New Evangelization needed to answer crisis of secularism, Pope says
May 30, 2011
Meeting on May 30 with the staff of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI said that their work is needed in response to "the crisis we are living through."
"The mission hasn't changed," the Holy Father told the members of the newly created Pontifical Council. The Church is always dedicated to spreading the Gospel. But today that mission calls for "a new way of evangelizing," in light of the damage done by secularization, which has "left deep scars on even traditionally Christian countries."
The crisis of secularism, the Pope continued, has produced in many societies "the exclusion of God from people's lives, a general indifference towards the Christian faith, an attempt to marginalize it from public life." In countries once formed on the basis of a Christian heritage, he said, "we are witnessing the tragedy of a fragmentation which no longer allows for a unifying reference point."
To answer the challenge, the Pope said, after long reflection he decided to create the new Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, which is now headed by Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella. He encouraged the group to recognize the urgency of its work: to "revive the missionary spirit."
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- Enthusiasm and Courage Give Start to Proclaiming Christ (VIS)
- New Evangelization: Christians who are credible in what they say and do
Evangelism is constant mission of the Church, Pope tells Sunday audienceMay 30, 2011
At his midday audience on Sunday, May 29, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the Church's mission to evangelize the world, and contrasted that effort with worldly attempts to gain power.
"While the powerful tried to conquer new lands for political and economic reasons, the messengers of Christ went everywhere for the purpose of bringing Christ to people and people to Christ," the Pope said. Pope Benedict was commenting on the day's reading from the Acts of the Apostles, about Philip's arrival in Samaria. "There was great joy in that city," the account relates. Those words, the Pontiff observed, convey the impact of evangelical work, which brings "true joy, because wherever the Gospel reaches, there life flourishes."
Proclaiming the Gospel is always the mission of the faithful, the Pope said. He pointed to different models for evangelical work, including St. Charles Borromeo, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Blessed John Paul II.
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CATHOLICISM MEANS MARIAN CHARACTER
The Pope recalled that when he entered the seminary, Europe was going through "a dark age. It was a time of war. One after the other, Hitler had subjugated Poland, Denmark, Benelux, and France. In April of 1941 ... he had occupied Yugoslavia and Greece. It seemed that the continent was in the hands of this power that, at the same time, put the future of Christianity in doubt. We had been admitted to the Congregation but shortly thereafter the war against Russia began. The seminary was dissolved and, before it was able to reassemble, the congregation was scattered to the four winds".
That is why, the pontiff continued, his entry in the "Mariä Verkündigung" was not "an 'exterior fact', but it stayed with me as 'an interior fact' because it had always been clear that Catholicism could not exist without a Marian character, that being Catholic meant belonging to Mary".
"Here, through the bishops' ad limina visits", the Holy Father commented, "I constantly sense how people - especially those in Latin America but in other continents as well - can entrust themselves to the Mother; how they can love the Mother and, through the Mother, can then learn to love Christ. I sense how the Mother continues to give birth to Christ; how Mary continues to say 'yes' and to bring Christ to the world".
"Mary is the great believer. She has taken up Abraham's mission of belief and made Abraham's faith into concrete faith in Jesus Christ, thus showing us all the way of faith, the courage to entrust ourselves to the God who puts Himself in our hands, the joy of being His witnesses. Then she shows us the determination to remain fast when all others have fled, the courage to remain at the Lord's side when he seems lost and thus to bear the witness that led to His Passion".
"I am thus very grateful", the Pope concluded, "to know that in Bavaria there are approximately 40,000 congregants; that still today there are men who, together with Mary, love the Lord. Men who, through Mary, are learning to know and to love the Lord and who, like her, bear witness to the Lord in difficult times as well as happy ones; who remain with Him under the Cross and who continue to live the Passion joyfully together with Him. Thank you all for continuing to hold this witness high, so that we might know that there are Catholic Bavarian men and members of the congregation who continue along the path initiated by the Jesuits in the XVI century and who continue to demonstrate that faith doesn't belong to the past but always opens itself to 'today' and especially to 'tomorrow'".
