Author:

Abstract:

Abstract This paper is a synthesis of research done on the theology of the religious apostolate – to avoid confusion, by ‘religious’ I mean those Catholic Christians who have professed the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Like ‘mission’, ‘ministry’ and ‘orthopraxis’, ‘apostolate’ is a term that refers to Christian inspired action that aims to transform the world towards the Kingdom of God. However, these are not synonyms and carry their own proper meaning, context and connotations. The use of the term ‘apostolate’ has decreased since the 1960s, until it almost disappeared from the 1980s onwards. If the term is used today, it is done almost exclusively to refer to noncontemporary meanings – for example to describe the historical phenomenon of Actio Catholica. Sandra Schneiders affirms that after the Second Vatican Council, religious preferred to identify their work as ‘mission’ or ‘ministry’ because ‘apostolate’ was to closely related to the institutionalized works such as schools or hospitals that were typical for the nineteenth and early twentieth century. While this new preference for ministry is understandable, it has the downside of overlooking the theological and etymological specificities of the term ‘apostolate’. In this paper I will revalidate ‘apostolate’ theologically by going beyond its neo-scholastic connotations. This will involve first a discussion of respectively the neo-scholastic understanding and conciliar understanding of Christian inspired action in the world, followed by a threefold discussion of apostolate as (1) referring to the past – to the original ‘sending’ of the apostles by Jesus; (2) referring to the future – being sent with the purpose that anticipates the kingdom of God; (3) referring to the present – apostolate cannot be an eschatological or pre-historical category, but is limited by the past foundation of the church and the future consummation of history; apostolate is therefore tied to the history of the earthly church. I argue in the end that (1) the theologically revalidated meaning of ‘apostolate’ is not necessarily but only contingently connected to the institutionalized works of nineteenth century religious life; and that (2) the meaning of the term ‘apostolate’ is too unique and specific to be replaced by or reduced to any other term that refers to Christian inspired action (such as ministry), without also replacing the substance of that action.