At 12:15pm today, in the Consistory Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the participants in the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am happy to be able to receive you at the conclusion of your Plenary Session which has committed you to a theme that is of great importance for the life of the Church: the relationship between evangelization and catechesis. I am also happy to welcome the members of the International Council for Catechesis, which from now on will enjoy an integral place in your Dicastery. I thank His Excellency, Rino Fisichella for the initial greeting and, together with him, I thank all the members of the Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization which is committed to the preparation of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: a Holy Year which I have confided to you so that you might make more evident the fact that the gift of mercy is to be proclaimed and that the Church is called to pass on this good news in her work of evangelization, especially in this time of great change.
These very changes are a happy challenge to recognize the signs of the times that the Lord offers to the Church so that she is capable - as she has been capable of doing during the past two thousand years - of bringing Jesus Christ to men and women of our time. The mission is still the same, but the language with which the gospel is proclaimed needs to be renewed with pastoral wisdom. This is essential in order that the message might be understood by our contemporaries, and in order that the Catholic Traditions might speak to the culture of today's world and help it to aspire to the perennial fruitfulness of Christ's message. These are very challenging times, which we should not be afraid to make our own. In fact, only in the measure to which we are willing to care for others will we be able to offer coherent responses that have been elaborated upon in the light of the gospel. This is what people expect from the Church today: that she be able to walk with them offering the company of the witness of faith, which renders one united with all, in particular with those who are most alone and marginalized. How many poor – including those who are poor in faith – await the Gospel that liberates! How many men and women, in the existential peripheries generated by the consumer, atheist society, await our closeness and our solidarity! The Gospel is the proclamation of the love of God that, in Jesus Christ, calls us to participate in his life. Hence, the New Evangelization is this: to be aware of the merciful love of the Father so that we also become instruments of salvation for our brothers.
This awareness, which is sowed in the heart of every Christian from the day of his Baptism, calls for growth, together with the life of grace in order to bear much fruit. The great topic of catechesis is inserted here as the space within which the life of Christians matures because it experiences the mercy of God. Not an abstract idea of mercy, but a concrete experience through which we understand our weakness and the strength that comes from on high. It is good that the daily prayer of the Church begins with these words: Be pleased, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! (Psalm 70:2). The help we invoke is already the first step of God’s mercy toward us. He comes to save us from the condition of weakness in which we live. And his help consists in making us grasp his presence and his closeness. Touched by his compassion, day by day we can also become compassionate to all (Misericordiae Vultus, 14).
The Holy Spirit, who is the protagonist of evangelization, is also the architect of the growth of the Church in understanding the truth of Christ. It is He who opens the hearts of believers and transforms them, so that the forgiveness received can become an experience of love for our brothers. It is always the Spirit that opens the minds of Christ’s disciples to understand in greater depth the commitment required and the ways with which to give weight and credibility to the testimony. We are in such need of the Spirit, to open our minds and our hearts.
Therefore, the question about how we are educating in the faith is not rhetorical but essential. The answer calls for courage, creativity and determination to undertake ways that have yet to be explored. Catechesis, as a component of the process of evangelization, needs to go beyond the simple scholastic sphere to educate believers from the time of childhood, to encounter Christ, alive and working in his Church. It is the encounter with Him that arouses the desire to know him better and then to follow him: to become his disciples. Therefore, the challenge of the New Evangelization and of catechesis is in fact staked on this fundamental point: how to encounter Christ, and what is the most coherent place to find Him and follow Him.
I assure you of my closeness and my support in this very urgent task for our communities. I entrust you to the Virgin Mother of Mercy; may her support and her intercession help you in this exacting task. I bless you with all my heart and please, I ask you to pray for me.
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to participants in the
Plenary of the Pontifical Council for the
Promotion of the New Evangelization
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am happy to be able to receive you at the conclusion of your Plenary Session which has committed you to a theme that is of great importance for the life of the Church: the relationship between evangelization and catechesis. I am also happy to welcome the members of the International Council for Catechesis, which from now on will enjoy an integral place in your Dicastery. I thank His Excellency, Rino Fisichella for the initial greeting and, together with him, I thank all the members of the Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization which is committed to the preparation of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy: a Holy Year which I have confided to you so that you might make more evident the fact that the gift of mercy is to be proclaimed and that the Church is called to pass on this good news in her work of evangelization, especially in this time of great change.
These very changes are a happy challenge to recognize the signs of the times that the Lord offers to the Church so that she is capable - as she has been capable of doing during the past two thousand years - of bringing Jesus Christ to men and women of our time. The mission is still the same, but the language with which the gospel is proclaimed needs to be renewed with pastoral wisdom. This is essential in order that the message might be understood by our contemporaries, and in order that the Catholic Traditions might speak to the culture of today's world and help it to aspire to the perennial fruitfulness of Christ's message. These are very challenging times, which we should not be afraid to make our own. In fact, only in the measure to which we are willing to care for others will we be able to offer coherent responses that have been elaborated upon in the light of the gospel. This is what people expect from the Church today: that she be able to walk with them offering the company of the witness of faith, which renders one united with all, in particular with those who are most alone and marginalized. How many poor – including those who are poor in faith – await the Gospel that liberates! How many men and women, in the existential peripheries generated by the consumer, atheist society, await our closeness and our solidarity! The Gospel is the proclamation of the love of God that, in Jesus Christ, calls us to participate in his life. Hence, the New Evangelization is this: to be aware of the merciful love of the Father so that we also become instruments of salvation for our brothers.
This awareness, which is sowed in the heart of every Christian from the day of his Baptism, calls for growth, together with the life of grace in order to bear much fruit. The great topic of catechesis is inserted here as the space within which the life of Christians matures because it experiences the mercy of God. Not an abstract idea of mercy, but a concrete experience through which we understand our weakness and the strength that comes from on high. It is good that the daily prayer of the Church begins with these words: Be pleased, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! (Psalm 70:2). The help we invoke is already the first step of God’s mercy toward us. He comes to save us from the condition of weakness in which we live. And his help consists in making us grasp his presence and his closeness. Touched by his compassion, day by day we can also become compassionate to all (Misericordiae Vultus, 14).
The Holy Spirit, who is the protagonist of evangelization, is also the architect of the growth of the Church in understanding the truth of Christ. It is He who opens the hearts of believers and transforms them, so that the forgiveness received can become an experience of love for our brothers. It is always the Spirit that opens the minds of Christ’s disciples to understand in greater depth the commitment required and the ways with which to give weight and credibility to the testimony. We are in such need of the Spirit, to open our minds and our hearts.
Therefore, the question about how we are educating in the faith is not rhetorical but essential. The answer calls for courage, creativity and determination to undertake ways that have yet to be explored. Catechesis, as a component of the process of evangelization, needs to go beyond the simple scholastic sphere to educate believers from the time of childhood, to encounter Christ, alive and working in his Church. It is the encounter with Him that arouses the desire to know him better and then to follow him: to become his disciples. Therefore, the challenge of the New Evangelization and of catechesis is in fact staked on this fundamental point: how to encounter Christ, and what is the most coherent place to find Him and follow Him.
I assure you of my closeness and my support in this very urgent task for our communities. I entrust you to the Virgin Mother of Mercy; may her support and her intercession help you in this exacting task. I bless you with all my heart and please, I ask you to pray for me.
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