The Pastoral Theology of Evangelii Gaudium in the Misionary Project of Pope Francis

Abstract

This theological essay interprets and exposes the pastoral thought of Pope Francis, first bishop of Rome and Latin American Pope, chosen from the periphery of the “orb” to guide the People of God in the heart of the “Urb”. Francis is a missionary pastor and a lucid pastoralist, who has taught theology, and continues in another way to do so. The exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013) condenses in an organic form his view on evangelization, following the footsteps of the exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi by Paul VI (1975), and the Conclusive Document of Aparecida by the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops (2007). The novelty of his pontificate, reformer and missionary, has its roots in the singular figure of the Argentine Jesuit Jorge Bergoglio; his rooting in the Latin American Church and the Missionary project of Aparecida; and in the incipient but promissory Argentine post-Conciliar theology. The author makes an exhaustive study, systematic and contextualized, of the exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, and puts this text in relationship to other texts of Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis. He distinguishes in the text two different and interrelated moments. The first one, short, presents the successor of Peter as an icon of the regional physiognomy and the pastoral reflection of the Latin American Church. The second one analyses nine keys to Evangelii gaudium: the joy of evangelizing, synthesis of missionary mystic; the figure of the Church centered in the mission; the influence of the missionary project of Aparecida; the missionary conversion for the ecclesial reform following the Council Vatican II; the Church People of God and Mother of the peoples, as subject of the mission; the evangelizing force of the Catholic popular piety; the revolution of tenderness communicated in the Gospel of Mercy; the social dimension
of the Gospel and the evangelization; the option for the poor from God’s heart.