The Missionary Ministry of the Particular Church according to the Code of Canon Law from 1983

Abstract

The paper discusses the missionary task carried out by the particular Church and shows the missionary character of the Catholic Church, as well as her missionary nature on various levels in each diocese. At the beginning, we have defined the term „particular Church”.

Canon 781 contained in the Code of Canon Law concerns the meaning of missionary activities in the Church Universal, those activities that are targeted at nations and cultures. Canon 781 also instructs as to the fundamental duties of the people of God have, and all the Christian faithful to recognize the „signs of times” in the contemporary world at the moment. The most important obligation that all the members of the Catholic Church have is to bear witness to Good News proclaimed by Jesus. The canon law in question reads as follows: „Since the entire Church is missionary of her nature, and since the world of evangelization is to be regarded as a fundamental duty of the people of God, all the Christian faithful, being aware of their own responsibility in this area, are to assume their role in the missionary work”. The study is based on the publications and papers written by different authors. We have especially concentrated on the documents of Vatican Council II and the Popes' teaching. The conciliar documents are the main sources of the new Code: the Constitution Lumen Gentium, the Decree Ad Gentes, the Decree Christus Dominus, the Decree Presbyterorum ordinis, the Exhortation of Pope Paul VI Evangelii Nuntiandi and John Paul II's Exhortation Christifideles Laici. Fundamentally, we have grounded our study on the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law for Eastern Churches of 1990. We have presented our interpretation of the documents in question.

The paper depicts different categories of people who are responsible for the missionary activities in the Catholic Church. We mean here Bishops Conference, individual bishops, and bishops in the Church, the hierarchy in the Catholic communities: priests, Missionary Institutes and Laity with a special category of catechists.