The New Evangelization: Locating the keys

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Carindal Stanisław Ryłko, 66, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, wrote a brief editorial on the contours of the new evangelization. In 2012, there will be another Synod of Bishops' meeting with the new evangelization as it's central topic. He's helping to focus our attention on the exhortation of Jesus to spread the Kingdom of God. A mere two paragraphs follow, but you can read the entire editorial here.


 As is known, the idea is not new: the entire pontificate of Blessed John Paul II was characterized by the leit-motiv of the new evangelization. Pope John Paul II did not fail to explain to us what he intended when he placed the adjective "new" in front of the traditional term, "evangelization": new in ardor, new in methods, new in expressions. For an appropriate and faithful understanding of the contents of the Lineamenta, one needs to have an adequate key for reading the text. The expression, "new evangelization," in fact, has become so common - even abused - that we run the risk of distorting its sense, or worse, reducing it to an insignificant slogan. The heart of the question of the new evangelization, writes the Cardinal, is the centrality of God in our lives.

Too often, we expect from them, nice "recipes" that are ready for the new evangelization, methodologies...instead, we should ask them to be ever-more collaborators of the Holy Spirit to generate true Christians. The call for a new evangelization, in fact, asks for a new way of being Christian, a new way of being Church, where the "new" is the Gospel model which is seen in the Acts of the Apostles, the strength of the Spirit which renews the entire Christian community.

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Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

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This page contains a single entry by Paul Zalonski published on August 2, 2011 12:37 PM.

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