Abstract. This article examines whether an unbaptized person without confessional belonging can meaningfully be described as an “anonymous missionary.” It reconstructs the development of an inquiry begun in my 2023 essay on canon 784, subsequently reshaped through AI-assisted discussion, an objection concerning informed nonbelief, and a targeted rereading of theological, missiological and canonical sources. The central distinction separates a Christian interpretation of someone’s relationship to grace, their demonstrable contribution to missionary activity, and their authorization to act for the Church. Reading Rahner alongside Bullivant clarifies why knowledge of Christian teaching does not automatically establish assent or culpable refusal. Further sources support the Church’s reception of non-Christian expertise and criticism, while historical corrections and current canonical requirements limit arguments for an existing unbaptized missionary status. Conciliar teaching on religious freedom and legislation on charitable agencies further distinguish respect for conscience, Catholic institutional identity and qualifications for particular responsibilities. The article proposes recognized nonconfessional participation in mission as a framework for examining truthful description, reciprocal responsibilities and accountability to affected communities. It leaves open the threshold between collaboration and missionary agency, the scope of particular legal authorizations, and the durability of cooperation where disagreement about faith persists.
Keywords: anonymous missionary; anonymous Christianity; nonconfessional participation; missiology; canon 784; freedom of conscience; ecclesiastical recognition.
I returned to the question of the “anonymous missionary” because an earlier answer had begun to seem both promising and insufficient. In a 2023 essay on canon 784, I had explored my position as an unbaptized person without confessional belonging studying Catholic missiology. More recently, questions about whether an unbaptized person could become a Jesuit or be authorized to use the Dominican initials O.P. brought the problem of ecclesiastical recognition back into view. The missionary question, however, reached beyond admission to a religious institute or permission to use a designation. It concerned what my participation in the Church’s intellectual and practical life could actually mean (Yin, 2023).
The expression “anonymous missionary” initially appeared to offer a way of acknowledging something that the available categories did not comfortably describe. Someone might contribute to work understood by the Church as missionary without professing the faith that gives that work its Christian meaning. Could the contribution be recognized while the person’s nonconfessional position remained explicit? Could the person be more than an observer, while remaining truthful about the limits of their identification with the Church?
In the renewed discussion, I asked which parts of my original position remained valid, which had been questioned, and which needed to be superseded. That request led to a more elementary difficulty: when I said “missionary,” was I making a theological claim, describing a kind of activity, or asking about legal standing? An answer could sound generous and convincing while moving unnoticed between those senses. Before deciding how far the category could extend, I needed to know what kind of recognition I was seeking.
At this stage, the AI offered a formulation that caught my attention: “What relationship can the Church truthfully recognize, and what responsibilities and protections should accompany it?” It also suggested that “anonymous missionary” now needed a more demanding justification. I found both suggestions interesting and asked for their theological, missiological and legal implications to be developed. The recognition question widened the inquiry to include the person, the work and the institution. Yet I continued to ask how far the anonymous missionary could go and whether the idea itself mattered. A more precise account of collaboration had opened another route; it had not answered everything I wanted to ask.
Only then did I raise the objection that made the proposal less comfortable. Why would someone who knows Christianity well work for the good of the Church while declining to become Christian? I remembered a Catholic teaching about refusing the faith when its truth or necessity is known, and asked for the original text. If my argument depended on anonymous Christianity, could the knowledge acquired through theological study undermine the explanation on which it relied? That question sent the discussion back into theology. The later return to my earlier essay and its sources would strengthen the possibility of nonconfessional participation while requiring substantial revisions to the argument for calling it missionary.
Why the anonymous missionary seemed plausible
My original essay was already cautious about law. I acknowledged that my unbaptized condition did not satisfy the ordinary framework I was examining under canon 784. “Anonymous missionary” was presented as a line of investigation, with its legal recognition still to be argued. Recovering that qualification matters: the later discussion should not make my earlier position more naïve than it was. Nevertheless, the essay attempted a passage from theological possibility to missionary identity and then toward potential legal recognition. That passage needed more examination than I had initially given it.
Part of the difficulty was present in the word laico. In ordinary usage it can suggest someone outside religious profession or confessional affiliation. Within the ecclesial framework of canon 784, the lay people concerned belong to the Christian faithful. “Unbaptized,” “nonconfessional,” “non-Catholic” and “lay” therefore cannot be exchanged without changing the question. A baptized person who no longer identifies with a confession presents a different canonical case from someone who has never been baptized. Nonconfessional belonging also does not, by itself, establish atheism. The discussion of atheists became relevant because it sharpened the problem of informed nonbelief, not because it supplied an exhaustive description of my own position (Catholic Church, 1983, cann. 11, 96, 204–207, 784).
Another distinction was already present in a conciliar passage I had quoted. Lumen gentium 13 describes people as belonging or being related to the unity of the people of God in different ways. My essay had drawn encouragement from its universal horizon. Returning to its differentiated language gives that encouragement a more precise meaning: a relationship can be real without having the same character as another relationship. The universal call to salvation does not make every person a member of the Christian faithful or establish eligibility for every ecclesial function. It does make an account that recognizes only membership and complete unrelatedness inadequate (Second Vatican Council, 1964, no. 13); (Yin, 2023, p. 6).
The theological starting point was more expansive. Rahner’s account of anonymous Christianity allowed a Christian interpretation of a person’s relationship with grace beyond explicit Christian profession. Eugene Hillman’s discussion of anonymous Christianity and the missions similarly challenged assumptions that would confine the availability of salvation to the Church’s visible membership. His argument also pressed a difficult question about the positive purpose of missionary activity if grace was already available beyond those boundaries (Rahner, 1986, pp. 207–208); (Hillman, 1966, pp. 367–379).
I extended that opening toward agency. If someone outside explicit Christian belonging can receive grace, might that person also contribute to activity through which the Church serves others? In the original essay, “anonymous missionary” named a possible combination of implicit action, the communication of values such as mercy and hope, and participation beyond formal sacramental belonging. I had described its spiritual centre through fede silenziosa, or “silent faith.” The expression promised to recognize a contribution whose significance might exceed the contributor’s own religious vocabulary. On returning to it, however, I could see a question that the attractive wording had left unanswered: what would justify describing the faith as silent? The absence of an explicit profession does not itself tell us whether faith is present implicitly (Yin, 2023, p. 5).
Several questions had been gathered into one expression. Receiving grace, acting well, contributing to a missionary undertaking, representing the Church and being commissioned under canon 784 are distinguishable matters. A theological account of the first does not automatically establish the others. Even a baptized Catholic does not become a missionary in the specific canonical sense simply through being baptized or performing good works. The question of being sent by competent authority remains. My proposal needed to explain these transitions individually. An expansive account of grace could make the investigation possible without deciding its institutional outcome.
This was why my question about the “level” of missionary identity became consequential. Theologically, the inquiry might concern how an action relates to God’s mission. Missiologically, it might concern participation in a concrete undertaking and the intentions that make that participation intelligible. Institutionally, it might concern the description a community accepts for someone’s role; canonically, the requirements and effects of an authorization. These questions can inform one another, but an affirmative answer at one level cannot simply be repeated at all the others. The distinctions began to explain why the conversation could appear to advance while still leaving the original difficulty unresolved.
The difficulty of knowing Christianity without becoming Christian
The objection I raised grew out of an earlier AI suggestion that a nonconfessional participant might help the Church through knowledge, judgment or criticism. The very competence that made the contribution valuable seemed to create a theological difficulty. An explanation based on ignorance might appear plausible for someone who had never encountered Christianity. My question concerned sustained proximity to Catholic theological study. Was the nonconfessional collaborator being welcomed as an agent of good while simultaneously being judged more responsible for remaining outside the faith? This was the apparent conflict I wanted examined. Simply repeating that good can occur outside the Church would leave it untouched.
The relevant conciliar text is Lumen gentium 14. It speaks of someone “knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ” who nevertheless refuses to enter or remain in it. The proposition is serious. Recovering its wording changed the object of the discussion: my initial phrase “knows Christianity” had compressed knowledge of a teaching and recognition of its truth. A scholar can explain a doctrine accurately, understand the arguments offered for it and appreciate its place within a tradition without assenting to it. The text required us to ask what was known, instead of treating theological familiarity as a sufficient measure of religious responsibility (Second Vatican Council, 1964, no. 14).
This distinction does not make every refusal innocent. A person might avoid evidence, distort an argument or resist what they recognize as true. But familiarity with Christian literature cannot, by itself, settle whether any of those things has happened. Nor does a deliberate decision to remain unbaptized necessarily amount to a deliberate rejection of what the person believes God requires. Deliberateness describes the decision; it does not establish the religious knowledge or culpability presupposed by the theological judgment.
The AI had identified Stephen Bullivant’s The Salvation of Atheists and Catholic Dogmatic Theology as particularly close to this problem. A note on page 147 proved especially relevant: Bullivant distinguishes theoretical knowledge of what God is supposed to be from knowledge that such a God exists. Someone may possess the former while remaining inculpably ignorant of the latter. This gave the informed nonbeliever a more serious place in the inquiry than an explanation in which atheists invariably reject an elementary misunderstanding of God. It also answered the specific pressure introduced by my objection: learning more about a doctrine does not automatically amount to recognizing its truth (Bullivant, 2012, p. 147, n. 22).
Bullivant also challenged the inference about implicit faith that had supported my original analogy. He distinguishes doctrines implicit within an acknowledged act of faith from the more demanding proposal that the act of faith itself is implicit within someone’s moral life. An atheist’s commitment to others does not automatically demonstrate an unacknowledged act of religious belief. The Christian theological interpretation of the action and the agent’s understanding of it may remain different. His criticism did not remove the possibility of a relationship with grace; it required a further argument before that relationship could be described as an already existing act of faith (Bullivant, 2012, pp. 104–109).
His formulation “Anonymous Christs do not entail anonymous Christians” made the distinction especially clear. On his reading of encounters with Christ in those who suffer, helping someone can have a Christological significance that the helper does not recognize. That significance does not, by itself, establish that the helper already believes in Christ implicitly. I could see why this mattered for my own proposal: if I called someone an anonymous missionary because I had first redescribed that person as an anonymous Christian, I might have assumed the very point that required argument (Bullivant, 2012, p. 172).
Bullivant’s constructive account could not simply become the next easy answer. He explores an eschatological recognition of Christ through the theological motif of the limbus patrum, while expressly resisting its interpretation as a new decision after death. His proposal must be assessed alongside the Catechism’s teaching that death closes the earthly time of accepting or rejecting grace. He also preserves the distinction between culpable and inculpable ignorance: for the culpably ignorant, receiving grace through works of mercy does not, by itself, remove the obligation to enter or persevere in the Church. The book therefore gave us resources for examining my objection without making it disappear. It would be misleading to turn his hypothesis into an uncomplicated assurance of later conversion or to present it as settled Catholic doctrine (Bullivant, 2012, pp. 168, 172–173); (Catholic Church, 1997, nos. 1021–1022).
The practical question about collaboration does not require that eschatological question to be resolved first. The Church can assess whether particular work is competent, honest and helpful without certifying the worker’s ultimate relation to grace. Such recognition would not erase Catholic claims about conversion. Equally, those claims do not authorize a judgment about an individual’s culpability simply from their educational level. Lumen gentium itself makes clear that visible membership without perseverance in charity is no guarantee of salvation. The seriousness of the question concerns Christians as well as those outside explicit Christian belonging (Second Vatican Council, 1964, nos. 14, 16).
A further check for this revision brought a consequential qualification from Dignitatis humanae. The Council affirms the obligation to seek and adhere to religious truth, yet also states that immunity from coercion continues when a person fails to fulfil that obligation. Religious freedom is grounded in human dignity; it is not a reward for a favourable judgment about someone’s conscience. This means that the argument for freedom need not wait for the argument about inculpability to succeed. The teaching concerns immunity from coercion in social and civil life, within the requirements of just public order. It supplies no entitlement to an ecclesiastical office and does not declare all religious positions equally true. Nevertheless, it prevents a dangerous shortcut in my own problem: uncertainty about the moral quality of someone’s nonbelief cannot itself justify pressure to profess faith (Second Vatican Council, 1965a, no. 2).
Gaudium et spes adds an institutional dimension to this examination. It acknowledges that failures in Christian teaching and conduct can contribute to atheism, and it calls believers and unbelievers to cooperate in building a better world while maintaining the Church’s rejection of atheism. These statements do not explain my own nonconfessional position, and I would not use them to reduce informed nonbelief to disappointment with Christians. They do show why examining the nonbeliever alone would leave the relationship incompletely examined. The Church’s own witness can become a question within it. Cooperation can proceed amid a disagreement that remains serious; the conciliar appeal does not confer missionary status on everyone who cooperates (Second Vatican Council, 1965b, nos. 19, 21).
What the return to the archive changed
Having brought Bullivant’s full book into the discussion, I asked for the earlier collection of books and articles to be examined again in relation to the question we had now reached. The archive was familiar, but the task I was giving it had changed. I wanted to know what my original view could still sustain after the distinctions about informed nonbelief, implicit faith and missionary agency had been made.
The return to Rahner complicated any simple account in which a newer book had displaced an older theological position. On page 207 of Karl Rahner in Dialogue, he distinguishes recognizing the Catholic Church’s claims from rejecting them in good conscience, and argues that someone in the latter situation should not become Catholic against that conscience. On page 218, he says that the expression “anonymous Christian” matters less than the reality it seeks to identify. He nevertheless retains a substantive claim: a person’s deepest fidelity to conscience can involve an implicit affirmation of God. Reading these passages alongside Bullivant allowed the dispute to become more precise. Rahner already takes conscience seriously; Bullivant challenges a further inference about what the nonbeliever implicitly affirms. I could use that criticism without treating the larger theological disagreement as settled (Rahner, 1986, pp. 207, 218–219).
The most useful discovery came from an article I had already cited. In “Theology and Canon Law,” Örsy argues that theological ideas should take shape in legal institutions. On the same page, he says that the Church should be willing to learn from wise and prudent people “even if not Christians.” My earlier essay had used him to explain the connection between theology and canon law. The renewed reading brought another part of his argument into focus: people outside Christian belonging may contribute to the Church’s judgment about how it should act. Nothing had been added to the sentence since I first used the article. The changed question made another part of its significance visible. It supplied a basis for participation that did not begin by redescribing the contributor’s faith (Örsy, 1965, p. 151).
Coughlin provides an unusually explicit parallel. In his discussion of detached normative statements, he considers the hypothetical example of an atheist who earns a doctorate in Catholic theology and can make informed judgments about Catholic belief without accepting it. He adds a theological qualification concerning grace and the particular significance of episcopal office. The passage therefore does not erase the distinction between expertise and ecclesial authority. It does recognize that knowledge of a tradition and personal assent to it are separable, and that an informed nonbeliever can contribute to understanding its normative commitments (Coughlin, 2011, p. 157). The distinction also works in both directions: a sound argument does not confer an office on its author, and holding an office does not settle every historical or empirical question relevant to exercising it. A contribution can deserve an answer even when its author has no authority to decide the institution’s response.
This altered the foundation of my argument. A nonconfessional participant’s contribution need not first be established through an interpretation of hidden faith. It may arise through historical knowledge, linguistic competence, cultural understanding, legal reasoning or criticism that is accurate enough for the Church to need to receive it. Such a person might explain why a practice contradicts an institution’s own commitments, or identify an assumption that its members have failed to examine. The claim can be assessed without deciding in advance what the person’s conscience means before God.
The earlier AI formulation could now be reconsidered with stronger textual support: a nonconfessional participant may contribute to the Church’s missionary fidelity through knowledge, judgment or criticism that the Church needs to receive. It had first helped generate my objection about the knowledgeable nonbeliever. That objection prompted the reading of Bullivant, and the return to the older collection then gave the formulation a different foundation. I regard it as a development of these sources, not a quotation from any single author. Örsy and Coughlin help establish the possible value of the contribution; the meaning of “missionary” and the question of authorization still require separate arguments.
The role of AI in this development also needs to be stated accurately. I supplied the original essay, the source collection and the questions, including the objection about informed nonbelief and the request to reopen the archive. The system helped retrieve passages, articulate distinctions and bring texts into relation. Its fluency could not establish that an interpretation was correct. My interventions changed the task: an explanation that initially appeared to accommodate nonconfessional participation had to answer a doctrinal objection, and an account developed around Bullivant then had to face the wider collection. Some of the most useful results were corrections to claims that would otherwise have made my own argument easier to sustain. The sources provided a means of testing the conversation, including its most attractive formulations.
When the Church itself needs to receive
Bevans and Schroeder’s account of mission gave this proposal a more developed missiological setting. They distinguish six interconnected elements: witness and proclamation; liturgy and prayer; justice, peace and the integrity of creation; interreligious dialogue; inculturation; and reconciliation. Their account retains an explicitly Christian centre. The elements belong to one mission, and they are not interchangeable tasks that can be detached from every question of faith. Nevertheless, their differentiation makes it possible to ask about particular forms of participation instead of treating missionary work as one undivided activity (Bevans and Schroeder, 2004, pp. 350–351, 383–384).
More consequentially, they describe mission as having a direction toward the Church itself, ad intra, as well as toward the world, ad extra. The Church needs to become more faithful to the identity and vocation it professes. This changed the direction in which I could imagine a contribution. My original analogy had emphasized someone communicating Christian values beyond formal belonging. The new question concerned someone helping the Church to examine its own practice. Could a person without confessional belonging contribute to that work of correction and renewal? The authors do not establish an unbaptized missionary category. The application is mine, prompted by their account of the Church as itself requiring missionary attention (Bevans and Schroeder, 2004, p. 394).
The additional conciliar reading both supports and complicates this application. Gaudium et spes 44 acknowledges what the Church receives from history, cultures and human knowledge; it even recognizes benefits received through opposition (Second Vatican Council, 1965b, no. 44). That last acknowledgment supplies a counterexample to an overly generous definition of missionary agency. If the Church can benefit from someone who opposes it, beneficial consequences alone cannot make that person its missionary. An unwilling critic need not accept the role a Christian interpretation of those consequences might suggest. I therefore have to distinguish what the Church receives, what a person intends to contribute and what relationship the participants actually acknowledge. Providence, cooperation and authorization cannot be treated as interchangeable descriptions.
Consider a hypothetical researcher who shows that a missionary project misrepresents a local culture or places pressure on vulnerable participants. The Church might receive the criticism as assistance in witnessing more faithfully to Christ. The researcher might understand the work through justice, intellectual honesty and respect for the community. These accounts need not be identical for the cooperation to be deliberate. Each party can know something about the other’s reasons without pretending to share all of them. Suppose, more concretely, that participants report believing access to aid depends on joining religious activities. Their reports would require investigation, including attention to whether they can speak freely. Correcting a practice shown to produce such pressure could serve commitments shared by the Church and the researcher. Agreement about the correction would establish neither identical religious motives nor the researcher’s right to speak for the participants.
Benedict XVI’s account of charity helps clarify this example. In Deus caritas est 31(c), he rejects making charity an instrument of proselytism while retaining its Christian meaning and affirming that workers should not impose the Church’s faith on those they serve. Thus an activity can have an explicit Christian identity without making another person’s conversion a condition of receiving its help. This teaching directly concerns charitable service and its recipients; it does not, by itself, settle who may be appointed to perform every task. Its relevance here is more specific. It supplies a Christian reason why the hypothetical criticism could be received as a contribution to the project’s fidelity, even when the critic does not share that reason (Benedict XVI, 2005, no. 31(c)).
Schreiter’s discussion of insiders and outsiders supplies a necessary discipline here. An outsider can sometimes hear what a community’s members overlook. Conversely, outside expertise can reproduce paternalism, and local belonging does not automatically guarantee insight. He situates these contributions within a communal process in which no individual position is sufficient. His immediate subject is cultural outsiders, particularly expatriates; applying the argument to nonbelievers requires an additional step. The comparison helps explain both the possible value and the limits of my position, provided that cultural difference and confessional difference retain their distinct meanings (Schreiter, 1985, pp. 16–20).
This leaves a demanding question about intention. If every beneficial service to a Church institution becomes missionary, the term loses much of its specificity. A technician repairing a computer and a scholar deliberately helping a community assess its missionary practice may both perform valuable work, but the relationship of each contribution to mission needs to be described. My working proposal would require an identifiable undertaking, an intentional contribution to some of its legitimate purposes, and an acknowledged relationship of responsibility. Those criteria are a proposal for analysis. They do not create canonical missionary status.
Nor would critical distance confer a special innocence on the nonconfessional participant. I can misunderstand a culture, use people as examples or mistake my preferences for their needs. The possibility that the Church should listen to someone outside its membership entails no general entitlement for that person to speak on behalf of everyone else. The relationship becomes intellectually serious when both contribution and criticism can be examined.
Historical evidence that would not carry the original inference
The wider reading also challenged the history through which I had made the proposal plausible. My original essay had presented an expansion from a predominantly clerical missionary understanding toward the recognition of lay participation. That development encouraged the thought that another extension might be imaginable. But I had treated canon 1350 §2 of the 1917 Code as though it defined missionaries in a way that restricted them to clergy and religious. The provision actually concerns jurisdiction: it reserves the care of missions in the territories specified there to the Apostolic See. Checking what the canon regulates exposed a problem in the evidence supporting my historical account (Catholic Church, 1917, can. 1350 §2, trans. Peters, 2001, p. 454).
The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law gives a more precise account. It explains that there had previously been no specific canonical definition of “missionary,” although stricter usage commonly applied the term to priests and described sisters, brothers and lay associates as auxiliaries. The conciliar and postconciliar development is therefore significant. Yet recognition of lay faithful cannot simply be treated as the first stage of a legal progression that must eventually include the unbaptized. Baptism has theological and juridical significance; calling its role “formal” does not remove that significance (Beal, Coriden and Green, 2000, p. 942).
The Korean example required a second correction. It had seemed particularly suggestive because the encounter with Christian writings and the growth of a local community complicated any picture in which mission simply arrives through an external clerical agent. Grayson, however, distinguishes the study group formed in 1777 to examine Jesuit writings from Yi Seunghun’s baptism in Beijing in 1784 and his subsequent evangelizing activity. When the Chinese priest Zhou Wenmo arrived in 1795, a community of approximately four thousand believers already existed. The history supports indigenous initiative and the development of a Christian community before the arrival of a resident priest. It does not establish an enduring missionary identity independent of baptism. My comparison had moved too quickly across the differences between “indigenous,” “lay,” “without a resident priest” and “unbaptized” (Grayson, 2006, pp. 9–10).
Closer inspection of my essay makes the correction more revealing. I had already quoted Meehyun Chung’s statement that Yi Seunghun was baptized in Beijing. The relevant fact was present on the very page where I developed the analogy. My subsequent inference did not give that fact its proper limiting force (Yin, 2023, p. 6). The problem therefore concerned how I used evidence already available, as well as what further reading could supply. Something worth retaining remains: study, conversation and local initiative before baptism can be causally significant in the emergence of a Christian community. But a history that moves through conversion cannot demonstrate a stable relationship in which informed nonconfessional participants remain unbaptized. The latter is precisely the possibility my present inquiry must examine on its own grounds.
These corrections reduce the reach of particular arguments without eliminating the underlying question. They also show why history cannot be used only as a sequence of boundaries that the present is expected to overcome. A historical example may reveal possibilities that a narrow institutional account overlooks while still failing to demonstrate the specific possibility I want to investigate.
Recognition that carries legal responsibilities
Canon 784 concerns people sent by competent ecclesiastical authority to carry out missionary work. Its categories include secular clerics, members of institutes of consecrated life or societies of apostolic life, and other lay members of the Christian faithful. The ordinary framework therefore includes both ecclesial qualification and sending. Neither academic competence nor a beneficial contribution establishes those conditions by itself. The review did not uncover an existing canonical status of unbaptized “anonymous missionary” (Catholic Church, 1983, can. 784).
Stopping at that conclusion would, however, have made the original recognition question narrower again. I had asked what relationship the Church could truthfully recognize, and canon 784 does not exhaust every possible relationship. Canon 11 identifies those bound by merely ecclesiastical laws. It should not be read as a declaration that unbaptized people are legally invisible. Canon 96 connects baptism with incorporation and the rights and duties proper to Christians, while canon 1476 expressly allows an unbaptized person to bring an action in an ecclesiastical trial. These provisions concern different kinds of legal capacity. Access to a tribunal is not membership, but it is a real juridical relationship (Catholic Church, 1983, cann. 11, 96, 1476).
The most unexpected passage appeared in James H. Provost’s commentary on canon 149. He argues that the communion qualification can, in individual circumstances, be dispensed to permit qualified non-Christians to hold an individual ecclesiastical office. His reasoning treats the relevant qualification as disciplinary and nonconstitutive and requires sufficient reason and an appropriate commitment to the office. The same discussion records more restrictive interpretations of the communion requirement. This is a serious scholarly opening for research, not an authentic legislative interpretation or a general permission supplied by the Code itself (Provost, 2000, p. 204).
Provost’s passage made a differentiated legal inquiry more plausible, but it also reproduced a familiar temptation: to let an opening in one argument settle another. Canon 149 requires communion and suitability. Canon 86 excludes dispensation from requirements constitutive of juridic institutes or acts. A proposal concerning the qualifications for a particular office therefore cannot simply be transferred to canon 784, still less used to set aside sacramental requirements. The precise function, its legal constitution, the applicable qualifications and the competent authority would all need examination. The useful consequence was a more specific research question about particular offices and responsibilities (Catholic Church, 1983, cann. 85–87, 149).
The comparison with teaching showed why this level of checking mattered. Provost’s discussion distinguishes a canonical mission from permission to teach, a distinction particularly relevant to an inquiry arising from theological study. However, the current Veritatis gaudium Norms of Application, article 20, expressly concern teachers belonging to other churches and ecclesial communities. “Non-Catholic” could not be allowed to slide into “unbaptized.” That provision supplies no general authorization for unbaptized teachers. The existence of non-Catholic academic participation makes differentiated recognition conceivable; it does not make every form of non-Catholic participation legally equivalent. Expertise, admission to a programme, permission to teach and an ecclesiastical mandate each require their own justification (Francis, 2017, accompanying Norms of Application, art. 20).
A further legal source gives the inquiry a more concrete institutional setting. Article 7 §1 of Benedict XVI’s Intima Ecclesiae natura requires the charitable agencies within article 1 §1 to select personnel who “share, or at least respect” their Catholic identity. Unlike Provost’s commentary, this is an enacted norm. Its distinction between sharing and respecting identity deserves attention. Yet the following paragraph must also be read: article 7 §2 places responsibilities on the bishop concerning professional competence, Christian life and witness, and theological and pastoral formation. Reading the first paragraph alone would conceal the interpretive problem raised by the second. The text offers evidence that personal identification and institutional respect are distinguishable within Church legislation; it gives no blanket authorization for nonbelievers to occupy every charitable role. The function, the agency’s statutes and the demands of witness and formation would need examination together. This is a promising place to investigate the truthful terms of nonconfessional cooperation, with the limits of the provision kept visible. It establishes no new class of missionary under canon 784 (Benedict XVI, 2012, arts. 1 §1 and 7).
Örsy’s later account of the relationship between theology and law helps explain why these distinctions are necessary. Understanding theological values and making institutional decisions are related activities with different tasks. A theological possibility may challenge an existing practice or justify developing a new arrangement. It does not enact that arrangement simply by being persuasive (Örsy, 1992, pp. 121–125).
This also gives a more disciplined place to canon 1752, which my original essay invoked in connecting legal institutions with the salvation of souls. The Code’s final canon places that supreme purpose alongside canonical equity in a provision concerning transfers of pastors. Its broader significance invites the question whether an institutional arrangement serves the Church’s salvific purpose. It does not supply an individual authorization or dispense with requirements simply because an attractive theological argument has been made. My original appeal to the purpose of law can survive, provided that purpose guides interpretation and institutional judgment without being mistaken for a completed juridical act (Yin, 2023, pp. 5–6); (Catholic Church, 1983, can. 1752).
This brought me back to the second half of the AI’s earlier question: what responsibilities and protections should accompany recognition? Much of the inquiry had concerned what a person outside the faith might be allowed to do. The acceptance of their work also raises questions about what the Church owes them. Canon 748 §2 prohibits coercion into Catholic faith against conscience. Canon 1286 requires administrators to observe applicable labour and social legislation according to the Church’s principles and to provide just wages. Canon 1290 gives relevant civil contract provisions canonical effect within its stated scope and exceptions. These provide concrete points of reference for a relationship whose consequences should be specified (Catholic Church, 1983, cann. 748 §2, 1286, 1290).
I would consequently investigate a written arrangement that describes the participant’s position accurately, identifies the work and any authority entrusted to them, and specifies obligations on both sides. Depending on the role, it should address remuneration, intellectual credit, confidentiality, public representation, the handling of criticism, review and termination. These are elements of a proposed arrangement, not a claim that every protection already follows automatically from universal canon law. The appropriate instrument would depend on the institution, the function and the applicable canonical and civil rules. Acknowledging the value of someone’s contribution would not itself confer a right to appointment. Once a responsibility is actually entrusted, however, uncertainty about the person’s religious classification should not become an excuse for uncertainty about the terms on which their work is accepted.
Freedom of conscience would need to be compatible with honest statements about religious qualifications. Some functions require Christian profession. A role should not be offered on the basis of an unspoken expectation that a person will eventually profess a faith they do not presently hold. Conversely, someone who accepts a defined responsibility cannot assume that nonconfessional status removes every obligation toward the institution’s legitimate purposes. Recognition becomes meaningful when its terms make disagreement possible without making responsibility disappear.
The people whom the mission concerns
The liberation theology collection introduced another challenge to the direction of my inquiry. In his contribution to The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, Gutiérrez contrasts a theological preoccupation with the educated nonbeliever with the challenge posed by people whose dignity and agency are denied within oppressive social arrangements. His question concerns how God can be proclaimed as Father in an inhuman world. He also understands theology as reflection arising from faith, contemplation and committed practice. His account cannot simply be used to erase the distinction between scholarly knowledge of Christianity and theology as an activity of faith (Gutiérrez, 2007, pp. 28–29).
This placed a third party within a discussion that could too easily remain a negotiation between the Church and the nonconfessional scholar. The earlier recognition question had made me ask how the institution should describe and protect a collaborator. Gutiérrez’s argument required the people whom a mission concerns to become part of the assessment itself. Would recognizing my contribution strengthen their agency? Would it make the project more accountable to them? Could they challenge my interpretation as readily as the institution could? The question had changed again: institutional approval and a collaborator’s good intentions could no longer serve as sufficient measures of missionary value.
The point is not that my question about recognition ceases to matter. Unclear status can leave responsibilities undefined and contributions unacknowledged. But the value of a proposed category must be tested through the relationships it organizes. A title that improves the collaborator’s position while leaving the people concerned unheard would offer a poor answer to the missiological question that gave rise to it.
A relationship that can remain truthful
I now find two different uncertainties hidden within “anonymous missionary.” One concerns whether a contribution has been recognized by an institution or community. The other concerns the contributor’s ultimate relationship to Christ and grace. Institutional recognition can address the first without claiming to resolve the second. In fact, the cooperation under discussion may be deliberate, public and fully acknowledged. Calling that relationship anonymous risks obscuring the agency that the expression was meant to recover.
The term may still have a place as an explicitly analogical theological or missiological proposal. It could draw attention to effects or relationships that exceed the participant’s own interpretation. But its use would require a stated meaning and sensitivity to the person being described. A Christian community may interpret an encounter through its faith; attributing an unprofessed faith to the other participant is a further claim. Confusing those two acts of interpretation would make recognition less truthful. The reciprocal demand also matters: respecting my account of myself would not require the Church to abandon its theological account of grace. The practical question is whether either interpretation is being presented as the other party’s profession. A public description of our cooperation should make that difference intelligible, especially to people affected by the work.
My revised proposal is that an unbaptized, nonconfessional person may knowingly contribute to identifiable dimensions of the Church’s mission. That contribution can be assessed and acknowledged without making a judgment of hidden faith its prerequisite. Its theological significance, the relationship accepted by the participants and any canonical authorization must each be established on their own grounds. I would describe this, provisionally, as recognized nonconfessional participation in mission. The expression gives me a clearer object of investigation, but it does not settle the original question by changing its vocabulary. I still need to ask when such participation could meaningfully be called missionary, and what the designation would add.
Several questions remain difficult. How much shared intention is required before service to an institution becomes participation in its mission? Which responsibilities depend on Christian profession, and which can be entrusted on other demonstrable qualifications? How can the Church receive criticism while remaining responsible for its teaching? What procedures would give the communities concerned a meaningful role in judging the work?
The question of durability may be the most demanding. Can the Church value a collaboration on its present terms while continuing to believe that explicit faith and conversion matter? Can the participant respect that conviction without allowing their work to be represented as a confession they have not made? The relationship cannot be sustained through concealed expectations on either side. Its possibility depends on how much can be truthfully shared, how disagreement is expressed and what each party is actually authorized to promise.
I began with a name that seemed capable of recognizing an otherwise uncertain position. The return to the sources made the name less secure and the relationship more intelligible. Whether “anonymous missionary” remains the best expression is still open. What I can now investigate more precisely is a form of participation in which the Church can acknowledge what it receives, the participant can remain honest about what they believe, and both can be held responsible by the people their work concerns.
References
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