Europe's 'rich soil' becoming 'inhospitable desert' for faith, Pope warns Italian bishops

May 24, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI urged the Italian hierarchy to embrace the “new evangelization” as he addressed the 64th plenary assembly of the Italian bishops’ conference on May 24.

Speaking in unusually strong terms, the Holy Father characterized Europe as “wounded” by a flight from faith, and said that “a rich soil risks becoming an inhospitable desert.” He remarked that “many of the baptized have lost their identity and affiliation, and “they do not know the essential content of faith, or they think they can nourish it independently of the Church.”

"At a time in which God has, for many people, become the great Unknown and Jesus is simply an important figure of the past, we cannot relaunch missionary activity without renewing the quality of our own faith and prayer,” the Pope said. He explained that the first essential need of the new evangelization is a strong life of prayer, and that “the first condition to speak about God is to speak with God, becoming more and more men of God, nourished by an intense life of prayer and shaped by his Grace.”

The Pontiff encouraged the bishops to help their people recognize that religious faith does not detract from personal freedom, but expands it. "God is the guarantor, not the competitor, of our freedom,” he said.

 

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Further information:

• Pope: God and wounded Europe (Vatican Radio)
• Let us start afresh from God (L'Osservatore Romano)
• Returning to the Essential Aspects of Christian Life in Order to Relaunch Evangelisation (VIS)