CHANGES IN THE MISSION CONCEPT
The mission (Latin missio = mission) to pass on the Christian message can be found most clearly in the Gospel of Matthew: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" or in the Luther Bible: "…teach all nations" (Matthew 28, 19).
The Church's mission continued this task "to the ends of the earth" (Acts of the Apostles 1,8). The Apostle Paul went to Rome and Greece on his missionary trips; in the early Middle Ages, monks from England missionized in Germania, and in the late Middle Ages the Franciscans spread the faith in China.
For centuries, the motivation for "heathen mission" was based on the belief that unbaptized people had no access to eternal life after their death; these "souls" were saved through baptism.
This mission ideal was also the motivation for the beginnings of the missionary Benedictines of St. Ottilien: compassion or solidarity for salvation with those who had not yet been reached by divine grace.
Development in the 18th and 19th Centuries
After the loss of importance of the Catholic Church in the 18th century due to the French Revolution, secularization and Enlightenment, a renewed upswing began at the beginning of the 19th century with the recent missionary era characterized by imperialism and Eurocentrism.
In addition to Catholic lay movements (missionary associations), numerous missionary societies and institutes also emerged, especially in France (Missions Etrangères, Pères Blancs/White Fathers), but also in England (Mill Hill), Italy (Comboni Missionaries) and the Netherlands (Steyler Missionaries).
The founding of the Missionary Benedictines in 1884 was facilitated by a relaxation of the imperial laws in Germany that had existed during the Kulturkampf. With the goal of colonial expansion in mind, the empire wanted to deploy missionaries from both denominations in the protected areas.
The Protestant mission only began slowly in the 18th century, as they viewed the mission of the apostles as basically completed. However, the revival movements in Europe and North America in the early 19th century propagated the need for Christianization of the entire world, which here too was strongly supported by missionary associations.
Pietists, Methodists, Baptists and the Moravian Church and, more recently, evangelical groups, on the other hand, have always understood Jesus' “missionary command” as a personal mandate for internal and external mission. The Danish-Halle Mission (from 1706) is considered the first Protestant "organized" missionary society.
The mission was coordinated on the Catholic side by the Vatican Propaganda fide, and on the Protestant side by the World Mission Conference or its successor, the World Council of Churches. When it came to missionary work in the colonies, the Catholic Church and the Protestant missionary societies were in competition with each other, which also caused tensions among German missionaries in the mission country.
Realignment
The end of the First World War led to a rethinking in the Catholic mission. A letter from Pope Benedict XV. in 1919 criticized nationalism and condemned the "unholy alliance" between mission and colonial rule.
At the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Church fundamentally revised its understanding of mission with the shift towards "evangelization", which was enshrined in several declarations by the popes, among other things. Since then, the guiding principles of inculturation, interreligious dialogue and recognition of others have prevailed.
The role of the Missionary Benedictines has changed in recent decades. As early as 1965, during apartheid, the first Africans entered the Inkamana monastery (South Africa). The transition of the "German" mission monasteries to local convents was strongly promoted under Abbot Notker Wolf from 1977 onwards. Today, in the congregation, which has 55 monasteries worldwide, there is no longer a European superior to be found in charge of a non-European monastery or priory.
In the former mission areas, young local churches have emerged that have long since taken on the "classic" pastoral mission. Benedictine mission today sees its task as offering the faith ("proposer la foi", mission paper of the French bishops) and, in addition to working in the communities, focuses heavily on social, charitable and ecological projects, training and commitment to Justice.