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Pope Francis

Pope Francis called the church to form missionary disciples. We've gathered some resources about his writings to guide you.

Joy of the Gospel

Fratelli Tutti

Laudato Si

Synodality

Synod Synthesis Study Series

The Joy of the Gospel

Evangelii Gaudium

Published on November 24, 2013, The Joy of the Gospel provides invaluable insights to the Pope's vision for a missionary church infused with "new joy in the faith and fruitfulness in the work of evangelization." (11)

At USCMA, we explored the document in depth during our 2022 Convention and encourage you to explore it again.

Enjoy and share graphics of some of our favorite quotes!

We invite leaders of mission to reflect on Evangelii Gaudium, a key theme for our 2022 convention.

The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus.

Joy adapts and changes, but it will always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.

Indeed, today missionary activity still represents the greatest challenge for the Church and the missionary task must remain foremost.

Each christian and ever community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel.

God's word is unpredictable in its power

The Church which goes forth is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice.

An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people's daily lives; it bridges distances, it willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.

Fratelli Tutti

The Mission of Social Friendship

This four-part study series on Pope Francis’s encyclical explored its major themes and implications for mission.

The series was recorded so you can view it on YouTube. If you do not have the encyclical, the Fratelli Tutti PDF is here.

Pope Francis believed that the parable of the Good Samaritan “summons us to rediscover our vocation as citizens of our respective nations and of the entire world, builders of a new social bond. This summons is ever new, yet it is grounded in a fundamental law of our being: we are called to direct society to the pursuit of the common good and, with this purpose in mind, to persevere in consolidating its political and social order, its fabric of relations, its human goals.” (Fratelli Tutti, para 66).

Outline of the Study Program for Fratelli Tutti:

Session One – November 19, 2020 covered the Introduction, Chapter One – Dark Clouds Over a Closed World and Chapter Two – A Stranger on the Road
Session Two – December 3, 2020 covered Chapter Three – Envisaging and Engendering an Open World and Chapter Four – A Heart Open to the Whole World
Session Three – December 10, 2020 covered Chapter Five – A Better Kind of Politics and Chapter Six – Dialogue and Friendship in Society
Session Four – December 17, 2020 covered Chapter Seven – Paths of Renewed Encounter, Chapter Eight – Religions at the Service of Fraternity in Our World, and note significant Footnotes

Laudato Si

We are dedicated to supporting all missionaries – lay, religious and ordained – in accompanying and building bridges of solidarity with all people, especially those in need.

Climate change impacts all 7.5 billion people on Earth. We are all called to be stewards of the Earth.

Read our full article below.

Redeeming Our Stewardship of the Earth By Nadia Barnett

Climate change demands radical and compassionate solutions from everyone. It’s not an easy topic to address given the vastness of its’ causes and effects. It will take a collective effort to accomplish the great task set before us: to care for Creation and be stewards of the Earth. As Catholics, as missionaries, as human beings, we must meet this challenge as a community of saints spread throughout the world.

Pope Francis clearly identifies climate change – often confused with global warming – as a primary concern in Laudato Si’, his encyclical published in 2015. “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change,” he asserts.

According to NASA, scientists “have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.” This is significant because “small changes in temperature correspond to enormous changes in the environment.”

U.S. National Climate Assessment provides an overview of their full report on climate change; “precipitation patterns are changing, sea level is rising, the oceans are becoming more acidic, and the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events are increasing. Many lines of independent evidence demonstrate that the rapid warming of the past half-century is due primarily to human activities.” The report concludes with, “climate change presents a major challenge for society.”

Stewardship is an aspect of mission. Stewardship is the belief that God created the earth, and all that is within it, and has given human beings responsibility for its care. We need to protect the Earth – our common home. Climate change not only impacts the natural environment and state of eco-systems but the quality of air, food production and access to clean water for millions of people around the world. “Human beings too are creatures of this world, enjoying a right to life and happiness, and endowed with unique dignity; we cannot fail to consider the effects on people’s lives of environmental deterioration,” as stated in Laudato Si’. “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation.” Catholics must protect the dignity of every human life. Fortunately, there are a number of individuals, groups, organizations and movements already working toward stewardship. The urgency is to not only recognize the dire state of our common home but act decisively to reverse this trend.
Addressing climate change, becoming stewards of the Earth, is a multi-layered, multi-faceted issue. There are steps that need to be taken on an individual, community, societal and global level.

Catholic Confront Global Poverty – an initiative by U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) and Catholic Relief Services – makes the candid assertion: “climate change is changing our shared responsibility.”

On March 15, 2019, the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) held a conference on Catholic Divestment: A Prophetic Stand for Our Common Home in Washington, D.C. where the leadership invited Catholic organizations to engage in a conversation regarding the urgent need for climate justice.

“Climate change is a matter of life and death for many communities around the world. [Therefore] as Catholics, we must have a preferential option for the poor [as stated by Catholic Social Teaching],” states Naderev ‘Yeb’ Madla Saño, a former climate diplomat and current executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. “It is not just an environmental problem.”
As Catholics, caring for Creation cannot be accomplished without addressing climate change. Moreover, this challenge extends far beyond those that seek environmental justice and preservation. Many within the Catholic community view climate change as a quality of life issue due to its’ impact on socioeconomically poor, marginalized people – especially in South America – and children’s health and wellness. This is an intergenerational issue. Pope Francis states in Laudato Si’ the demand for change stemming from the younger generations is a sign that we cannot build a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded. We need to protect “the right to a healthy and green planet,” states Saño.

“We are reaching all 9 planetary boundaries,” says Lorna Gold, the coordinator of the Laudato Si’ Project at Trocaire and GCCM board member, who mainly works with climate change advocates in Ireland. She stressed the interconnectedness of the issue and believes everyone, but especially Catholics, need to gain an appreciation for fewer things.

Sustainability is quintessential to combating the egregious effects of climate change. One of the solutions offered by GCCM to address climate change is to encourage all organizations to divest from the fossil fuel industry to combat overzealous use of fossil fuels and other harmful industry practices.

Everyone is affected by climate change. Each of us must be willing to act upon this threat to our common home. We have an obligation to protect the natural and human environment. We do not face this challenge alone, but together. Fundamentally, we are the stewards of the Earth.

Nadia Barnett is currently working at USCMA as the publications and communications associate during her year of service with Franciscan Mission Service, a DC-based post-graduate volunteer program.

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Contribute to USCMA’s effort to accompany missionaries as they confront climate change. A significant percentage (30%) will go to mission sending organizations. Please be generous.

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For more information on climate change, here are helpful resources:

Laudato Si of the Holy Father Francis On Care For Our Common Home (Pope Francis. 2015. [Encyclical].)
Why the faith community holds the climate key? by Catholic Climate Covenant. Additional resources on climate change
U.S. National Climate Assessment – Full Report
Global Catholic Climate Movement resources on climate change
The Paris Agreement and Global Solidarity (Bishop Oscar Cantú, National Catholic Reporter, June 1, 2017)

Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' was promulgated June 18, 2015 and we are excited to share some news and stories related to Laudato Si'.

Resources:

Laudato Si' (Pope Francis' encyclical)

Caring for God's Creation: Resources for Liturgy, Preaching, and Taking Action. (USCCB)

Laudato Si’ Study and Action Guide for Individuals & Small Groups

Synodality

The Pentecost Vigil Project is a clearinghouse for resources to enable dioceses, parishes, and other organizations to participate in the Synod.

Door #1 on their website, www.pentecostvigilproject.org is a compilation of resources.

Door #2 is for those who are not connected to Church structures or who want to speak up/speak out without entering into conversation or joining a group within their community. There is also a Facebook page/private group where those without another place to be heard may share their hopes, joys and sorrows, as well as their imaginations of what the Church could be like.

Synod Synthesis Study Series

“Safe Harbor AND Fiery Communion” is a new resource available in our Synod Synthesis Study Series. The article provides a reflection on the “National Synthesis of the People of God in the United States of America for the Interim Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod.”

Download the National Synthesis

Safe Harbor AND Fiery Communion

The US Synthesis for the Interim Stage of the Synod on Synodality

The undated national synthesis was released around the target date – May 15, 2024 – for submission to the Synod Secretariat.

The purpose of this article is to inform missionaries and mission leaders of the value of the national synthesis in light of USCMA’s response to the 2023 Synthesis Report.

The overall value of the short synthesis is a window into how the US Church has embraced the Synod on Synodality. The document is written in an accessible manner and starts with a letter from by Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville and Chair of the USCCB Committee on Doctrine, followed by a nine-page report and a nine-page appendix. It is important for mission leaders appreciate the mood – by the bishops as well as the faithful – for a Synodal Church in Mission. This support appears to be thin. Only seventy-six percent (76%) of the U.S. dioceses submitted a report to the U.S. Synod Team.

There are three noteworthy sections. First, at the end of the report, there are a few pages on the bishop’s listening session. It is a rare glimpse into the heart of these pastors. The bishops must manage various “ecclesiological stances” among their priests. “Sometimes a bishop feels he must as ‘as the episcopal referee’ among the priests.” The bishops go on to cite “polarization within our culture is the greatest threat.” Sometimes this polarization is political and other times it is theological. The bishops found that their fraternity within their province, and increasingly at their USCCB meetings, is fostering mutual understanding.

The document uses two images to describe the hopes that emerged through these listening sessions – the safe harbor of certainty and openness and the prophetic mystery at the heart of our fiery communion. It noted the importance of evangelization, the desire for active participation in the Church’s mission, the existential obedience required for “rooting ourselves in the person of Christ,” and the need to embrace our reality.

Those realities include challenges of effective communication. The Church is too often reactive rather than communicating from “a proactive position.” There is the celebration of the Latin Mass which has emerged as the focal point on “broader debates about tradition, modernity, and the best ways to nurture faith.” Catholic Social Teaching is also a difficult reality within the Church. Many are considered that the polarization and conflict within our society has led to “a denial of the Church’s social magisterium.” A third concern was the tension between being a welcoming church and the need to articulate Church teaching. How can the Church be adaptable? How do we deal with institutional structures that are so complacent they have become rigid. The sex abuse scandal has “left wounds in our history that continue to inflict pain today.”

Finally, there is a clear subtheme about the importance of formation. Indeed, the listening sessions themselves are seen as formative.

Mission leaders, and their communities, are encouraged to read and study this report. It has immediate implications on how missionary communities animate mission. How do we promote the global mission of the Church in a polarized culture in a Church that needs to rebuild “trust where it is frayed.” This new cultural landscape – both in our culture and within our church – is best understood collectively. We need to network with each other for mutual support, sharing learning, and common action. Finally, this reality will have a significant impact on how missionaries, and mission leaders, continue their personal formation, the formation of their community, and how they attempt to form the Church, so it embraces the global reality of God’s mission.

At this point, it may be good to recall the major events before us. According to Inside the Vatican, the Instrumentum Laboris for the Fall 2024 Assembly should be available around July 10. The Eucharistic Congress will be from July 17-21, 2024. After the Congress, the US Church will continue the Eucharistic Revival. The third year of the revival will focus on the church going out on mission to renew the world, which leads to the theme of our upcoming conference.

The Mission of the Eucharist: Gather. Unite. Send. will be held in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis October 29-31, 2024. The Synod of Synodality will end in late October and there will be another Synthesis Report issued by the Assembly. This report will go to the Holy Father who will write, it is presumed, an Encyclical on Synodality. The US elections will take place November 5, 2024. The Jubilee of 2025, “Hope Does Not Disappoint,” will begin December 24, 2024, and conclude on December 14, 2025.

Through all of this, mission leaders and missionary communities must embrace the moment and be faithful to our vision of a missionary Church for the salvation of the world.

Don McCrabb, D.Min.
USCMA Executive Director

A Synodal Church in Mission Synthesis Report

Resources:

USCMA Response March 2024

Synod Synthesis Report

USSCB Synod on Synodality

Synod.va - Vatican Synod Site

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Pope Francis

The Joy of the Gospel

Evangelii Gaudium

Fratelli Tutti

The Mission of Social Friendship

Laudato Si

Contribute to USCMA’s effort to accompany missionaries as they confront climate change. A significant percentage (30%) will go to mission sending organizations. Please be generous.

Resources:

Synodality

Synod Synthesis Study Series

Resources:

Support the United States Catholic Mission Association

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