Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco recently made a declaration that the Catholic Church in Algeria exists to foster fraternity with Muslims rather than seek their conversion. “We are the Church of this people,” he said—“not a proselytizing Church, not a Church that is there to convert, but a Church that aspires to be one of the components of this people.” His remarks raise a serious theological question concerning the purpose for which Jesus Christ established his Church and entrusted it with the salvation of souls.
Bishop Robert Barron responded by invoking Christ’s command in Matthew 28:19 to make disciples of all nations. “If I really thought,” Barron concluded, “that the Church does not exist to bring people to Christ, then I would resign and get an honest job.”
The Catholic Church possesses a divinely instituted missionary identity; its essential purpose is the proclamation of Jesus Christ for the conversion and eternal salvation of humanity. Consequently, any insinuation that evangelization is dispensable must be corrected. The Church derives her missionary obligations directly from the commission and authority of her divine founder. Christ commanded his Church to make disciples of every nation through baptism and instruction, establishing a universal missionary mandate. Its binding authority extends throughout human history and across every political boundary until his return.
Furthermore, the Greek expression mathēteusate panta ta ethnē explicitly commands the making of disciples literally among all nations. That identifies conversion and incorporation into Christ’s covenantal family as an essential dimension of the Church’s apostolic commission.
The universality of this command is even more significant when considering Christianity’s earliest expansion throughout territories governed by political authorities who frequently regarded Christian conversion as a direct challenge to established religious institutions, one often resulting in the execution of Christians. Yet the earliest Christians proclaimed the gospel throughout the Roman Empire despite encountering imprisonment, social hostility, and martyrdom, because their apostolic conviction rested upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his universal sovereignty, and the recognition of salvation to be found only in Him.
Saint Paul gut-wrenchingly declared in 1 Corinthians 9:16 that divine necessity compelled his preaching, and that failing to proclaim the gospel would constitute a profound betrayal of his apostolic vocation.
The Church’s entire missionary identity is a result of the saving mission of Christ. Hence, it possesses an enduring theological significance that transcends any fluctuating political circumstances confronting Christian communities throughout the world. Pope Paul VI, in Evangelii Nuntiandi, declared that evangelization constitutes the Church’s “deepest identity” and explained that the Church exists precisely to proclaim Christ and communicate divine grace (14).
Cardinal Vesco subsequently doubled down on his position, invoking the interreligious labor of Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI:
The Church that gives life to me is the Church of Saint John Paul II and the interreligious declaration of Assisi, whose 40th anniversary was celebrated in recent days and which Pope Leo had planned to attend; the Church of Pope Benedict, who, together with Cardinal Tauran, developed more ties with the Muslim world than any pope before him; the Church of Pope Francis, with the Abu Dhabi Declaration on Human Fraternity, signed with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar on February 4, 2019; and the Church of Pope Leo, with his visit to Algeria and his silent prayer at the Great Mosque of Algiers, shoulder to shoulder with the rector.
“I believe that the believers of the three monotheistic religions,” Vesco wrote, “have better things to do than to seek to convert one another.”
But the pontiffs Vesco invokes would disagree with his position. Addressing the interreligious gathering at Assisi in 1986, John Paul II explicitly declared, “The fact that we have come here does not imply any intention of seeking a religious consensus among ourselves or of negotiating our faith convictions. Neither does it mean that religions can be reconciled at the level of a common commitment in an earthly project which would surpass them all. Nor is it a concession to relativism in religious beliefs.” Pope Benedict XVI affirmed the Church’s permanent missionary obligation in his apostolic letter Ubicumque et Semper:
It is the duty of the Church to proclaim always and everywhere the Gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . Faithful to [his] mandate, the Church . . . has never tired of making known to the whole world the beauty of the gospel as it preaches Jesus Christ, true God and true man. . . . Hence the mission of evangelization, a continuation of the work desired by the Lord Jesus, is necessary for the Church: it cannot be overlooked; it is an expression of her very nature.
Consequently, Vesco’s invocation of these pontiffs in abandoning the pursuit of conversion is objectively incompatible with their explicit magisterial teaching. Indeed, the Church simply cannot surrender the missionary mandate of its divine founder merely because contemporary religious sensitivities make the proclamation of his exclusive salvific lordship socially uncomfortable or inconvenient.
Similarly, Evangelii Nuntiandi 5 teaches,
The presentation of the gospel message is not an optional contribution for the Church. It is the duty incumbent on her by the command of the Lord Jesus, so that people can believe and be saved. This message is indeed necessary. It is unique. It cannot be replaced. It does not permit either indifference, syncretism or accommodation. It is a question of people’s salvation. . . . It is truth. It merits having the apostle consecrate to it all his time and all his energies, and to sacrifice for it, if necessary, his own life.
If this is true, and we believe that it is, then the Church’s missionary activity is rightly an indispensable expression of Christian charity. Authentic Christian love necessarily desires that every human person encounter the divine Redeemer through whom eternal salvation becomes possible, and to convert his whole life to love and serve Christ.
The Church’s canonical legislation reinforces this obligation. Canon 781 explicitly declares that “the whole Church is by its nature missionary” and identifies evangelization as a fundamental responsibility belonging to every Christian. Canon 782 §2 even requires individual bishops to demonstrate special solicitude for missionary activity through initiating and sustaining evangelizing endeavors within their respective particular churches. Canon 783 similarly declares a particular missionary obligation for members of consecrated institutes because their religious consecration dedicates their lives to the service of Christ and his Church. These canonical provisions demonstrate that the activity of evangelization and converting souls belongs to the essential responsibilities of Catholic ecclesiastical life and therefore requires deliberate pastoral commitment from those entrusted with spiritual authority.
Paragraph 904 of the Catechism further explains that Christ exercises his prophetic office, through the clergy and laity alike, by granting believers the supernatural assistance necessary, precisely for their participation in proclaiming divine revelation. The following paragraph points out that evangelization through spoken proclamation and personal testimony as an essential expression of the lay apostolate within the ordinary circumstances of human society, and that personal witness of life alone is insufficient. Contrary to public sentiment, Christians are actually called to actively seek opportunities for announcing Jesus Christ in word.
One core issue is that most Muslim-majority nations do not possess genuine religious liberty, which would provide more favorable conditions for evangelization. Yet, even where religious liberty is lacking, the commission of the proclamation of the gospel for conversion is unchanging. Prudential discernment is to be ordered to fulfilling that proclamation of Jesus Christ to evangelize.
In Algeria, it may be acknowledged that the history of French colonial rule influences Christian-Muslim relations and consequently requires specific pastoral prudence in the work of evangelization. The martyrdom of the Trappist monks of Tibhirine in 1996 demonstrates the precariousness that Christians face amid Algeria’s turbulent religious and political milieu.
As one who moved from Malaysia, where evangelizing or converting Muslims is strictly prohibited and could render immense personal harm, I will be the first to understand that evangelization requires prudent discernment concerning personal security. Christian missionaries do forewarn converts that their religious decisions may expose them to severe familial and governmental persecution and even death. Yet Christians must remain unwavering in proclaiming the gospel amid dangerous circumstances, as we must never surrender the Church’s fundamental evangelical purpose.
A life without explicit knowledge of Jesus Christ represents the greatest poverty the soul will ever know. It is a dire and urgent missionary concern for Christians; the fullness of divine revelation has been entrusted to the Church precisely for the eternal salvation of every human person.
Saint Francis of Assisi traveled to Egypt in 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, and personally approached Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil. Francis was compelled by missionary zeal to proclaim Christ, even in an arena profoundly hostile to Christianity. To the cardinal’s concern, Francis’s life demonstrates that genuine respect for another person can, in fact, coexist with the sincere desire for that person’s conversion to Christ.
The truly charitable Christian seeks the eternal salvation of the soul before him. As John Paul II once exhorted the Church, “proclamation is the permanent priority of mission. The Church cannot elude Christ’s explicit mandate, nor deprive men and women of the ‘good news’ about their being loved and saved by God. Evangelization will always contain—as the foundation, center, and at the same time the summit of its dynamism—a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ . . . salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy” (Redemptoris Missio 44).
Hence, with profound respect for Cardinal Vesco’s episcopal office and the circumstances confronting his flock, I sincerely stand with divine revelation and the wisdom of the Magisterium across millennia: genuine fraternity with Muslims must by necessity include our willingness to offer them the greatest treasure Christianity possesses, which is to say the explicit proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the conversion and salvation of their souls. The proclamation of his gospel is one of the highest expressions of Christian charity.
As one who grew up among Muslims, I am grateful for Catholic media in the United States that evangelized and converted my soul to salvation in Christ. That decision has brought my entire family to the fullness of the Catholic faith. So I personally thank our Lord that his Church exists to evangelize, because every soul is hungry to encounter the Savior who died and rose again for our salvation.