Komunikat Nru 5 mis-Sinodu tal-Isqfijiet dwar l-Evanġelizzazzjoni Ġdida biex innisslu l-Fidi Nisranija

Mibgħut lilna mill-Eċċellenza Tiegħu Monsinjur Mario Grech, Isqof ta' Għawdex.

21 Ottubru 2012

(1) H. E. Javier ECHEVARRÍA RODRÍGUEZ, Prelate of the Prelature of Opus Dei

The People of God would like the Bishops and priests to be masters of holiness, precisely because they seek it on a daily basis, through the sacramental life and through their own ministry. They must be men who pray with faith, who passionately love the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Sacrament of the Confession, and who live them with sincere piety, to enrich themselves with graces and to be, therefore, bearers of the Good News to other priests and to all the faithful. Using those methods instituted by Jesus Christ in order to identify oneself with Him ensures that the faithful, listening to priests, listen to the Lord; seeing them pray, they in turn are moved to prayer. Aware that they frequently turn to Confession, they too will seek sacramental forgiveness.

(2) H. E.. Mons. Joseph NGUYÊN NANG, Bishop of Phát Diêm (VIETNAM)

In Vietnam, the Christian family plays an important role in communicating and nurturing the faith. Parents are the first catechists that teach prayer and doctrine to the children, especially during times of persecution. Many families, through reciting the evening prayer together, and reflecting on the Gospel, are progressively evangelized. Many of the non-Christian individuals by being present, in solidarity, at Catholic rites of marriages or funerals, hear them speaking, for the first time, about the meaning and the characteristics of Christian marriage, the meaning of life, the resurrection and eschatological hope. In fact, many individuals return for religious teaching after having participated in liturgical celebrations.

(3)  H. Em. Card. R. SARAH, President of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum"

Faith and charity call upon each other. The intrinsical relation between evangelization and diakonia is demonstrated by the fact that, with the liturgy they are the fundamental and proper dimensions in which the Church realizes herself. The Church offers an enviable witness of charity to the world, which gives birth to many conversions. ..., In her missionary activity, the Church has always joined the annunciation of the Gospel with works of charity. The great mission of charity of the Church demonstrates the overwhelming force and the vigorous vitality of Christ’s message to the world. Our pastoral of charity is a great instrument of evangelization, for those who give as well as those who receive this service. It is clear that the Church should not be diminished to being a social service agency, however our challenge is to lead once again, through works of charity, to God who is charity. The charitable activity of the Church, therefore, can offer a huge opportunity to make the light of God penetrate the world for us.

(4)  H. E. Józef MICHALIK, Archbishop President of the Episcopal Conference (POLAND)

The current crisis in Christian civilization in Europe is not a crisis of Christianity nor a crisis of faith, as contemporary man is in the continual search for answers to the questions that go beyond the dimension of temporal and biological existence  ..................

If the faith of today becomes ever weaker, we must not only blame others, but rather ourselves. If the message of faith is not interesting or attractive - this is perhaps the case because that same message is no longer interesting or attractive to us, because it does not excite us, because we do not preach Christ to our families or on the streets of our cities.

(5) H. E. Mons. Francesco MORAGLIA, Patriarch of Venice (ITALY)

I hope that the new evangelization allows greater space for catechesis, with special attention to the complementarity of faith and reason. ..... It is not unusual for the Catholic to experience a sort of inferiority complex with regard to modernity and post-modernity due to a personal, unresolved conflict between faith and reason. The silence of the average Catholic, in giving reasons for his hope, is resounding. Beyond strengthening the first proclamation, the reading of the Bible, the lectio divina, ....  I consider it necessary, with regard to the new evangelization, to consolidate the structural link between reason and faith. ..... If with God or without God everything changes, it is our duty to re-focus catechesis on God and on how much Christian revelation says about Him, not forgetting that the God of Jesus Christ - as Benedict XVI reminds us - is, together, Agapee Logos.

(6) H. E. Mons. Sócrates René SÁNDIGO JIRÓN, Bishop of Juigalpa, President of the Episcopal Conference (NICARAGUA)

In the Gospels there are many concrete examples of personalized ways of transmitting the faith, such as that related in the parable of the lost sheep (Lk 15: 1-7; Mt 18: 12-14) or the story of Jesus himself with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4: 7-27), and Nicodemus (Jn 3:1-21): this method produces a positive result in the recipients of the Word of the Lord. We the Bishops of Latin America have emphasized, the importance of transmitting the faith in a personal way, given that the individual feels valued in the moment in which, from how we treat him according to Jesus’ style, he perceives his meaning to God and the Church.

While outlining a New Evangelization, we must not disregard the fact that growth in the Church’s numbers may in fact have led to a lack of the personal attention that Jesus gave; that is at the root of a situation in which many baptized persons do not feel they are treated as individuals, and “many baptized are not evangelized”.

Nevertheless, this personalized approach to transmitting the faith calls for many members to dedicate time to each individual and for this it is necessary to have the support of a family that is a “special place in which to encounter the person of Christ”. The family is “the school of faith, the training ground for human and civil values” Practically speaking, if in the New Evangelization there is an interest in transmitting the faith, which is now in crisis, there must also be an interest in the family, since ... “there is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage”.