Eucharistic Concelebration in Managua (4 March 1983)

On Friday, 4 March 1983, the Holy Father concelebrated Holy Mass at the 19th of July Square in Managua. In his homily, the Pope emphasized the unity of the Church, threatened by competing ideologies. "When a Christian, whatever his condition, prefers any other doctrine or ideology to the teaching of the Apostles and the Church; when these doctrines are made the criteria of our vocation; when one intends to interpret catechesis, religious teaching, preaching according to their categories again; … then the unity of the Church is weakened, the exercise of its mission of being a 'sacrament of unity' for all men.

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
beloved brothers and sisters,

1. We are gathered here at the altar of the Lord. What a joy to find myself among you, my dear priests, men and women religious, seminarians and lay people — gathered around your Pastors — of this beloved land of Nicaragua, so tried, so heroic in the face of the natural calamities that afflicted it, so vigorous and active to respond to the challenges of history and seek to build a society tailored to the material needs and transcendent dimension of man!

First of all, I greet, with sincere affection and esteem, the Pastor and Archbishop of this city of Managua, the other Bishops, each and every one of you, old and young, rich and poor, workers and business people, because Jesus is present in all of you Christ, "Firstborn of many brothers" ( Rom . 8, 29); "you were clothed with Him" ​​in your Baptism (cf. Gal . 3, 27); thus "you are all one in Christ" ( Ibid . 28).

2. The biblical texts, which have just been proclaimed in this Eucharist, speak to us about unity.

It is, above all, the unity of the Church, the People of God, the "flock" of the one Shepherd. But also, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, of the "unity of the entire human race", of which, as the "intimate union" of every man "with God", the one Church is "like a sacrament or sign" (cf. Lumen gentium , 1).

The sad legacy of division among men, caused by the sin of pride (cf. Gen. 11, 4.9), endures throughout the centuries. The consequences are wars, oppression, persecution of one another, hatred, conflicts of all kinds.

Jesus Christ, on the contrary, came to reestablish the lost unity, so that there would be "one flock" and "one shepherd" ( John 10, 16); a shepherd whose voice the sheep "know" but do not know that of strangers ( Ibid . 4-5); He, who is the only "door", through which one must enter ( Ibid . 1).

Unity is such a reason for Jesus' ministry that He died "to bring into unity the children of God who were scattered abroad" ( John 11:52). This is what the evangelist St. John teaches us, when he shows us Jesus praying to the Father for the unity of the community he entrusted to his apostles ( Ibid . 17, 11-12).

Jesus Christ, with his death and resurrection, and with the gift of his Spirit, reestablished unity among men, gave it to his Church and made it, as the Council says, "as a sacrament or sign of intimate union with God and the unity of the entire human race" ( Lumen gentium , 1).

3. The Church is the Family of God (cf. Puebla , 238-249). Just as unity in order must reign in a family, so too in the Church. In it, no one has more right to citizenship than another: not the Jews, not the Greeks, not the slaves, not the free, not the men, not the women, not the poor, not the rich, because "we are all one" in Christ" ( Gal . 3, 28).

This unity is based on "one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of all, who is above all and acts through all and is found in all", as the text of the Epistle to the Ephesians that we have just finished says. of listening ( Eph . 4, 5), and how you are used to singing in your celebrations.

We must estimate the depth and solidity of the foundations of the unity that we enjoy in the universal Church, in that of all Central America, and to which this local Church in Nicaragua must necessarily tend. Precisely for this reason we must also fairly assess the dangers that threaten it, and the requirement to maintain and deepen this unity, a gift from God in Jesus Christ.

Because, as I said in my letter to the Bishops of Nicaragua , last June (cf. L'Osservatore Romano , Spanish edition of August 8, 1982, p. 9), this "gift" is perhaps more precious precisely because it is "fragile " and is "threatened".

4. In fact, the unity of the Church is called into question when the powerful factors that constitute and maintain it — the same faith, the revealed Word, the sacraments, obedience to the Bishops and the Pope, the sense of a common vocation and responsibility in the mission of Christ in the world —, earthly considerations, ideological commitments, temporal options, and even conceptions of the Church that supplant the true one, are put before us.

Yes, my dear Central American and Nicaraguan brothers: when a Christian, whatever his condition, prefers any other doctrine or ideology to the teaching of the Apostles and the Church; when these doctrines are made the criteria of our vocation; when one intends to interpret catechesis, religious teaching, preaching according to their categories again; When "parallel magisteriums" are installed, as I said in my inaugural speech at the Puebla conference (28 January 1979) , then the unity of the Church is weakened, the exercise of its mission of being a "sacrament of unity" for all men.

The unity of the Church means and demands from us the total overcoming of all these tendencies of dissociation; means and demands a review of our scale of values. It means and demands that we submit our doctrinal conceptions and our pastoral projects to the magisterium of the Church, represented by the Pope and the Bishops. This also applies in the field of the Church's social doctrine, elaborated by my Predecessors and by myself.

No Christian, and even less any person with a title of special consecration in the Church, can be responsible for breaking this unity, acting outside or against the will of the Bishops "whom the Holy Spirit appointed to shepherd the Church of Christ" ( Act 25, 28). This is valid in all situations and countries, without any process of development or social elevation that is undertaken being able to legitimately compromise the identity and religious freedom of a people, the transcendent dimension of the human person and the sacred nature of the mission of the Church. and its ministers.

5. The unity of the Church is the work and gift of Jesus Christ. It is built with reference to Him and around Him. However, Christ entrusted the Bishops with a very important ministry of unity in their local Churches (cf. Lumen gentium , 28). It is up to them, in communion with the Pope and never without him ( ibid ., 22), to promote the unity of the Church and, in this way, to build in this unity the communities, groups, different tendencies and categories of people that exist in a local Church and in the great community of the universal Church. I support you in this united commitment, which will be reinforced with your next ad limina visit .

A proof of the unity of the Church in a given place is the respect for the pastoral guidelines given by the Bishops to their clergy and faithful. This organic pastoral action is a powerful guarantee of ecclesiastical unity. A duty that belongs especially to priests, religious and other pastoral agents.

But the duty to build and maintain unity is also a responsibility of all members of the Church, bound by the One Baptism, in the same profession of faith, in obedience to the Bishop himself and faithful to the Successor of Peter.

Dear brothers: keep in mind that there are cases in which unity is only saved when each person is capable of renouncing their own ideas, plans and commitments, even good ones — all the more so when they are devoid of the necessary ecclesiastical reference — in favor of the greater good of the community. communion with the Bishop, with the Pope, with the entire Church.

In fact, a divided Church, as I said in my letter to your Bishops, will not be able to fulfill its mission "of sacrament, that is, sign and instrument of unity in the Country". Therefore, I warned about "the absurd and dangerous nature of imagining oneself alongside — not to say against — the Church built around the Bishop, another Church conceived only as "charismatic" and not institutional, "new" and not traditional, alternative and, as has been advocated lately, a “popular Church.” Today I want to reaffirm these words, here before you.

The Church must remain united to be able to oppose the different forms, direct or indirect, of materialism that its mission finds in the world.

It must remain united to announce the true message of the Gospel — according to the norms of Tradition and the Magisterium — and be free from distortions due to any human ideology or political program.

The Gospel understood in this way leads to the spirit of truth and freedom of God's children, so that they do not allow themselves to be overshadowed by anti-educational or contingent propaganda, at the same time that it educates man for eternal life.

6. The Eucharist that we are celebrating is in itself a sign and cause of unity. We are all one, being many "who partake of the same bread" ( 1 Cor. 10, 17) which is the body of Christ. In the Eucharistic Prayer, which we will pronounce in a few moments, we will ask the Father to, through the participation of the body and blood of Christ, make us "one body and one spirit" ( III Eucharistic Prayer ).

To achieve this, a serious and formal commitment is needed to respect the fundamental character of the Eucharist as a sign of unity and a bond of charity.

Therefore, the Eucharist is not celebrated without the Bishop — or the legitimate minister, that is, the priest — who is in his diocese the natural president of a Eucharistic celebration worthy of the name (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium , 41). Nor is it celebrated properly when this ecclesiastical reference is lost or distorted because the liturgical structure of the celebration, as established by my Predecessors and by myself, is not respected. The Eucharist that serves one's own ideas and opinions or purposes foreign to itself, is no longer a Eucharist of the Church. Instead of uniting, it divides.

May this Eucharist over which I myself, Successor of Saint Peter and "foundation of visible unity" (cf. Lumen gentium , 18), preside and in which your Bishops around the Pope participate, serve you as a model and renewed impulse in your behavior as Christians.

Beloved priests: thus renew unity among yourselves and with your Bishops, in order to preserve it and make it grow in your communities. And you, religious, are always united to the person and directives of your Bishops. May it be the service of all to unity, a true pastoral service to the flock of Jesus Christ and in his name. And you, Bishops, are very close to your priests.

7. In this context, true ecumenism must also be included, that is, the commitment to unity among all Christians and all Christian communities. Once again I tell you that this unity can only be founded on Jesus Christ, on the one Baptism (cf. Eph . 4:5) and on the common profession of faith. The task of rebuilding full communion among all Christians cannot have any other reference or criteria, and must always use methods of loyal collaboration and search. It can only serve to bear witness to Jesus Christ "so that the world may believe" (cf. Jn 17:21).

Another purpose or other use of ecumenical commitment can only lead to creating illusory units and, ultimately, causing new divisions. How sad it would be, if what should help rebuild unity and constitutes one of the pastoral priorities of the Church at this moment in history, were to become, due to a lack of vision on the part of men, due to wrong criteria, a source of new and worse ruptures!

Saint Paul therefore exhorts us, in the passage just read, to "preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" ( Eph . 4:3).

I repeat this exhortation and point out to you once again the bases and the goal of this unity. "There is one Body and one Spirit, just as there is one hope in the call you received. There is one Lord, one faith, one Baptism. There is one God and Father of all, who is above all, acts through among all and is found in all" ( ibid . 4, 5).

8. Beloved brothers: I spoke to you from heart to heart. I exalted and recommended to all of you this vocation and mission of ecclesiastical unity. I am certain that you, people of Nicaragua, who have always been faithful to the Church, will continue to be so in the future as well.

The Pope and the Church expect this of you. And this I ask God for you, with great affection and trust. May the intercession of Mary, the Most Pure, as you call her with such a beautiful name, and is the Patroness of Nicaragua, help you to always be constant in this vocation of ecclesiastical unity and fidelity. So be it.

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