The Pope said that "the process of secularisation has produced a serious crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and role of the Church", and the new pontifical council would "promote a renewed evangelisation" in countries where the Church has long existed "but which are living a progressive secularisation of society and a sort of 'eclipse of the sense of God'."
On Friday, 25 January 2013, Pope Benedict XVI, in an Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio (on his own initiative), transferred the oversight of catechesis from the Congregation for the Clergy to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization (catechesis is the use of catechists, clergy, and other individuals to teach and inform those in the Church, those interested in the Church, and catechumens- those joining the Church through Baptism and/or Confirmation- about the faith and its structure and tenets).[4]
The idea for a Council for the New Evangelisation was first floated by Father Luigi Giussani, founder of the Communion and Liberation movement, in the early 1980s. Pope John Paul II emphasized the universal call to holiness and called Catholics to engage in the New Evangelization. More recently, Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice presented the idea to Benedict XVI.[5]
The term "new evangelisation" was popularised by Pope John Paul II with reference to efforts to reawaken the faith in traditionally Christian parts of the world, particularly Europe, first "evangelised", or converted to Christianity, many centuries earlier, but then standing in need of a "new evangelisation".[citation needed]
The incipit of the document is part of the phrase: "The Church has a duty everywhere and at all times to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ". Pope Benedict quoted Pope Paul VI who stated that the work of evangelisation "proves equally increasingly necessary because of the frequent situations of de-Christianization of our days, for multitudes of people who have been baptized but who live quite outside of Christian life, for simple people who have a certain faith, but he knows the basics wrong, for intellectuals who feel the need to know Jesus Christ in a different light from the teaching they received as children, and for many others ".[7]
The document lists the specific tasks of the Council which include:
deepen the theological and pastoral significance of the new evangelisation;
promote and encourage, in close collaboration with the Episcopal Conferences concerned, that can have an ad hoc body, study, dissemination and implementation of the papal magisterium on matters related to the new evangelisation;
raise awareness and support activities related to the new evangelisation which are being applied in various particular Churches and to promote the realisation of new, actively involving the resources of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as well as in associations of the faithful and new community;
study and promote the use of modern forms of communication, as tools for the new evangelization;
promote the use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as an essential and comprehensive formulation of the content of faith to the people of our time.
Presenting the new Council to the press, Archbishop Fisichella said: "The Gospel is not a myth, but the living witness of an historical event that changed the face of history." He added: "The new evangelization first and foremost makes known the historical person of Jesus, and his teachings as they have been faithfully transmitted by the original community, teachings that find in the Gospels and in the writings of the New Testament their normative expression."[8]
Council members participate in the discussions of the council and attend yearly plenary meetings in Rome. They serve five-year terms renewable until their 80th birthday.
Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (2015). Compendium on the new evangelization : texts of the Pontifical and Conciliar Magisterium, 1939-2012. USCCB Communications. p. 1136. ISBN978-1601373960.
Grogan, P; Kim, Kirsteen, K., eds. (2015). The New Evangelization: Faith, People, Context and Practice. Bloomsburry T&T Clark, London. [1].
Orta, Andrew (2004). Catechizing Culture: Missionaries, Aymara, and the "New Evangelization". Columbia University Press, New York. [2].
Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. Year of Faith 2012–2013 (website). [3].
