Medellín and the "Pastoral Popular": evangelization from the base

Abstract

The article covers in an analytical way the document on the Popular Pastoral, produced by the II Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Medellín, Colombia. The Ecumenical Council Vatican II was a great motivation for the reflection of the episcopate in Medellín, which had as a mission to receive the documents. More than the letter, the greatest task was to absorb and disseminate throughout the latin american Church the spirit of ecclesial and pastoral renewal of the Council. The text shows how the ecclesiological inversions present in the documents of Vatican II were decisive and fundamental for a new relation of the Church with the contemporary world. In Latin America, Medellín besides accepting the decisions of the conciliar assembly, also adopted the method used by the Council, especially Gaudium et Spes, see-judge-act. Through the reading of the "signs of the times", the reality of the latin american countries, especially of the poor and those who suffer the most, could be contemplated, questioned, iluminated by the Word of God and discerned, to then propose a new evangelizing action. In Medellín the discontinuity of a Church characterized by a vertical colonial structure, to a Church People of God, missionary and liberating.