Paulist Evangelization Ministries is now the new name for the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Association, the 33-year-old office for evangelization of the Paulist Fathers.

The name change is a more direct way to identify the office and understand its purpose, according to Father Frank DeSiano, CSP, president of Paulist Evangelization Ministries.

“Paulist lines us up with the lineage of outreach that goes back to Father Isaac Hecker, the founder of the Paulist Fathers,” said Father DeSiano. “Evangelization makes clear the purpose of our office. Ministries points to the various ways we try to move evangelization forward through small groups, parish missions, prison ministry, the Internet and video.”

A new logo accompanies the name change, emphasizing the dynamism of the Spirit which flows from God and the salvation of Jesus Christ. The new web address for Paulist Evangelization Ministries will be pemdc.org.

The name change was a year in the making, according to Father DeSiano, and the result of feedback from approximately 1,000 survey responses.

“This feedback helped us identify the basic elements of our pastoral vision,” he said. “Zeroing in from the basic list of options took about a month, but once we talked out the issues, the name we settled on seemed to work best.”

The expertise of Maia Marketing, specialists in communications for nonprofits, also facilitated the survey and name change process.

Father Frank DeSiano, CSP

Paulist Evangelization Ministries presently offers important programs for reaching inactive Catholics (Awakening Faith) and for welcoming inquirers about the Catholic faith (Seeking Christ). In 2012 it will offer a comprehensive three-year Parish renewal program called Living the Eucharist (Vive la Eucaristia in Spanish) which will help Catholics reflect on the Mass and its connection to renewal and mission. Paulist Evangelization Ministries is also developing a 12-video Paulist Comprehensive Evangelization Training and a program to help parishes get started in evangelization ministry.

Begun in 1977 by noted evangelizer Father Alvin Illig, CSP, the Paulist Evangelizaion Ministries has overseen many major evangelization initiatives over its history, providing resources for Catholics to extend invitations to consider the Catholic Church to those who have no church family. One of its programs, Disciples in Mission, was used in thousands of parishes to help Catholics become familiar with basic ideas of evangelization as outlined in Go and Make Disciples, the plan and strategy for evangelization issued by the U.S. bishops in 1992.

As for the future, Father DeSiano said Paulist Evangelization Ministries will focus on reaching people who have no faith or faith community, “and people who no longer practice the faith with which they identify.”

“There is a growing number of people who respond ‘none’ when asked about their preferred faith, and there are fewer people joining the church at Easter,” he said. “These indicate the need for a more vigorous mission thrust ‘out there,’ looking beyond our church membership. Key to this is developing the kinds of tools and resources that pastors and parishioners will actually use to reach beyond their membership in welcome and invitation.”