A few weeks ago I met an American Catholic priest who had grown up Presbyterian. When he decided to enter the Catholic Church, he joined the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. He is the first diocesan priest of the missionary Syro-Malabar diocese of Rajkot in India’s Gujarat state.
Perhaps you might be thinking, “Shouldn’t a Presbyterian who wants to become a Catholic join the Roman Catholic Church? How can he join the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church?”
You may even have a more subtle question in mind, “Why does the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church have a missionary diocese? Isn’t missionary work the job of the Roman Catholic Church?”
Even though “missionary work” has a fairly modern ring to it, it refers to the perennial outreach of the church — to spread the Good News throughout the world, to all places, peoples, and times.
From the days when the apostles traveled from Iberia to India, Christians have sought to share the good they possess with those who do not know of it. Sometimes this has a political dimension as well. When “Christian” countries promoted the spread of Christianity, it often included colonial expansion.
Ancient Persian resistance to Christianity, the imperial state religion, was, in part, resistance to the Byzantine state. When Spain and Portugal settled the New World, conquest and conversion went hand in hand.
European colonialism brought Christianity to many parts of Africa, but it is only in our day that African Christianity is beginning to lose its European associations.
Indians still think of Christianity as a Western religion because of the British Raj — and the Portuguese before them — even though St. Thomas brought the Gospel to India in the first century, before it reached Britain.
There is still a little bit of that European colonial mentality clouding thinking about the mission of the church and about its work of evangelization.
That modern colonial expansion was begun by Western European countries, traditionally Roman Catholic, does not mean missionary outreach is an exclusive prerogative of the Roman Catholic Church.
Every part of the one church of Christ has an obligation to spread the faith. The Catholic family of churches includes the Western and 21 Eastern churches. Just as there are many churches, there are many missionary works. We each try to share what we have and know best.
The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome supports the work of the church in “mission countries” — but, with the possible exceptions of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and India, the support is usually perceived as support for the outreach of the Roman Catholic Church.
So, it is understandable to be surprised to hear about an American Presbyterian who decided to become a Syro-Malabar Catholic missionary priest. His choice, and his life, challenges our thinking.
The Gospel is not constrained by any one country — or branch of the Church.
(An earlier version
published in
CNEWA World, 29:5, September 2003)