A. THE METHOD OF LONERGAN, PUEBLA AND STRUCTURALISM

In the III General Assembly of their meeting at Puebla de los Ángeles (Mexico) in 1979, the bishops of the Latin American Church arrived at the conclusion that they needed to plan the pastoral activities of their Churches. Consequently, their final document, which we will simply call Puebla, is characterized by the fact that it establishes a methodology of pastoral planning in the Latin American Church.

Already Pope Paul VI had talked about the need of Pastoral Planning when speaking on the Anniversary of CELAM . Before him, John XXIII did the same when addressing the whole Latin American Continent. As an answer to these suggestions, Puebla came up with the great option of Medellín, and concretized it into a pastoral planning. Puebla wants pastoral activities that are planned in a totally human fashion (consciously and scientifically). The Church must assume to herself her historical existence, the present times and the cry of the American peoples with their joys and their sadness, and always work for their transformation. (Cf. Gaudium et Spes, No. 1; Puebla, 1306).

Puebla followed a path, the path of pastoral planning which is based on the concrete reality, a reality that must be discovered and assimilated, a reality that we must ponder and to which we must give answers, a reality to whose value we must commit ourselves. In fact, this path followed by Puebla finds an analogy and certain fundamental points of contact, although not a total identification, in the “transcendental method” of Bernard Lonergan , and in the schema of the knowledge of reality of the theory of structuralism. But there also are differences. We will try to look at both the similarities and the differences.

1. FIRST INTENTIONALITY

a) The Latin American Conference of Puebla

First of all, the documents of Puebla establish a preliminary step which can be considered as “the first Intentionality”, and which is indeed necessary for action. We could call it the initial utopia. This “first intentionality” is made up of three elements:



-- Representations: The creative Spirit,
Jesus treated with respect,
The Church;
-- Decisions: “We want it, and so we desire it”;
-- Utopias: “To transform the Latin American man into a new man.
This “first intentionality” is present in the Work Document: “Intentional Answer”.

As we have seen in the above-quoted texts, Puebla starts from reality. No doubt that reality is its starting point. A reality which presents itself as chaotic and which, consequently, must be ‘organized’; a reality in oppression, that demands freedom. A reality in sin waiting for salvation. And this reality does not only belong to the past, it lives today, and it projects itself into the future. That’s why, in chapter II, Puebla presents the “Socio-cultural vision of the Latin American reality”; and also in chapter III, “Today’s ecclesiastical reality”. Remembering Medellin (Colombia), it states: “An unheard clamor gushes forth from millions of people asking their pastors to free them, but no freedom comes from anywhere.” Puebla asks: “What kind of answer are we Christians called to give to this reality?”

The “today” that is the point of departure of Puebla is full of anguish. Puebla begins with the concrete reality for, indeed, it would be untrue to start from theological principles, or from a dogmatism that would hide from us the concrete life of the men and women of the continent. It would also take us to a disincarnate practice that tries to reduce reality to principles. It would only produce a ‘reality of compromise’.

Puebla starts from reality, and that’s the way the Bible points to, the way of Exodus. God manifests himself to his people, and then concretizes his manifestation by liberating that same people from slavery. Later on, the theological reflection will emerge: on this experience, and on ‘the God who liberated’. Subsequently, the moment will come in which the people will come to know the whole reality, the manifestation of his message (the Commandments, the Law).

Puebla starts from the reality, which is also the way followed by Vatican II in the Constitution Gaudium et Spes. In the introduction to this document, the situation of man in the contemporary world is described. This “seeing” before coming to any other type of consideration was also used by Pope John XXIII in the encyclical Pacem in terris which considers “the signs of the times” as very important. Vatican II speaks of hope and of anguish, of deep social, psychological, moral and religious changes, of unbalance in the world today, of the most common desires of humanity as well as of its deepest dilemmas.

Finally, this is the structure that we find in the path of human knowledge. The reality from which Puebla starts is a human, social and historical reality. And it is ambivalent for it has positive and negative points.
-- Historical: in the sense that it is a changing reality; a history that does not only want to cater to the past, as we have seen in the texts previously quoted.
-- Social: it is question of actions, interactions, rapports, assemblies;
-- Ambivalent: in contains positive and negative factors.

b) The transcendental method of Bernard Lonergan

In his studies concerning ‘the transcendental method’, the Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan also starts from the reality. We shall see how.

In his general schema of the intelectual cognitive process of the human mind, Lonergan sets as the first step the empirical level: “The empirical level is the one we feel.” It starts from the facts and the data: “Of the knowledge of the facts”. First, there is investigation and search, which render data vailable to us. He starts from experience and the observation of the fact (careful in observing), and, at this stage, he speaks of true facts (“observable facts”).

This is the first level, the sensitive. That’s the way all men act; in the first moment of his intelectual activity, man feels the object. This is the first phase of the process of knowledge. This is the first level, the level of the experience, when facts and data are investigated (investigation and grouping).

For Lonergan, the data and the facts that we investigate, and consequently history, belong to the past. For him, who starts from the reality that we are living in, reality is “the past of the action”. Yes, there is a reality in his method, but it refers to the past of the action. His concept of history has a value of past things, already away from the present: “In an assimilation of the past consists the first search we do, which discovers the facts and makes them available.” “There is a theology “in oratione recta” in which the theologian, enlighted by the past, faces the problems of his times.”16.

c) Structuralism

For structuralism, the first step in learning reality is ‘the sensitive moment’, the perceptive moment where the phenomenon is captured. We start from the sensitive, and thus we begin to know reality. This is the first step.

We find a common element in both structuralism and Puebla: We start from reality. What kind of reality? We have to develop this theme a little more.

We do not know reality directly, but through the senses. What we know are the forms. And so we have to start by experimenting, as we stand right smack within reality, inside the action; then, from its inside we observe the second leg of this first moment so as to arrive, this way and through this process, to the knowledge of the data and of the facts, which are the forms of reality.

Summarizing, in the system of structuralism we have the first reality as sensitive perception. This way, we can say that we have here an analogy between the doctrine of Puebla and structuralism in its theory of the knowledge of reality.

a) There is great coincidence in the knowledge of the structure of reality, between the thoughts of Puebla and structural epistemology: reality as sensitive perception (conclusion at which we arrived previously). But we can say something else about reality. After having talked about the sensitive concept, we talk about the abstract concept. Both are clear in the document of Puebla.

-- We do the analysis of reality and we keep in mind the needs, the questions (What’s the answer? What are the boundaries? What are the options? Cf. Puebla, 1298); and the challenges (“the great challenges”, Puebla, 1297); “The situation of injustice… makes us reflect on the great challenge to our pastoral activity…; the challenges of evangelization” (Puebla, 1290).

-- From the phenomenona (from what appears), we pass on to the groups (Christian groups: “experimenting, observing, grouping”);

-- These groups are united among themselves, one to the other, and thus actions, rapports and interations take place (Christian groups that are related among themselves).;

-- In the various groups, we find certain constant values (such as Prayer groups), and certain variable values (Charismatic groups);

-- Among the various constant values we find the themes, from which emerge generating themes: liberation, participation, communion.

Thus, we have followed in a parallel way the path of both structuralism and Puebla.

-- the options that project themselves into the general objective, which, at the same time, can be considered as general utopia;

-- these options are illumined by some very concrete criteria: option for the poor, poverty, etc.,
-- which are doctrinal principles and principles of action;
-- concluding with the orinetations that are necessary to change the situation: transforming action.



b) Here, we refer to B. Lonergan, at the following levels:

-- discernment (converting the data into concepts): understanding;
-- judging (accepting or rejecting the hypotheses): evaluation and interpretation: hermeneutics, etc.
Of the eight operations of which he speaks in his study, we recall here:
-- interpretation,
-- the diachronics or the synchronics of history,
-- the dialectics,
-- the explicitation of the foundations,
-- the explicitation of the doctrines,
-- the systematization.

3. OPTIONS

a) The options of Puebla

From the analysis we have seen, Puebla arrives at these conclusions:

“We opt for:
-- A Church that is sacrament of communion; a Church that, in a situation characterized by conflicts, opts for the irreplaceable powers that are capable of promoting reconciliation and solidarity among our peoples (Puebla, 1302).
-- A Church in service, that continues making present in time Jesus Christ the Servant of Yahweh through the various ministries and charisms (Puebla, 1303).
-- A missionary Church that joyfully announces to today’s man that he is a child of God in Christ; that engages herself in liberating every man and all men (Working for peace and justice is essential to the Church); that implants herself, in all solidarity, in the apostolic activities of the universal Church in intimate communion with Peter’s successor. To be missionary and apostle is a condition for being Christian” (Puebla, 134).

b) Making decisions

In the transcendental method of B. Lonergan appears at this point another important similarity with Puebla: responsibility, making decisions.
B. Lonergan speaks of dialectic, of finding critical areas, of discovering what is dynamic, contradictory, of identifying conflicts in order to overcome them so as to advance towards the goal (p. 149), in order to arrive at an understandable stage, eliminating the contradictions of the matter and of its settings.
The conversion must take place on three levels:

1) intellectual: truth;
2) moral: values;
3) theological: faith.

Normally, this is a long process, and it doesn’t progress in a straight line. Basically, as states Lonergan, it comprises a change of direction.

The conversion, when experienced, touches all the conscious and intentional operations of man. But, when considered as communitary and historical, conversion demands a reflection that makes action thematic, that explicitely explores the origins, the development, the purposes, the conquests and the failings.

We can conclude by stating that we find a true similarity with Puebla, between evangelical conversion and the transcendental method of Lonergan.


4 THE FUTURE OF ACTION

The future of action in structural epistemology can be found in the so-called ‘abstract moment’

In Lonergan, there are two moments in making decisions:

a) The systematization of the doctrines: The system aims at elaborating apropriate systems, at eliminating open inconsistencies and at arriving at an understanding of spiritual situations;
b) Communication: this corresponds to action in the future.

In Puebla, no distinction was made between these two moments, but they are logically present.

In structuralism there is no utopia because by it is in itself utopia.

a) it is utopian to want to arrive at the knowledge of the whole truth,
b) it’s even more utopian insofar as we do not know reality directly but only
through the senses. What we know is the forms.

B CONSEQUENCES

It is not easy, or maybe it is, to arrive at all the consequences of what was just said here which has occupied us all this time. We could now ask ourselves: As far as pastoral planning is concerned, what is the most important thing?

1 Reflection is needed

I think that serious reflection on pastoral planning is very important. There can be no pastoral action without reflection, that is, without working with the mind, otherwise reality could be assumed in human fashion.



a) Reality

Reflection is a must: first, in order to know reality from the inside, in order to discover its causes, to listen to its deepest cries, its most profound longings for freedom and salvation, and arrive at some consequential lines of work. In other words, ‘creative denomination’ and ‘creative (transforming) action’. This is what Paulo Freire teaches us in his Pedagogía del oprimido: “The liberation to which they will not arrive by chance, but by praxis and search, through the cognition and the recognition of the need to fight for it” (pg. 40). And: “The subjective aspect becomes concretized in a dialectic unity with the objective dimension of the idea itself in the cognitive act. Subjectivity and objectivity merge in that dialectic unity which results in a knowledge that is in solidarity with action and vice versa” (Id., pg 31).

b) The addressees

Reflection is needed, a serious and sincere reflection, so as to avoid a kind of pastoral action that we could dub ‘parrot action’ (repetitive), a pastoral action that will surge above the continual repetition of stale recipes, of ready answers that are the same for all sorts of situations. Thus would we avoid the massification of addressees who are considered as simple objects of something previously known and prefabricated.

c) The agents

Reflection is needed also for ourselves, who are the agents of pastoral action, that we may act as conscious human beings, beings that even when doing pastoral activities feel and think and understand and make decisions that show that they are committed to tangible realities. Thus, we will be able to blend with our world, with the concrete reality, and face the consequences. This way, we will avoid doing a pastoral action in anonimity, inefficient and sterile, and instead produce a positive and creative one (transforming).

d) The decision

Reflection is also needed in order to give witness, to be witnesses to a true liberation, witnesses to experiencing a God who saves from slavery, a God who saves the oppressed. To believe is to commit oneself, as Gonzalez Ruiz said in his book Creer es comprometerse. If there is no serious reflection, it is impossible to tread on authentic paths of witnessing. But, without witnessing, there could be no pastoral action that can transform the reality, no evangelizing action, no announcement of the Kingdom.

2 Need for planning

The second logical and important conclusion is the need for planning. It is not possible to concretize what was previously shown here without cohesion among the various elements if there is no human layout of conscious operations to put into action. Planning is the “practical way to concretize pastoral objectives”, says Puebla (1306).

Planning is a process, not a bunch of individual acts. It is also a method of analysing reality. It possesses a fundamental structure that embraces and keeps in mind all the elements of a pastoral acivity that is incarnated in reality. It also possesses an internal cohesion in a complete and dynamic milieu of actions that tend to transform reality: basic option, general objective, criteria, concrete objectives, goals.

3 No prefabricated solutions

The third conclusion is that, after all this work of exposition and reflection, we must be convinced that there are no prefabricated solutions for any concrete situation.

In a word, we must not arrive at any conclusion before meeting the reality, the addressees, the agents. This will get us to assume an attitude of constant listening (observation, contemplation, dialogue) in order to come to know the reality. That will come if we hear the cries and try to understand the anguish; if we constantly look for answers in association with the others; if, together with the others, we search for ways that will bring us to overcome the situation of oppression and death that we want to transform.

4 No pastoral plan is eternal

The fourth conclusion is that no pastoral plan is eternal nor will be able to wholly solve the problems.

Plans are like wheels. (Thus must they be.) I believe that this is one of the deepest and most important points that we can have in reflection on pastoral planning. Consequently, we can never feel fully satisfied with whatever has been achieved at any moment or stage of the concretization of the plan, not even when we think that we have arrived at its total realization. We must always go back to realty so as not to falsify perceptions, as structuralism teaches us. Or we can consider the traditional axiom, “Ecclesia semper reformanda” (the Church must always be in a state of reform).

At this point, we should do a theological reflection on ‘the temporal’. I believe that the image/symbol of Exodus coincides totally with this need, enriches it and gives it, so to speak, a biblical weight.

5 Pluralism in pastoral activities

The fifth conclusion is the reality of pluralism. Pluralism must exist, or better, it is necessary to recognize its existence, in all its human entity. Since it exists, to accept it means to enrich ourselves with human values, to open oneself continually to the others and to different possibilities and ways of action. Pluralism must be considered at the time when planning is done and at the time of the concretization and realization of all its stages, as well as in accepting all its answers. Recognizing the changing reality, the renovating presence of the Spirit in the Church and in society and the freedom in the other pastoral agents and in the addressees – all these are essential elements of pluralism.

This way, pastoral action will be richer, ecumenical, open to dialogue, tolerant, receptive of the alien, full. More Kingdom.

C WHAT IS A PASTORAL PLAN

What is a diocesan pastoral plan?
It is not a magic formula.
It is not an inflection nor a qualitative change (Cf. NMI 20).

Each time and place has to listen to the signs of the times. Using the necessary means and through discernment, and also starting from the natural law and the Word, each time and place must confront the challenges of the times and of our society.

Programs must formulate directions that are oriented towards the conditions in which each community lives.

Within the framework of universal coordinates, the only program of the Gospel enters the history of each local Church and establishes concrete pragmatic directions (objectives, work methods) and the search for necessary means so that the announcement will reach the people (NMI 29).

Consequently, it is question of a concrete programming that keeps in mind reality (the signs of the times) and its exigencies; that introduces changes (not qualitative ones) in the ordinary pastoral activities so as to, in a deeper way, incarnate the spirit of the times; that rivets its examining eyes on some challenges that it considers a priority so as to overcome them by establishing objectives that must be attained and their corresponding lines of action.

What are the signs of our times?

We must identify these signs and analyze some of them that seem to be of a more general nature. We suggest that the local ones be individualized in loco.

a) In the civil, socio-cultural, political, artistic, national, and international area:

As the so-called ‘gods of modernity’ fall down, man feels free from ideological prejudices and intellectual constraints. This makes him more open to the values of the Kingdom, more thirsty for truth and goodness. At the same time, he feels a more mature consciousness about the dignity of the human person and about the cultural rights of the peoples and cultural interchanges; thirst for justice and peace and respect for the integrity of creation; solidarity among peoples and nations of the universe; radical changes in communication (media and internet).

Negatively speaking, we have globalization when it is understood as a basic economic process without keeping in mind its cultural, social and religious components; the pernicious economic and technological reductionism in the processes of development, which ignores the social dimension of these proceses; the constant recourse to violence in order to solve conflicts among social groups and nations -- and at the level of the world.

b) In the religious field: other religions and Christianity; other sister Churches; within the Churches themselves

The emergence of new opportunities in evangelization; the incipient interreligious dialogue; the meaningful advances in ecumenism; the new theological perspectives in the young Churches; the ongoing ecclesial renovation; the autonomy of the local Churches; the new ministries; the maturity of the laity; the witnessing of the martyrs.

Negatively speaking: the negative, developing process of secularization issuing from the postmodern concept of “the second death of God” which affects in a special way the Western societies (negation of objective truth; absolute moral license; the affirmation of consensus as the only source of morality and right); the loss of socio-religious values in traditional societies caused by the avalanche of globalization taking place; the growing number of religious movements; the growing religious syncretism; and the reaction of the new fundamentalistic movements.

1 Main objective

The signs of the times must be evident at the general and the local level if they are to establish the main objective of the pastoral plan. Through their daily experience and with the help of the social sciences, Sacred Scripture, the teaching of the Church and theological reflection, each group (community, parish, diocese) must acknowledge these signs. We can find them in the social communications and in our own activities. We should avoid acepting them passively and in critical fashion.

The new evangelization that the Church asks us to do demands new zeal, new methods and new expressions. On this horizon we must place the pastoral plan: from its standpoint we will be able to understand the general objective as it becomes concrete in the singular objectives.

The pastoral plan must be clearly defined and it must be situated in the range of the whole evangelizing activity of the Church. It must possess a well-defined general objective which has to be concretized together with the diverse singular objectives.

2 Singular objectives

The main objective has to be accompanied by the singular objectives that it needs. The latter can be considered as means to achieve the general objective. It is question of concretizing more and more what has to be attained, all the while analysing each one of the steps and stages of the process.

a) Linear objectives

It’s important to achieve certain goals without which it would be impossible to realize evangelization. Our work of evangelization will advance in a secure way through each and all activities. But it will also be accompanied by weaknesses, resistances and failures on account of the anti-evangelical spirit and because of our own human condition, since we carry our treasure in vessels of clay, and we too are under the strain of sin. Consequently, these stages of progress and revision will push us to the conversion of the heart and a renewed faithfulness to the plan and its proposed objectives. The Spirit of the Lord will give us the certainty of fidelity and triumph (“I will be with you until the end of time”).

How would our missionary action be possible if we did not possess a clear idea of the content of the message and the internal strength that keeps us faithful to its announcement? How could we do it if we were not convinced that this is not our work, and without using the means that He pointed out to us, if we would not be in a permanent state of conversion?

The same way, it would be impossible to evangelize if we did not have a clear notion that the Spirit is the soul and the strength of the evangelizing community, that he is the one who brings us together, the one who renders the Church an efficient tool of liberation and salvation of men and women, the one who sends us and guides the mission. Pentecost is not a historical fact that must be remembered, it is the constant action of God within history.

We must also be convinced that the evangelizing mission means that we must be united in Christ, and that, through our work, we want others to share it, and that this is only possible within the Church and through her.

We can’t forget in our linear objectives the mysterious action of the Church as universal sacrament of salvation. Through her, the values and the holiness that we might find in other cultures and religions become integrated (Nostra aetate, 2). The obligation of evangelizing accompanies and always urges us on, because we are disciples of Jesus, because he called us to stay with him, he who sends us to mission and to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Galilee and in the whole world. This call is urgent today as ever.

b) Transversal objectives

The transversal objectives must also be placed within the framework of the possible conditions of all evangelizing activities. But they are transversal, because they are taken for granted and are present in all and each one of the linear objectives.

The call, the sending of everyone, the commitment of each one and of all the members of the ecclesial community as ministerial community, these are categories that must comprehend the whole pastoral plan and be prominent in a significant way in its activities.

The specific formation of each and all pastoral agents in the area of the ministries that they exercise can never be lacking in the specific nature of the pastoral plan. Concrete programs must be established in these sectors.

3 Lines of action

The lines of action are there to facilitate the whole plan to be rightly oriented and to attain the proposed goal in each of its specific objectives. If this is to be reached, the members of the community (of the parish, of the diocese) have to reflect each one seriously, and in small groups, and in big groups on the whole pastoral plan in order to find and present lines of action aiming at the fulfillment of the objectives of the plan, always keeping in mind the need to adapt it to the diverse local situations.

The whole of God’s people (bishop, priests, religious, laity) do their part in preparing the pastoral plan. The plan would not be well born if some sectors did not participate in its birth. Pastoral actions must bloom out of a deep sense of faith, of a true discernment of the signs of the times. It must be the product of a responsible participation by all the members of the ecclesial community. Thus will the lines of action become prioritary in the achievement of the specific objectives of the pastoral plan.

4 Errors that must be avoided

We have to be attentive when we both plan and execute our pastoral activities.

If we have just arrived in a certain country, diocese, parish or community, a blunder that is easy to commit is the ignorance of the social, economic, cultural and religious reality of the people to whom we are sent, the addressees of our evangelizing action; ignorance of the vital environment and of the concrete addressees, of the men, women and children; unfamiliarity with their language, culture and history, their joys and sadness, their vital needs and their deep aspirations.

The second error to avoid is to want to do everything in a short time. Oh yes, we’ll succeed! But then discouragment may set in. To burst into action before reflecting, imposing on the others a certain rhythm of work, certain prefabricated programs and dynamics… instead of walking together, pari passu, to the rhythm of the people, so as to walk on common ground: this could be a costly error which we will later regret. Let’s remember Paulo Freire: he reminds us “that we should use a pedagogy that must be prepared with the other, rather than for the other”.

The third mistake could be the rupture of communion among the pastoral agents. To break communion means to destroy any evangelical project. The confrontation of different ideas and proposals in programming is good, maybe even necessary, but they must not create divisions and decapitate ecclesial communion. It would be a serious mistake, and it would cause the failure of the pastoral activities and its protagonists. It is necessary to find an adequate answer to every situation. We must find answers for the critical situations that we are confronted with. We must confront the conflicts that might break down unity and communion.

Exagerated activism must be avoided: it would lessen human contact with the addressees of the direct pastoral activities, with the people of our communities, with the laity, with those with whom we share our apostolic tasks, with those who partcicipate in the formation courses. Technical and practical aspects can’t come before the human aspect.

Finally, I will mention that sometimes we do not give as much as we could, that we do not develop enough the talents we received and do not work as much as we might be able to. We could always give more than we do, quantitatively and qualitatively. As our Founder would say, “Good is supposed to be done well”. We have to go on overcoming our false complexes of incompetence and humility, otherwise we will curtail our efforts, we will give less than we could, for the harvest is indeed abundant.


P. Francisco Lerma Martinez



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