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What Is the New Evangelization?
While the need for a renewed evangelization of the baptized was first
formally articulated by Pope Paul VI in
Evangelii Nuntiandi
and stems back
to the calling of the Second Vatican Council, it was St. John Paul II who,
in 1983, formally called this pastoral strategy the “new evangelization.”
This New Evangelization is new, not in the content of the message of the
Gospel, but in its “ardor, methods, and expression”
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and its audience,
namely those communities and peoples in the West who once bore the
name Catholic but no longer do. This is precisely the point made by Pope
Benedict XVI in 2010 when he called for a “renewed evangelization” and
“finding appropriate means to propose anew the perennial truth of Christ’s
Gospel”
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to those in need of evangelization, both those who are already
baptized but have left the practice of the faith and those who have yet to
hear the message of the Gospel. “He clarified that the New Evangelization
is new, not in content but rather in its inner thrust; new in its methods
that must correspond to the times; and new because it is necessary to pro-
claim the Gospel to those who have already heard it.”
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The New Evangelization is a call for all of us to have a deeper
encounter with Christ, best expressed in a simple, confident, informed,
and joyous witness to the faith, which attracts others and invites them
to wonder what secret is motivating the Christian disciple. Pope Francis
affirms that the New Evangelization is a “summons addressed to all”
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and
connects this inner thrust with an outward movement of all the bap-
tized as missionary disciples. “In our day Jesus’ command to ‘go and make
disciples’ echoes in the changing scenarios and ever new challenges to the
Church’s mission of evangelization, and all of us are called to take part in
this new missionary ‘going forth.’”
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Our time should be as Pope Francis
says, “a new chapter of evangelization full of fervor, joy, generosity, cour-
age, boundless love and attraction!”
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The New Evangelization:
Renewal and Conversion
The work of the New Evangelization invites the baptized to renew their
own faith in a way that leads to the evangelization of others—ultimately
transforming our culture with the love of the Lord and his teaching.
Personal faith renewal is a continual process of conversion, a journey