Proselytism and Religious Freedom

The right to evangelize without coercion

It surprises no one when businesses seek new customers or employees, newspapers new subscribers, NGOs new collaborators, or political parties and unions new members. Yet in some circles the effort to help others discover the faith is disparaged by giving the word “proselytism” a negative meaning. We reproduce several pages from an article published in Scripta Theologica (38, May–August 2006), in which Msgr Fernando Ocáriz, of the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, reflects on “Evangelization, Proselytism and Ecumenism.”

(…) Like the Lord, who preached conversion to everyone from the very beginning of his public life (cf. Mk 1:15), the Church has always understood her mission of bringing the Gospel ad gentes as directed to the conversion of men and women. It is well known, however, that this missionary impetus has unfortunately grown cold in no few Catholic settings in recent times.

John Paul II warned that the call to conversion “is put into question or passed over in silence. It is seen as an act of ‘proselytism’; people are told that it is enough to help men and women become more human or more faithful to their own religion, that it is enough to build communities capable of working for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity” ¹. The activity of transmitting the Gospel and incorporating people into Christ in the Church can be called—and has sometimes been called—“proselytism.” But, as John Paul II observed in the passage just quoted, in some circles the word has acquired a negative connotation.

In the new evangelization

Indeed, for a variety of underlying reasons, it is not unusual for people to try to obstruct the Church’s evangelizing mission by accusing it of “proselytism,” understood negatively as the use of immoral methods—physical or moral violence, or deception—to win adherents. In reality, the Magisterium has always condemned violence and deceit. In the context of religious freedom, the Second Vatican Council recalled this with particular force: “Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered in their teaching and in their public witness, whether by the spoken or by the written word, to their beliefs. In spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with uneducated persons or the poor” ².

In the same sense John Paul II stated: “The new evangelization has nothing to do with what various publications have insinuated by speaking of ‘restoration,’ by using the word ‘proselytism’ as an accusation, or by resorting to concepts such as ‘pluralism’ and ‘tolerance’ understood unilaterally and tendentiously. A profound reading of the conciliar Declaration Dignitatis humanae on religious freedom would help to clarify these problems and to dispel the fears that some seek to arouse, perhaps in order to rob the Church of the courage and drive needed to undertake her evangelizing mission. ‘And that mission belongs to the very essence of the Church’” ³.

Clarifying the negative sense

In some ecclesial documents after the Second Vatican Council, when the word “proselytism” is used negatively, that sense is made explicit, since it is not inherent in the term itself. For example, the 1967 Ecumenical Directory urged bishops to confront the danger of proselytism in relation to the activity of sects, but immediately clarified that “by the word ‘proselytism’ is here meant a way of acting not in accord with the evangelical spirit, insofar as it uses dishonest arguments to draw people to its Community, taking advantage, for example, of their ignorance or poverty, etc. (cf. Dignitatis humanae, 4)” ⁴.

(…) Other ecclesial documents gradually introduced the use of “proselytism” in a negative sense, especially in reference to the “proselytism of sects.” At times the word was also used without qualification to denote an unjust activity. Thus a 1992 document of the Pontifical Commission pro Russia stated: “What is called proselytism—that is, any pressure on conscience, whoever practises it or in whatever form—is completely different from apostolate and is by no means the method that inspires the pastors of the Church” ⁵. In the new 1993 Ecumenical Directory, the qualification found in the earlier Directory, which specified the intended sense of proselytism, disappeared ⁶. Since then the word has often been used tout court to designate conduct intended to force, pressure, or generally abuse people’s conscience.

In the ecumenical sphere, however, the distinction between good and bad proselytism was not always abandoned. A 1995 document of the Joint Working Group of the Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches explains that, although the term proselytism “has recently acquired a negative connotation when applied to the activity of some Christians aimed at making followers among the members of other Christian communities,” historically it “has been used in a positive sense, as equivalent to missionary activity.” It further explains that “in the Bible the term has no negative connotation. A ‘proselyte’ was one who believed in the Lord and accepted his law, thereby becoming a member of the Jewish community. Christianity adopted this meaning to describe one who converted from paganism. Until recently missionary activity and proselytism were regarded as equivalent concepts.”

In any case, clarification seems necessary, for the issue is not merely linguistic but carries important doctrinal implications.

Proselytism in the Bible

As the text just cited recalled, the term proselytos passed from Judaism into Christian tradition. It is the Greek translation of the Hebrew ger, frequent in the Septuagint (77 times), and it principally denoted the foreigner who, by living permanently within the Hebrew community, enjoyed the same rights and duties as the Hebrews ⁷, including participation in the community’s religious worship. It seems that the reality of proselytes as an institutionalized category arose in the Diaspora during the Hellenistic period and involved a period of preparation culminating at Passover, before which the proselyte received circumcision.

The word proselytos appears only four times in the New Testament: once in St Matthew (23:15) and three times in Acts (2:11; 6:5; 13:43). The Gospel text most clearly expresses the scope of the term. The scribes and Pharisees sought persons capable of understanding and living faith in the one God. Proselytizing activity was in large part what enabled Judaism to survive after the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the people. Most exegetes agree—as seems quite evident—that Jesus’ reproach to the scribes and Pharisees concerns not the fact that they sought proselytes, but the way they did so and, above all, the fact that they then made the disciple “a child of hell,” twice as bad as the teacher who had drawn him to Judaism. (…)

The Acts of the Apostles describes the missionary activity of the first Christian community as following in Judaism’s footsteps. Just as the Hebrews sought to draw well-disposed pagans into the Hebrew religion, so the first Christians felt impelled to communicate Christ’s saving message in order to “win” souls for the Lord (cf. 1 Cor 9:19–23; Phil 3:8).

(…) St Augustine considers making proselytes comparable to begetting children ⁸. In any event, it may be said that in the first centuries the use of the term for converts to Christianity, and of its derivative “proselytism,” had no negative connotation whatsoever. (…)

In modern languages

As regards its current meaning in the various Western languages, virtually all the most prestigious dictionaries and encyclopedias agree in defining proselytism simply as the activity or attitude aimed at making proselytes ⁹. Clearly it is a reality present at many levels—religious, political, sporting, economic, and so on—and in principle wholly legitimate, though like any other activity it may be morally perverted.

In some cases a pejorative sense is mentioned, as in the 1986 Duden-Rechtschreibung, where Proselyt originally means a convert to Judaism and now a “new convert,” and where the derivative Proselytenmacherei (proselytism) is said to have a negative implication. By contrast, in various dictionaries and encyclopedias in other languages one finds explanations of the term chiefly in a positive sense, especially in writings inspired by Christianity. Thus the Lessico Universale Italiano states that “missionary activity is an organized form of proselytism” ¹⁰; and the Spanish Gran Enciclopedia Rialp, after defining proselytism literally as “zeal to win proselytes,” explains in a broader sense that it is “apostolic activity aimed at spreading the Catholic faith so that all people may come to know Christ” ¹¹.

On the Internet one can find all kinds of sources on the subject. Yet it is significant that in one of the world’s most widely consulted encyclopedias, owned by Microsoft and available in many languages, “proselytism” is mentioned in several articles and never negatively. Thus, the article “Freedom of Worship” stated that all citizens “may freely profess their own creed, possibly also engaging in proselytism” ¹²; and the article “Propaganda” stated that the concept was “originally connected with the proselytizing activity of the Catholic Church” ¹³. In this horizon of freedom are also found some positions of contemporary authors, such as that of a French politician who goes so far as to say that “proselytism, provided it is moderate, has been recognized as an intrinsic component of religious freedom” ¹⁴.

From all these data one may conclude that although in some languages, such as German, a negative sense of the word proselytism currently predominates and departs from its biblical root, in many other languages and cultural contexts it expresses an activity that is in itself positive. (…)

A synonym for “evangelization”

Before this phenomenon of giving the word proselytism a negative emphasis arose in some circles, Catholic authors, especially in the context of spiritual life, used it freely to refer to apostolic activity or evangelization. (…) Alongside its use to describe activity aimed at bringing others closer to the Church or helping them live coherently with the Catholic faith, “proselytism” has also often been used in the context of fostering particular vocations within the Church—priesthood and other organized ways of seeking the fullness of Christian life. This use, too, is clearly inspired by the biblical sense of proselytos.

An important contemporary example is found in The Way, by St Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, a work of spirituality of extraordinary circulation (so far, more than four and a half million copies in some forty-four languages). It contains a chapter entitled precisely “Proselytism,” in which the word is used only in its original positive sense. Only in editions in a few languages where there is a tendency to value the word negatively—specifically German and English—has it been translated not literally but by more or less analogous expressions (“Menschen gewinnen”; “Winning new apostles”). In a recent Spanish-English bilingual edition, however, the translator judged it preferable to translate proselitismo as “proselytism,” explaining in a note the positive meaning of the word ¹⁵.

The underlying problem

Using the word “proselytism” in an exclusively negative sense is neither universal nor, in most cases, the mere effect of an evolution of language. Often the current use of the term as if it had only a negative meaning does not arise because it is actually understood, against its original meaning, as an immoral attitude—violent, deceitful, and so on—but because the genuinely positive meaning of proselytism is also considered negative.

In other words, the tendency that seeks to impose the use of “proselytism” as a negative word in some circles aims to affirm a relativistic and subjectivist attitude, especially in religious matters. According to that attitude, it would make no sense for someone to claim to have the truth and to seek to persuade others to accept it and join the Church. The disparagement of “proselytism” found in some circles, especially when it refers to Christian apostolate, is closely connected with that “dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate standard consists solely of one’s own ego and desires” ¹⁶.

For this reason it is necessary to reaffirm that inviting and helping non-Christians—or, at another level, non-Catholic Christians—to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, while respecting the truth, privacy and freedom of all, is an integral part of evangelization.

In another respect, the word “proselytism” is also being used in an exclusively negative sense to describe apostolic efforts to foster certain vocations within the Church that involve a serious commitment—priesthood and other organized ways of seeking the fullness of Christian life. The motivations in this case are varied, but not altogether unrelated to the same relativism and subjectivism.

Clearly, evangelization, like any human activity, can be carried out with immoral intentions or methods—and in fact this happens in no few non-Catholic and non-Christian sects. But it would be a grave historical falsehood to claim that this has been frequent in the Church. The true Christian spirit has always been shaped by charity, as St Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer expressed it: “I do not understand violence. It seems to me fit neither to convince nor to conquer. Error is overcome by prayer, by God’s grace, and by study; never by force, always by charity” ¹⁷.

Moreover, the possibility—and the reality in some sects—of morally improper proselytism does not justify attributing a negative meaning to the term itself.

Indeed, consistency would lead us to use “proselytism,” without any adjective, for its original positive meaning, and instead to qualify it when referring to a blameworthy activity—for example, “negative proselytism,” “sectarian proselytism,” or “violent proselytism”—unless the context clearly makes this unnecessary.

Notes

1. John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptoris missio, 7 December 1990, no. 46. ↩
2. Second Vatican Council, Declaration Dignitatis humanae, no. 4. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptoris missio, no. 55. ↩
3. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 1994, p. 127. ↩
4. Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, Ecumenical Directory, 14 May 1967, no. 28, note 15: AAS 59 (1967), 584. ↩
5. Pontifical Commission pro Russia, L’Église a reçu, 1 June 1992, no. 3: EV 13, 1822. ↩
6. Cf. Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, 25 March 1993, no. 23, note 41: AAS 85 (1993), 1048. ↩
7. Cf. K. G. Kuhn, “proselytos,” in Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Italian ed., Brescia, 1980, XI, 303. ↩
8. Cf. St Augustine, Contra Faustum, 16, 29: PL 42, 336. ↩
9. For example: in Italian, Lessico Universale Italiano (1977), Grande Dizionario Enciclopedico (1990); in Spanish, Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lengua Española (2001), Enciclopedia Espasa and Gran Enciclopedia Rialp; in English, Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1972) and The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1992). ↩
10. Lessico Universale Italiano, XVII, 742. ↩
11. J. A. García-Prieto, “Proselitismo,” Gran Enciclopedia Rialp, 19, 268. ↩
12. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (2001), article “Freedom of Worship.” ↩
13. Ibid., article “Propaganda.” ↩
14. N. Sarkozy, La république, les religions, l’espérance, Cerf, Paris, 2004, p. 153. ↩
15. A. Byrne (ed.), J. Escrivá: Camino. The Way. An Annotated Bilingual Edition, Scepter, London, 2001, p. 273; cf. also P. Rodríguez, J. Escrivá de Balaguer: Camino. Edición crítico-histórica, Rialp, Madrid, 2002, pp. 864–865. ↩
16. J. Ratzinger, Homily at the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice, 18 April 2005. ↩
17. St Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá, no. 44. ↩