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.