Komunikat Nru 4 mis-Sinodu tal-Isqfijiet dwar l-Evanġelizzazzjoni Ġdida
biex innisslu l-Fidi Nisranija
Mibgħut lilna
mill-Eċċellenza Tiegħu
Monsinjur Mario Grech, Isqof ta' Għawdex.
20 Ottubru 2012
(1) H. E. Card.
Jean-Louis TAURAN, President of the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue (VATICAN CITY)
Interreligious
dialogue thus becomes an occasion for deepening and witnessing one’s
faith. It seems to me that today the faithful must take up three
challenges:
The challenge of
identity: who is my God? Is my life in harmony with my convictions?
The challenge of
alterity: those practicing a religion that is not mine are not
necessarily an enemy, but instead a pilgrim of truth;
The challenge of
pluralism: God is at work in each person, through ways known only to
Him
(2) H. E. Pascal
WINTZER, Archbishop of Poitiers (FRANCE)
In 2012, at least in
the West, the Catholic Church is distinct from society; present in
it, however without totally covering it. Just as the Lord listens
to what is said about him: “Who do people say the Son of man is?”
(Mt 16:13), the Church must also hear what is said of her; she is
less one that gives of herself than the one who receives: of her
Lord before all else, but also of what the people say about her.....
The world has changed,
and so has the Church’s place in the world; to dream of a return of
Christianity is a decoy, an illusion, and rests on the sacralization
of a historical form of the presence of the Catholic Church. The
Church must not fear showing herself to the world, to show expose
herself to the eyes of society. She must therefore, in her
institutions, finances, manner of speaking clearly, be an audible
and credible witness.
(3) - H. E Luis
Augusto CASTRO QUIROGA, Archbishop of Tunja, COLOMBIA
Heart speaks to heart.
The first annunciation comes from a heart that has lived in the
first person the experience of Jesus and, in different ways, reaches
another heart, for whom it is a novelty and a challenge. In this
process there are three indispensable steps that can be summed up in
the acronym MBS.
M: the Meeting of the
disciple with Jesus, a meeting of love that is surprising,
transforming and personal.
B: Being like Jesus.
Origen observed that the mission of the Holy Spirit is that of
making us like Jesus.
S: Showing others, as
good witnesses, this experience of Jesus. That is, making the
private public. Communicating what is lived. Living the experience,
but to describe it, to sow it not on fertile ground but arid ground,
where faith in Jesus is missing.
This simple formula:
MBS - meeting - being - showing, must be accompanied by another one:
GMD - Go and Make Disciples.
(4) Rev. Robert
PREVOST, O.S.A. Prior General of the Order of St. Augustine
Western mass media is
extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public
enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with
the Gospel. However, overt opposition to Christianity by mass media
is only part of the problem. The sympathy for anti-Christian
lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and
artfully engrained in the viewing public, that when people hear the
Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and
emotionally cruel by contrast to the ostensible humaneness of the
anti-Christian perspective.....
The Fathers of the
Church, including Saint Augustine, can provide eminent guidance for
the Church in this aspect of the New Evangelization, precisely
because they were masters of the art of rhetoric. Their evangelizing
was successful in great part because they understood the foundations
of social communication appropriate to the world in which they
lived.
In order to combat
successfully the dominance of the mass media over popular religious
and moral imaginations, it is not sufficient for the Church to own
its own television media or to sponsor religious films. The proper
mission of the Church is to introduce people to the nature of
mystery as an antidote to spectacle
(5) Card. Joachim
MEISNER, Archbishop of Cologne (GERMANY)
The Apostle Philip, is
led by the Spirit of God to Jerusalem on the way of Gaza (cf. Act
8:26-40). There he meets an official of the queen of Ethiopia,
sitting on a cart and studying a text by Isaiah, which he had bought
from a merchant of religious materials in the temple area. Philip
asks the distinguished man if he understands what he is reading. We
know the answer: “How could I, unless I have someone to guide me?”
(Act 8:31). Philip gets on the cart, explains the Writings to him
and after a while the official stops the cart and asks to be
baptized in a nearby stream. Here we can see a Church that moves,
which walks along streets and questions men.
Today, the majority of
Christians are happy if nobody questions them. Of five persons met
every day in the street, three are in the same situation as the
Ethiopian official, returning from any religious socialization in
their daily life. They bear the burden of information on the meaning
of their life buried in the past, which they sadly leaf through,
without understanding what it has to do with their life. It is as if
they had bought a piece of the Biblical message, just like the
traveler who had bought the passage by Isaiah, but that do not have
anybody to guide them, nobody to create a bridge between the word of
faith and their daily life. Evidently, for many of today’s
individuals being part of the modern world means not being
interested in religious questions.
Actually, at least in
Europe, a large part of mankind is still working its way through
questions and do not know or do not admit that these are religious
questions. Therefore, the place for spreading the faith is the
street of our cities and of our villages. And there is no need to
turn to an professional Christianity to obey God’s calling. It will
suffice to walk briefly along the street together; this can mean a
lot as we saw happening to Philip. Often we don’t allow ourselves to
get involved in the problems of another person, thinking that we
must resolve their problems. Perhaps there is the need for a little
listening, understanding and the good work of putting oneself in the
other’s shoes, to get on the cart of their life and take their
questions seriously. This means to start and reflect on the place
where the other is.
(6) H. E. Mons. Yves
LE SAUX, Bishop of Le Mans (FRANCE)
“New Evangelization”
means proclaiming the novelty of Salvation in Christ, God’s mercy,
in a world undergoing deep changes that lives as if God didn’t
exist, faced with a deep internal void. First, one must dare to
speak to God, to awaken the nostalgia for God in the heart of
man......
We are no longer in a
Christendom. But we continue to organize ourselves as if we were
still in one. We must no longer reflect in terms of covering
territory, nor recruiting personnel, faced with the diminished
number of priests. We must encourage living, joyful Christian
communities, penetrated by a missionary impulse.
(7) H. E. Bruno
FORTE, Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto (ITALY)
Direct experience of
the episcopal ministry, especially the blanket pastoral visits I
have been conducting for three and a half years now in the parishes
of the Archdiocese, has convinced me that without the new missionary
zeal of the parish, in which the agents are its own pastoral
workers, it will be difficult to live a radical new evangelization.
In this light I consider that Catholic Action is a valuable tool.
.....
It appears to me
necessary to underline the relevance of the young as the targets of
the New evangelisation: if their drifting away from religious
practice is considered by many as a fact to be taken for granted,
this does not mean that their hearts do not thirst for God. .... It
is necessary to listen to them, give time to them, speak to them of
God, and to welcome them with respect for their need for freedom.
Here one understands how decisive the role of the family is (cf. IL
110ss), but also how dramatic the situation is for the offspring of
divorced and remarried parents, who are often rendered strangers to
the sacraments by the non-participation of their parents. Here a
decisive turning point is needed in terms of pastoral care, as Pope
Benedict XVI has affirmed several times (for example at the World
Meeting of Families in Milan). It will also be necessary to initiate
reflection on the methods and time necessary for the recognition of
the nullity of the matrimonial bond: as a Bishop and moderator of a
Regional Ecclesiastical Tribunal, I must admit that some
requirements (such as the need for the conforming double sentence,
even if there is no appeal) seem to many people with problems who
wish to resolve their situation to be difficult to comprehend.
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