Pastoral Conversion According to Franciszek Blachnicki in the Context of the Vatican’s Instruction on Parishes in the Service of Evangelization (29 June 2020)

Bogdan Jerzy Biela

doi:10.3390/rel12090762

Abstract

Endowed with an in-depth and insightful analysis of the Church’s reality and the charism of reading the signs of the times, one of the greatest Polish pastoralists, founder of the Light-Life Movement, Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki (21 March 1921–27 February 1987) insistently postulated making the “Copernican turn” in the Church’s saving ministry. On the hundredth anniversary of his birth, it is worth looking at the guiding principles of the Congregation for Clergy Pastoral conversion of the parish community in the service of the Church’s evangelizing mission (29 June 2020) and analyze to what extent Blachnicki’s concept of pastoral conversion regarding the renewal of the parish is still valid and estimate whether it can still be an inspiration in pastoral discussions on the realization of the Church hic et nunc.

Highlights

The main burden of the Church’s evangelizing responsibility rests primarily with the parish
Unable to return to his homeland, in 1982 he settled in the Polish Marianum center in Carlsberg, Germany, and began organizing the International Light-Life Evangelization Center
An important voice in this discussion is the instruction of 29 June 2020 of the Congregation for Clergy Pastoral conversion of the parish community in the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church, which takes up contemporary issues of shaping parish life (Kongregacja 2020)

Summary

Introduction

The main burden of the Church’s evangelizing responsibility rests primarily with the parish. Despite numerous bans and harassment from the communist authorities, the Light-Life Movement has become a sociological phenomenon throughout the so-called Eastern Bloc It systematically developed (during martial law, almost 80,000 participants took part in “illegal oases” every year). Unable to return to his homeland, in 1982 he settled in the Polish Marianum center in Carlsberg, Germany, and began organizing the International Light-Life Evangelization Center Continuing his social and liberation work, he founded the Christian Service for the Liberation of Nations—an association gathering Poles and representatives of other nations of Central and Eastern. An important voice in this discussion is the instruction of 29 June 2020 of the Congregation for Clergy Pastoral conversion of the parish community in the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church, which takes up contemporary issues of shaping parish life (Kongregacja 2020)

Pastoral Conversion in the Instruction on Parishes

Pastoral Conversion in Blachnicki’s Pastoral Ecclesiology

Pastoral Conversion in the Realization of the “Community of Communities”

Edited by Bohdan