Monseñor Eduardo F.

Pironio – Reflexiones pastorales sobre

el hombre nuevo en América Latina (Buenos Aires: Editora
Patria Grande, 1974)

Epigraph: “El que está en Cristo es una nueva creación; pasó lo viejo, todo es
nuevo” (2 Corinthians: 5, 17)
[“He who is in Christ is a new creation; the old passed, all is new” or (King
James) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are
passed away; behold, all things have become new”]

Introduction (pp.9-21)
p.11
‘Latin America today feels the responsibility of “its hour”: the hour of the cross
and of hope, of deep aspirations of its peoples and of the particular presence
of the Lord, of the search for justice and of the unbreakable communion of the
Spirit. The hour of Easter! It is living it providentially from the essentially
religious and salvific event of Medellín.
The Church in Latin America today

12
experiences a concrete demand of the Holy Spirit: the urgency of a profound
conversion for the realisation of true liberation, in Christ, is formed within the
new man and brings structural change’.
‘The “new man” is the fruit of Christian liberation; it is concrete, the term of the
liberating action of Jesus in his death and in his resurrection’

14
‘Evangelisation, Reconciliation, New Man: they are the three pressing
requirements of man and the three manifestations of the profound action of
the Spirit in us’
‘The theme of the “new man” – analysed from faith in the current historical
context of Latin America – is

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essentially related with three things:
 a) the very global reality of the Continent (the socio-economic and political
situation, the cultural and religious situation of man and of the Latin
American peoples

[…]

The new Christian man is always located – from the transforming

efficacy of faith – in a concrete social and political world, before
determinate men who make history.

[…]

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b) The Paschal Mystery of Christ: Incessantly lived in history and
sacramentally made present in the Church

17
c) Conversion (metanoia). The new man emerges from interior change. It
is necessary

18
to “shed” the old and “summon” the new’

‘To talk of the new man in Latin America is to talk of the dynamic process that
the Church is living today in the Continent. It is to describe an important
chapter of the history of salvation that moves us to write it ourselves. Not as
simple spectators but as active protagonists internally moved by the Spirit of
God’

21
Chapter 1 – El hombre nuevo cristiano

23
‘The new man is born “in the flesh” but lives “according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8,
5; Gal. 5, 16). It is realised in history, but it transcends it’

 Here Pironio is attempting a theological definition of the concept of the

“new man”, one that cannot be reduced to material processes/history
‘It is only possible to understand this […] from faith. Only from faith can we
completely penetrate the mystery of man, manage to understand his profound
aspirations and fulfil them’

 According to Pironio, Christian faith is endowed with a privileged

knowledge that allows a full understanding of humanity and the ability
to fulfil humanity’s true desires

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a) Cristo, el Hombre Nuevo
‘Christ is the New Man par excellence, principle of the new creation’
‘Christ now constitutes the true place of encounter for men. In Him all eras are
united, in Him all generations coincide, in Him all social barriers of race,
culture ad the diverse categories of life are brought down [derriban]’
‘The new man is he who has the ability to recreate and make anew all things.
This Christ does after the Resurrection’

‘But the Paschal Mystery points us to Christ the New Man from another optic:
with his death on the cross – spontaneously giving his life in order to take it up
again’

25
‘Christ undertakes “through his blood” reconciliation (Col. 1, 20) and unity’
‘The death of Christ on the cross – his glorification (J. 12, 23) – opens the
path for us to a new creation. It is the defeat of the ultimate enemy that
oppresses us: death’

 Here Pironio explores the idea of unity and what is overcome through
liberation – it is not a liberation from other men but the cult of death that
is imposed on the oppressed