Next Synod topic: new evangelization

October 25, 2010

The topic for the next meeting of the Synod of Bishops will be the “new evangelization,” Pope Benedict XVI has announced.

During his homily at that Mass concluding the Middle East Synod on October 24, the Pontiff revealed that he has chosen the theme for the next ordinary assembly of the Synod, which will be in 2012. The topic will be “the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith.”

Like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI has spoken frequently of the need for a “new evangelization” to restore the vigor of the faith especially in societies that were once thoroughly Christian, but have slipped into secularism. He pointed out that a similar theme had arisen frequently during the Synod for the Middle East: “the need to present the Gospel anew to people who do not know it well or who have even moved away from the Church. Frequent mention was made of the need for a new evangelization in the Middle East.”

Earlier this month Pope Benedict created a new office at the Vatican, the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization. In the motu proprio establishing it, the Pope wrote that new body would respond to the “phenomenon of abandonment of the faith” that has “become progressively more evident in societies and cultures that were, for centuries, impregnated with the Gospel.” He appointed Archbishop Salvatore (“Rino”) Fisichella as the first president of the new pontifical council.

 

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Further information:

• We Must Never Resign Ourselves to the Absence of Peace (VIS)
• Pope Benedict calls for peace in the Middle East (Vatican Radio)
• Pontifical Council for New Evangelization inaugurated (CWN, 10/12)