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ThePontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization (Latin:Pontificium Consilium de Nova Evangelizatione),[1] also translated asPontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization,[2] was apontifical council of theRoman Curia whose creation was announced byPope Benedict XVI at vespers on 28 June 2010, eve of theSolemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, to carry out theNew Evangelization. On 5 June 2022, the department was merged into theDicastery for Evangelization.
The Pope said that "the process of secularization has produced a serious crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and role of the Church",[This quote needs a citation] and the new pontifical council would "promote a renewed evangelization" in countries where the Church has long existed "but which are living a progressive secularization of society and a sort of 'eclipse of the sense of God'."[This quote needs a citation]
On 30 June 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed as its first President ArchbishopSalvatore Fisichella, until then President of thePontifical Academy for Life.[3] On 13 May 2011, Pope Benedict XVI named Archbishop Jose Octavio Ruiz Arenas as the first Secretary of the Pontifical Council. Archbishop Ruiz Arenas had been serving as the Vice President of thePontifical Commission for Latin America and had served as the Archbishop of theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Villavicencio inVillavicencio, Colombia. The 66-year-old[needs update] prelate is a native ofColombia. That same day, Monsignor Graham Bell, formerly the Secretary Coordinator of thePontifical Academy for Life, was named the Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council.
On Friday, 25 January 2013,Pope Benedict XVI, in anApostolic Letter issuedMotu Proprio (on his own initiative), transferred the oversight ofcatechesis from theCongregation for the Clergy to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization (catechesis is the use ofcatechists, 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 Evangelization was first floated by Father Luigi Giussani, founder of theCommunion 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, CardinalAngelo Scola of Venice presented the idea to Benedict XVI.[5]
The term "new evangelization" was popularized by Pope John Paul II with reference to efforts to reawaken the faith in traditionally Christian parts of the world, particularly Europe, first "evangelized", or converted to Christianity, many centuries earlier, but then standing in need of a "new evangelization".[citation needed]
Pope Benedict XVI established the council with Art. 1 §1 of themotu proprioUbicumque et semper, given fromCastel Gandolfo 21 September 2010[6] and published in theL'Osservatore Romano[6] 12 October 2010.
Theincipit 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 quotedPope Paul VI who stated that the work of evangelization "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:
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.
