Page 4 - 3.faith-ministry

4

Introduction

During his recent visit to the United Kingdom Pope Benedict XVI called for an

‘evangelisation of culture’, urging Catholics to respond to their ‘baptismal calling and
mission’ and become involved in a ‘public’ ‘service’ to their ‘brothers and sisters’, that
1
establishes the ‘wisdom and vision’ of faith within the public arena (2010:16/09/10) .
This invitation by the Holy Father evokes several key themes of Christian ministry

that we shall come to explore within this thesis. These are, that ministry is rooted
within baptism and as such should involve all Christians, that it is a public service on
behalf of the community and is essentially directed toward the Church’s mission, and

that it should involve a proper encounter and engagement with secular culture.

This encounter with culture becomes a significant consideration for pastoral theology
when we reflect upon Hiltner’s metaphor of the ‘shepherding perspective’ (2000:28).
We can conceive that the good shepherd not only has to be familiar with the terrain

(with all its inherent risks) upon which the sheep will pasture, but must also be
prepared to traverse it alongside those for whom they care. In this regard the specific

pastoral context that we are concerned with is the contemporary UK police service, a
terrain that is essentially secular in character. While a Christian emphasis with regard

to mission and ministry can be discerned within the service it is difficult to detect any
distinctly Catholic theological perspective. This appears amiss given that the Church

is mandated to engage with and evangelise the secular order, and the professions
(GS §54-62, CL §23). In an age where a profound relativism undermines the ability of
religion to transmit both its meaning and its message, this imperative becomes even

more fundamental (CES 2005:28-29).

In seeking to explore this encounter we require not only some understanding of the
principle motifs of our cultural environment, but also an awareness of how they both

influence the policing ethos, and come to challenge the Church. We are fortunate in
this regard that in recent years the Catholic Bishops’ Conference commissioned a

critical analysis of contemporary culture by the Heythrop Institute for Religion, Ethics

1 Homily at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, 16/09/10 (www.thepapalvisit.org.uk).