New nuncio: US bishops’ main challenge is evangelization

July 21, 2016

In an interview with Our Sunday Visitor, Archbishop Christopher Pierre, the new apostolic nuncio to the United States, said that “helping the people know Jesus” is the main challenge that the US bishops face.

“We are living in a very rapidly changing society with forces of secularization and all the problems which are appearing in society,” he said, “and the Church is there to be the light of the world, to indicate the direction, to educate people so that they may have a deeper faith, and encountering the person of Christ, to be able really to live a happy life, but also to show the way to themselves and their brothers and sisters, to live the values of the Gospel.”

“Certainly we have to witness to our values — for example, when it comes to the respect of life,” he continued. “But we are not just defending an idea or a value. We are disciples. As disciples, we should be missionary, and to be missionary is to be profoundly committed in all areas of the society to the values of the Gospel and to defend them.”

Archbishop Pierre added:

We are not just defending our Church, our position in the society; we are members of the Church announcing the words of Jesus and this liberation from sin. We know that will help the people first of all to be better human persons but also to take the right direction, which is [turning] their life toward God, toward heaven, to give true meaning to it. This is how the Church should work.

 

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Further information:

• Bishops should help ‘the people know Jesus’ (Our Sunday Visitor)