"The Announcement of the Gospel Today, Between missio ad gentes and the New Evangelization"

8/3/2019 "The Announcement of the Gospel Today, Between missio ad gentes and the New Evangelization"

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The Announcement of the GospelToday,Between missio ad gentes and

the New EvangelizationCardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan

Archbishop of New York

Holy Father, Cardinal Sodano, my brothersin Christ:

Sia lodato Gesu Cristo!

It is as old as the final mandate of Jesus,Go, teach all nations!, yet as fresh as

Gods Holy Word proclaimed at our ownMass this morning . . .

I speak of the sacred duty of evangelization.It is ever ancient, ever new. The how of it,the when of it, the where of it, may change,

but the charge remains constant, as doesthe message and inspiration, Jesus Christ,the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.


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We gather in the caput mundi, evangelizedby Peter and Paul themselves, in the city

from where the successors of St. Peter sentout evangelizers to present the savingPerson, message, and invitation that is atthe heart of evangelization: throughoutEurope, to the new world in the era ofdiscovery, to Africa and Asia in recent

centuries.

We gather near the basilica where theevangelical fervor of the Church wasexpanded during the Second VaticanCouncil, and near the tomb of the BlessedPontiff who made the New Evangelization ahousehold word.

We gather grateful for the fraternalcompany of a pastor who has made the

challenge of the new evangelization almosta daily message.


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Yes, we gather as missionaries, asevangelizers.

We hail the teaching of the Second VaticanCouncil, especially found in LumenGentium, Gaudium et Spes, and Ad Gentes,that refines the Churchs understanding ofher evangelical duty, defining the entire

Church as missionary, that all Christians, byreason of baptism, confirmation, andEucharist, are evangelizers.

Yes, the Council reaffirmed, especially in AdGentes, there are explicit missionaries, sentto lands and peoples who have never heardthe very Name by which all are saved, butalso that no Christian is exempt from theduty of witnessing to Jesus and offering Hisinvitation to others in his own day-to-day

life.

Thus, mission became central to the life ofevery local church, to every believer. The


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context of mission shifted not only in ageographical sense, but in a theological

sense, as mission applied not only tounbelievers but to believers, and somethoughtful people began to wonder if such aprovidential expansion of the concept ofevangelization unintentionally diluted theemphasis of mission ad gentes.

Blessed John Paul II developed this freshunderstanding, speaking of evangelizingcultures, since the engagement betweenfaith and culture supplanted therelationship between church and statedominant prior to the Council, and includedin this task the re-evangelizing of culturesthat had once been the very engine of gospel

values. The New Evangelization became thedare to apply the invitation of Jesus to

conversion of heart not only ad extra but adintra, to believers and cultures where thesalt of the gospel had lost its tang. Thus, the


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missio is not only to New Guinea but toNew York.

In Redemptoris Missio, #33, he elaboratedupon this, noting primary evangelization --the preaching of Jesus to lands and peopleunaware of His saving message -- the NewEvangelization -- the rekindling of faith in

persons and cultures where it has grownlackluster -- and the pastoral care of thosedaily living as believers.

We of course acknowledge that there can beno opposition between the missio ad gentesand the New Evangelization. It is not aneither-or but a both-and proposition.The New Evangelization generatesenthusiastic missionaries; those in theapostolate of the missio ad gentes require

themselves to be constantly evangelizedanew.


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Even in the New Testament, to the verygeneration who had the missio ad gentes

given by the Master at His ascension stillringing in their ears, Paul had to remindthem to stir into flame the gift of faithgiven them, certainly an early instance ofthe New Evangelization.

And, just recently, in the inspirationalSynod in Africa, we heard our brothers fromthe very lands radiant with the fruits of themissio ad gentes report that those now inthe second and third generation after theinitial missionary zeal already stand in needof the New Evangelization.

The acclaimed American missionary and TVevangelist, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen,commented, Our Lords first word to His

disciples was come! His last word was go!You cant go unless youve first come toHim.


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A towering challenge to both the missio adgentes and the New Evangalization today is

what we call secularism. Listen to how ourPope describes it:

Secularization, which presents itself incultures by imposing a world andhumanity without reference to

Transcendence, is invading every aspect ofdaily life and developing a mentality in

which God is effectively absent, wholly orpartially, from human life and awareness.This secularization is not only an externalthreat to believers, but has been manifestfor some time in the heart of the Churchherself. It profoundly distorts the Christianfaith from within, and consequently, thelifestyle and daily behavior of believers.They live in the world and are often

marked, if not conditioned, by the culturalimagery that impresses contradictory andimpelling models regarding the practicaldenial of God: there is no longer any need


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for God, to think of him or to return to him.Furthermore, the prevalent hedonistic and

consumeristic mindset fosters in the faithfuland in Pastors a tendency to superficialityand selfishness that is harmful to ecclesiallife. (Benedict XVI, Address to PontificalCouncil for Culture, 8.III.2008)

This secularization calls for a creativestrategy of evangelization, and I want todetail seven planks of this strategy.

1. Actually, in graciously inviting me tospeak on this topic, The Announcement ofthe Gospel Today, between missio ad gentesand the new evangelization, my new-

brother-cardinal, His Eminence, theSecretary of State, asked me to put in intothe context of secularism, hinting that my

home archdiocese of New York might be thecapital of a secular culture.


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As I trust my friend and new-brother-cardinal, Edwin OBrien -- who grew up in

New York -- will agree, New York -- withoutdenying its dramatic evidence of graphicsecularism -- is also a very religious city.

There one finds, even among groups usuallyidentified as materialistic -- the media,

entertainment, business, politics, artists,writers -- an undeniable openness to thedivine!

The cardinals who serve Jesus and HisChurch universal on the Roman Curia mayrecall the address Pope Benedict gave themat Christmas two years ago when hecelebrated this innate openness to thedivine obvious even in those who boast oftheir secularism:

We as believers, must have at heart eventhose people who consider themselvesagnostics or atheists. When we speak of a


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new evangelization these people areperhaps taken aback. They do not want to

see themselves as an object of mission or togive up their freedom of thought and will.Yet the question of God remains presenteven for them. As the first step ofevangelization we must seek to keep thisquest alive; we must be concerned that

human beings do not set aside the questionof God, but rather see it as an essentialquestion for their lives. We must make surethat they are open to this question and tothe yearning concealed within. I think thattoday too the Church should open a sort ofCourt of the Gentiles in which peoplemight in some way latch on to God, withoutknowing him and before gaining access tohis mystery, at whose service the inner lifeof the Church stands.

This is my first point: we believe with thephilosophers and poets of old, who neverhad the benefit of revelation, that even a


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person who brags about being secular and isdismissive of religion, has within an

undeniable spark of interest in the beyond,and recognizes that humanity and creationis a dismal riddle without the concept ofsome kind of creator.

A movie popular at home now is The Way,

starring a popular actor, Martin Sheen.Perhaps you have seen it. He plays agrieving father whose estranged son dies

while walking the Camino di Santiago diCampostella in Spain. The father decides, inhis grief, to complete the pilgrimage inplace of his dead son. He is an icon of asecular man: self-satisfied, dismissive ofGod and religion, calling himself a formerCatholic, cynical about faith . . . but yetunable to deny within him an irrepressible

interest in the transcendent, a thirst forsomething -- no, Someone -- more, whichgrows on the way.


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Yes, to borrow the report of the apostles toJesus from last Sundays gospel, All the

people are looking for you!

They still are . . .

2. . . . and, my second point, this fact givesus immense confidence and courage in the

sacred task of mission and NewEvangelization.

Be not afraid, were told, is the mostrepeated exhortation in the Bible.

After the Council, the good news was thattriumphalism in the Church was dead.

The bad news was that, so was confidence!

We are convinced, confident, andcourageous in the New Evangelizationbecause of the power of the Person sendingus on mission -- who happens to be the


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second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity because of the truth of the message, and the

deep down openness in even the mostsecularized of people to the divine.

Confident, yes!

Triumphant, never!

What keeps us from the swagger andarrogance of triumphalism is a recognitionof what Pope Paul VI taught in EvangeliiNuntiandi: the Church herself needsevangelization!

This gives us humility as we confess thatNemo dat quod not habet, that the Churchhas a deep need for the interior conversionthat is at the marrow of the call to

evangelization.

3. A third necessary ingredient in the recipeof effective mission is that God does not


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satisfy the thirst of the human heart with aproposition, but with a Person, whose name

is Jesus.

The invitation implicit in the Missio adgentes and the New Evangelization is not toa doctrine but to know, love, and serve --not a something, but a Someone.

When you began your ministry as successorof St. Peter, Holy Father, you invited us tofriendship with Jesus, which is the way youdefined sanctity.

There it is . . . love of a Person, arelationship at the root of out faith.

As St. Augustine writes, Ex una sanedoctrina impressam fidem credentium

cordibus singulorum qui hoc idem creduntverissime dicimus, sed aliud sunt ea quaecreduntur, aliud fides qua creduntur (DeTrinitate, XIII, 2.5)


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4. Yes, and heres my fourth point, but this

Person, Jesus, tells us He is the truth.

So, our mission has a substance, a content,and this twentieth anniversary of theCatechism, the approaching fiftiethanniversary of the Council, and the

upcoming Year of Faith charge us to combatcatechetical illiteracy.

True enough, the New Evangalization isurgent because secularism has often chokedthe seed of faith; but that choking was sadlymade easy because so many believers reallyhad no adequate knowledge or grasp of the

wisdom, beauty, and coherence of theTruth.

Cardinal George Pell has observed that itsnot so much that our people have lost theirfaith, but that they barely had it to begin


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with; and, if they did, it was so vapid that itwas easily taken away.

So did Cardinal Avery Dulles call for neo-apologetics, rooted not in dull polemics butin the Truth that has a name, Jesus.

So did Blessed John Newman, upon

reception of his own biglietto nominatinghim a cardinal warn again of what heconstantly called a dangerous liberalism inreligion: . . . the belief that there is noobjective truth in religion, that one creed isas good as another . . . Revealed religion isnot a truth, but a sentiment, a taste . . .

And, just as Jesus tells us I am the Truth,He also describes Himself as the Way, andthe Life.

The Way of Jesus is in and through HisChurch, a holy mother who imparts to usHis Life.


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For what would I ever know of Him

without her? asks De Lubac, referring tothe intimate identification of Jesus and HisChurch.

Thus, our mission, the New Evangelization,has essential catechetical and ecclesial

dimensions.

This impels us to think about Church in afresh way: to think of the Church as amission. As John Paul II taught inRedemptoris Missio, the Church does nothave a mission, as if mission were one ofmany things the Church does. No, theChurch is a mission, and each of us whonames Jesus as Lord and Savior shouldmeasure ourselves by our mission-

effectiveness.

Over the fifty years since the convocation ofthe Council, we have seen the Church pass


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through the last stages of the Counter-Reformation and rediscover itself as a

missionary enterprise. In some venues, thishas meant a new discovery of the Gospel. Inonce-catechized lands, it has meant a re-evangelization that sets out from theshallow waters of institutionalmaintenance, and as John Paul II

instructed us in Novo Millennio Ineunte,puts out into the deep for a catch.

In many of the countries represented in thiscollege, the ambient public culture oncetransmitted the Gospel, but does so nomore. In those circumstances, theproclamation of the Gospel -- the deliberateinvitation to enter into friendship with theLord Jesus -- must be at the very center ofthe Catholic life of all of our people. But in

all circumstances, the Second VaticanCouncil and the two great popes who havegiven it an authoritative interpretation are


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urging us to call our people to think ofthemselves as missionaries and evangelists.

5. When I was a new seminarian at theNorth American College here in Rome, allthe first-year men from all the Romantheological universities were invited to aMass at St. Peters with the Prefect of the

Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal JohnWright, as celebrant and homilist.

We thought he would give us a cerebralhomily. But he began by asking,Seminarians: do me and the Church a bigfavor. When you walk the streets of Rome,smile!

So, point five: the missionary, theevangelist, must be a person of joy.

Joy is the infallible sign of Gods presence,claims Leon Bloy.


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When I became Archbishop of New York, apriest old me, You better stop smiling

when you walk the streets of Manhattan, oryoull be arrested!

A man dying of AIDS at the Gift of PeaceHospice, administered by the Missionariesof Charity in Cardinal Donald Wuerls

Archdiocese of Washington, asked forbaptism. When the priest asked for anexpression of faith, the dying man

whispered, All I know is that Im unhappy,and these sisters are very happy, even whenI curse them and spit on them. Yesterday Ifinally asked them why they were so happy.They replied Jesus. I want this Jesus so Ican finally be happy.

A genuine act of faith, right?

The New Evangelization is accomplishedwith a smile, not a frown.


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The missio ad gentes is all about a yes to

everything decent, good, true, beautiful andnoble in the human person.

The Church is about a yes!, not a no!

6. And, next-to-last point, the New

Evangelization is about love.

Recently, our brother John ThomasKattrukudiyil, the Bishop of Itanagar, in thenortheast corner of India, was asked toexplain the tremendous growth of theChurch in his diocese, registering over10,000 adult converts a year.

Because we present God as a loving father,

and because people see the Church lovingthem. he replied.


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Not a nebulous love, he went on, but a loveincarnate in wonderful schools for all

children, clinics for the sick, homes for theelderly, centers for orphans, food for thehungry.

In New York, the heart of the mosthardened secularist softens when visiting

one of our inner-city Catholic schools.When one of our benefactors, whodescribed himself as an agnostic, askedSister Michelle why, at her age, with painfularthritic knees, she continued to serve atone of these struggling but excellent poorschools, she answered, Because God lovesme, and I love Him, and I want thesechildren to discover this love.

7. Joy, love . . . and, last point . . . sorry to

bring it up, . . . but blood.

Tomorrow, twenty-two of us will hear whatmost of you have heard before:


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To the praise of God, and the honor of the

Apostolic Seereceive the red biretta, the sign of thecardinals dignity;and know that you must be willing toconduct yourselves with fortitudeeven to the shedding of your blood:

for the growth of the Christian faith,the peace and tranquility of the People ofGod,and the freedom and spread of the HolyRoman Church.

Holy Father,can you omit to the sheddingof your blood when you present me withthe biretta?

Of course not! We are but scarlet audio-

visual aids for all of our brothers andsisters also called to be ready to suffer anddie for Jesus.


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It was Pope Paul VI who noted wisely thatpeople today learn more from witness than

from words, and the supreme witness ismartyrdom.

Sadly, today we have martyrs in abundance.

Thank you, Holy Father, for so often

reminding us of those today sufferingpersecution for their faith throughout the

world.

Thank you, Cardinal Koch, for calling theChurch to an annual day of solidarity withthose persecuted for the sake of the gospel,and for inviting our ecumenical and inter-religious partners to an ecumenism ofmartyrdom.

While we cry for todays martyrs; while welove them, pray with and for them; while wevigorously advocate on their behalf; we arealso very proud of them, brag about them,


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and trumpet their supreme witness to theworld.

They spark the missio ad gentes and NewEvangelization.

A young man in New York tells me hereturned to the Catholic faith of his

childhood, which he had jettisoned as ateenager, because he read The Monks ofTibhirine, about Trappists martyred in

Algeria fifteen years ago, and after viewingthe drama about them, the French film, OfGods and Men.

Tertullian would not be surprised.

Thank you, Holy Father and brethren, foryour patience with my primitive Italian.

When Cardinal Bertone asked me to givethis address in Italian, I worried, because Ispeak Italian like a child.


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But, then I recalled, that, as a newly-ordained parish priest, my first pastor said

to me as I went over to school to teach thesix-year old children their catechism, Nowwell see if all your theology sunk in, and ifyou can speak of the faith like a child.

And maybe thats a fitting place to

conclude: we need to speak again as a childthe eternal truth, beauty, and simplicity ofJesus and His Church.

Sia lodato Gesu Cristo!

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"The Announcement of the Gospel Today, Between missio ad gentes and the New Evangelization"