October 28, 2013
Here is the New Evangelization in a nutshell:
• The New Evangelization has Jesus as the center.
• The New Evangelization is not about parish renewal, but parish transformation.
• The New Evangelization calls us to be compassionate and inviting to all.
We’ve all heard of the New Evangelization. It’s time to recognize something else going on the church – the kind of reaching out being preached by Pope Francis. The message is about opening up the Church, serving the needy and the suffering, modeling ways Christians can be in day-to-day life. It has a crisp clarity about it, not wordy or abstract, but concrete. It’s about preaching through example: spreading the Good News by being the Good News
We recognize the need for a change is even greater now. Millions of Catholics, many of them young adults, do not practice their faith and abstain from the table of Jesus Christ. Behind this, among many factors, the difference in generational perspectives looms quite large. The church in the United States has also experienced a major crisis of moral authority through the sex abuse scandal and lack of administrative oversight. This crisis has further eroded a lack of confidence people once had in the Church, which began shortly after the Second Vatican Council.
The divisions within the Church, seem to grow wider every day. Gender and sexual issues, perhaps in the areas around abortion and homosexuality are not easily pastorally addressed. It might well be claimed that the Church has gotten out of touch with the culture around it.
Recent comments by Pope Francis seem to be reversing this trend and the Pope’s openness seems infectious. In other words, his argument for openness to all people, to not be judgmental, to take people where they are, to be an “open church,” has a very different consequence than the attitude of “you are either in or out.”
The use, or disuse, of the sacrament of Reconciliation might symbolize part of the disarray that the Church is experiencing at this time. While the Church speaks of compassion and mercy, it focuses primarily on one mode – the sacrament of penance – which has become difficult for many believers who seek healing or union. The sacrament, rather than being a ready point of access, appears to many as a roadblock.
The Paulists and Landings International have undertaken a new reconciliation initiative. We believe this is an opportune time to develop a wider pastoral process to address the needs of reconciliation in the Church today. The process is multi-threaded with invitations to wider society, to the wider Church, to parish communities and to individual Catholics.
Welcoming returning Catholics is the focus of Landings – through storytelling, compassionate listening and a process of learning again about the Church, the local church community welcomes returning Catholics warmly, with open arms.
The New Evangelization brings evangelization and reconciliation together in new ways. The New Evangelization emphasizes the transforming parish with an emphasis on being disciples in mission by being a warm and welcoming community. This invitation goes out to all members of the human family.
The New Evangelization is a challenge for us to look beyond our own needs and to look out into the ”mission” field, as it were.
The ministry of hospitality connects to the work of reconciliation, of bringing healing to the Body of Christ, to being open and welcoming to those who are no longer part of the Church community and to welcome them home.
Landings is now available in English and Spanish from Paulist Press, www.paulistpress.com.