would have to have very special talents to justify coming for development projects —projects that some state governments even discourage the Church from embarking upon. As for apostolic projects there is more than enough local talent, leadership and interest.
The most valuable lay contribution is the witness of permanently committed religious who combine professional competence and service with an integral religious life in the Church. In Nigeria lay missionaries were virtually phased out 20 years ago, along with the Peace Corps. There is no room for young college graduates who wish a year or two's experience as marginal mavericks in the "third" world before moving on.
Priests and religious are still the missionaries most needed, but the numbers are certainly down in the traditional sources. For all the romantic talk of the age of the laity, the decline is one more symptom of the plunge the Church has taken in many areas of the "first world".
A sample: Last time home I went along to a house warming of a distant relative. Many young couples were there, all Irish and Catholic — but a new breed. Successful career people, they altogether had only one child. Welcoming me, they thought my work was "interesting" and "exciting". I was shown around the house, but not asked to bless it. When it came time to eat I was not asked to lead grace — There was no grace. When we left no one slipped me so much as a dollar — as was common 25 years ago, "for the missions" or "for you".
Support structures
For all the flight of capital to Japan and the Arab countries, U.S. Catholics of European background are wealthier than ever, but give much less than before to the Church (now 1.1%, as opposed to Protestants' 2.2%). When I entered the Novitiate, Fr. Goggins' lavish spending for the house wet me agog with wonder. The first talk I heard of financial limitations was from Fr. Masterson in Dubuque. My assignment to Nigeria acquainted me with a much poorer life —as I expected— but it was still encapsulated in colonial style, supported from a generous mission-control. By the '70s repeated insistence on accountability indicated that the Province was on the skids, preluding the present financial panic and constant poor mouthing. The Province cannot support a mission anywhere near the scale it did 20 years ago. For the past 8 or so years I have found myself in the sort of primitive penury or poverty we used to dream of in the novitiate (along with midnight office and other regularities), as we are kept alive by a Nigerian Providence and a Nigerian St. Jude.
Our financial situation may make good image. First world ideologists keep preaching that we should be poor and live for the poor. That is another reason why contributions are down. They would rather spend it on junkets to South or Central America to get the "feel" of "solidarity" with the poor. The money could better be sent to P.M.B. 5361, Ibadan.
In fact, the financial crisis and poverty ideology of U.S. mainstream Catholicism, which prevents mission support, cripples some vital operations: Supporting students doing specialized studies abroad becomes more and more unthinkable. The fall of the Naira makes even simple travel impossible. I recently gave a talk at a conference in Bologna —ticket and accommodation supplied. Intending to spend 4 days with our students at the Angelicum on the way back, I found that the money I had would cover only one day ($18.00) It takes me three days at my fat university salary to earn that. For those on seminary salary it takes 10 days. By the time this is printed it will take longer. Intellectual isolation is a fact of life here.
The library is another area that cannot be developed on local resources. Look around the university campuses and you do not see students carrying books —they have exercise books in their hands. The libraries are archives, with key books now missing. Thanks to past generosity during the closure of River Forest and Dubuque libraries, we have a good fundamental collection. But nothing has been bought in the past 5 years. Do not mention the Migne, or computers and printers, or anything else that would make for a first rate research center. They are extravagant and inappropriate in a society that is (and ought to be) poor.
I do not put on the same level new vehicles, which are out of sight, and the food which is the most spartan I've seen in any Dominican house, since we can make do in the circumstances.
Sources of identity
The opposite numerical patterns of religious vocations to international orders in the "first" and "third" worlds will eventually put the numbers and voting power with the 3rd world, but the money will remain with the 1st. That spells conflict, which the next generation will have to resolve. Europe and America are now calling for missionaries. Obviously temptation awaits a missionary from a poorer country, but it is not so much to amass personal wealth and prestige as to repatriate funds to relatives back home and bring some of them over to the land of opportunity —to the neglect of the flock entrusted to him. But far from all succumb to that temptation.
The Communist block may soon be clamoring for missionaries, while the Islamic world will take longer.
In any place where the Church is young, in the minority or persecuted, unity with the Vatican is an asset not to be undermined by fears of Vatican centralization and mouth-shutting.
Conclusion
The new churches will continue to grow and find definition. The self-support system initiated by the Irish is bearing fruit and will have to be developed and imitated in other parts of Africa.
In the present world economic imbalance, outside support will long be necessary for any projects involving expenditure abroad. This must come mainly from the better-off Catholics of the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. Church in particular must learn to harness its resources, to shake its people down ad the Protestants know how to do. They and the Muslims continue to pump money into mission; all they sometimes need is judiciousness.
Personnel —priests and religious— will be in demand from any source. Dominicans have a unique contribution and should be prepared to spread their presence to areas where they are not yet established.