The Joy of the Gospel is an apostolic exhortation released by Pope Francis in 2013.
In this exhortation, Pope Francis urges all members of the Church to be missionary disciples and offers guidance on evangelization. He stresses the importance of reaching out to the poor, the suffering, the outcasts, and the fallen away.
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Pope Francis’s proposals are vital for evangelization, including trauma-informed efforts. This article shares three lessons from The Joy of the Gospel for trauma-informed evangelization.
You can read The Joy of the Gospel for free on the Vatican website, or, if you prefer it in book form, you can pick up a copy here.
A Quick Refresher on Trauma-Informed Evangelization
When we evangelize in a trauma-informed way, we adhere to the following principles:
- When we encounter issues like addiction, violence, or relationship problems, we avoid jumping to judgment. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with them?”, we recognize these behaviors may stem from trauma and ask, “What may have happened to lead to these behaviors?”
- We understand trauma is common, recognize its wide-ranging effects, and know about helpful resources that we can refer people to.
- We take care not to retraumatize people by offering them choice and control, clearly respecting their boundaries, keeping our promises, and being consistent between our words and actions.
- We are patient with people as they struggle with faith or accepting Church teaching, keeping in mind that these struggles may be connected to their trauma history.
- We teach those we disciple how to be trauma-informed
To learn more about trauma-informed evangelization, check out this article.
Lesson 1: Evangelization Involves Messiness and Closeness
Jesus became close to people, entering their lives. He ate, listened, mourned, and rejoiced with them. He met suffering with tenderness and mercy.
We must act like Jesus so others can encounter Him through us. To evangelize well, we need to enter people’s lives, share their messiness, weep, listen, and rejoice with them.
Being trauma-informed, we see that people’s messiness often involves trauma. Like Jesus, we should listen, respond with tenderness, mourn, pray, walk with them, and refer to healing resources as needed.
Lesson 2: We Must Be Moved by the Suffering of Others
Jesus dove into the lives of those He served and sought out the poor, the outcast, and the suffering. The Church is called to do the same, opening its doors and actively seeking the suffering.
Pope Francis says we must stay present with those who have fallen away or suffer, and listen to their stories with tenderness.
When we approach the suffering or those who have left the Church, we will often find trauma at the root. We need to recognize this, know how to serve them, and know of helpful resources to refer them to.
Lesson 3: Lessons for Parishes and Priests
Pope Francis writes that parishes need to avoid becoming “a useless structure out of touch with people or a self-absorbed group made up of a chosen few” (paragraph 28). Instead, parishes need to be in contact with people’s daily lives, be adaptable, train people to evangelize, and recognize their mission as a center for missionary outreach. He writes that parishes can be a great starting point and base for evangelization. As parishes train people in evangelization, this training should include teaching them to be trauma-informed.
Pope Francis reminds lay ministers and priests that the Catechism states that responsibility for actions can be diminished by ignorance, habits, and other factors. Keeping this in mind, we must respond to those who struggle with sin with patience and mercy, without ignoring Church ideals.
These other factors can include trauma. Applying trauma-informed principles to our ministry and asking what may have happened to cause this behavior can be an essential part of this patience and mercy.
Conclusion
The Joy of the Gospel is an excellent, accessible apostolic exhortation on evangelization, and I recommend it to anyone seeking to learn more. Many of the lessons of this encyclical can be applied to our efforts to evangelize in a trauma-informed way.
You can read The Joy of the Gospel for free on the Vatican website, or, if you prefer it in book form, you can pick up a copy here.
To learn more about trauma-informed evangelization, I recommend this article.