Mission of the Redeemer

The encyclical 'on the permanent validity of the Church's missionary mandate', dated 7 December 1990, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's decree on missionary activity, Ad Gentes. John Paul II opens by observing that, as the second millennium ends, the mission of Christ entrusted to the Church is still only beginning. Its eight chapters move from doctrine to practice: Jesus Christ as the only Saviour; the Kingdom of God and its relation to Christ and the Church; the Holy Spirit as the principal agent of mission; the 'vast horizons' of the mission ad gentes, distinguished from pastoral care and from the re-evangelization of lapsed Christians; the paths of mission, including witness, proclamation, inculturation, interreligious dialogue and the promotion of development; the people who carry it out; cooperation in missionary activity; and missionary spirituality. It answers the question, which it states itself, whether missionary work among non-Christians has been replaced by interreligious dialogue or by human development.