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APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION

EVANGELII NUNTIANDI

December 8, 1975

ON EVANGELIZATION

IN THE

MODERN WORLD

POPE PAUL VI





ON EVANGELIZATION

IN THE

MODERN WORLD

POPE PAUL VI

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION

EVANGELII NUNTIANDI

December 8, 1975

1976

Publications Office

UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005





CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 5

CHAPTER I: FROM CHRIST THE EVANGELIZER TO THE

EVANGELIZING CHURCH 9

II: WHAT IS EVANGELIZATION? 15

III: THE CONTENT OF EVANGELIZATION . . 20

IV: THE METHODS OF EVANGELIZATION . . 27

V: THE BENEFICIARIES OF EVANGELIZATION 34

VI: THE WORKERS FOR EVANGELIZATION . 43

VII: THE SPIRIT OF EVANGELIZATION ... 55

CONCLUSION 65



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/onevangelizationcath



APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION

EVANGELII NUNTIANDI

OF HIS HOLINESS

POPE PAUL VI

TO THE EPISCOPATE, TO THE CLERGY

AND TO ALL THE FAITHFUL

OF THE ENTIRE WORLD

On Evangelization

In The Modern World

Venerable Brothers

and Dear Sons and Daughters:

Health and the Apostolic Blessing

Special commitment

to evangelization

1. There is no doubt that the effort to proclaim the Gospel

to the people of today, who are buoyed up by hope but at the

same time often oppressed by fear and distress, is a service

rendered to the Christian community and also to the whole of

humanity.

For this reason the duty of confirming the brethren—a duty

which with the office of being the Successor of Peter 1 we have re-

ceived from the Lord, and which is for us a “daily preoccupation," 2

a program of life and action, and a fundamental commitment of

our Pontificate—seems to us all the more noble and necessary

when it is a matter of encouraging our brethren in their mission

as evangelizers, in order that, in this time of uncertainty and

5



confusion, they may accomplish this task with ever increasing

love, zeal and joy.

On the occasion

of three events

2. This is precisely what we wish to do here, at the end of

this Holy Year during which the Church, “striving to proclaim the

Gospel to all people," 3 has had the single aim of fulfilling her duty

of being the messenger of the Good News of Jesus Christ—the

Good News proclaimed through two fundamental commands: “Put

on the new self" 4 and “Be reconciled to God." 5

We wish to do so on this tenth anniversary of the closing of

the Second Vatican Council, the objectives of which are definitively

summed up in this single one: to make the Church of the twentieth

century ever better fitted for proclaiming the Gospel to the people

of the twentieth century.

We wish to do so one year after the Third General Assembly

of the Synod of Bishops, which, as is well known, was devoted to

evangelization; and we do so all the more willingly because it has

been asked of us by the Synod Fathers themselves. In fact, at the

end of that memorable Assembly, the Fathers decided to remit

to the Pastor of the universal Church, with great trust and sim-

plicity, the fruits of all their labors, stating that they awaited

from him a fresh forward impulse, capable of creating within a

Church still more firmly rooted in the undying power and strength

of Pentecost a new period of evangelization. 6

Theme frequently emphasized
in the course of our Pontificate

3. We have stressed the importance of this theme of evan-

gelization on many occasions, well before the Synod took place.

On 22 June 1973 we said to the Sacred College of Cardinals: “The

conditions of the society in which we live oblige all of us therefore

to revise methods, to seek by every means to study how we can

bring the Christian message to modern man. For it is only in the

Christian message that modern man can find the answer to his

questions and the energy for his commitment of human soli-

darity." 7 And we added that in order to give a valid answer to the

6



demands of the Council which call for our attention, it is absolutely

necessary for us to take into account a heritage of faith that the

Church has the duty of preserving in its untouchable purity, and

of presenting it to the people of our time, in a way that is as

understandable and persuasive as possible.

In the line

of the 1974 Synod

4. This fidelity both to a message whose servants we are and

to the people to whom we must transmit it living and intact is the

central axis of evangelization. It poses three burning questions,

which the 1974 Synod kept constantly in mind:

— In our day, what has happened to that hidden energy of
the Good News, which is able to have a powerful effect on man’s

conscience?

— To what extent and in what way is that evangelical force
capable of really transforming the people of this century?

— What methods should be followed in order that the power
of the Gospel may have its effect?

Basically, these inquiries make explicit the fundamental ques-

tion that the Church is asking herself today and which may be

expressed in the following terms: after the Council and thanks to

the Council, which was a time given her by God, at this turning-

point of history, does the Church or does she not find herself

better equipped to proclaim the Gospel and to put it into people’s

hearts with conviction, freedom of spirit and effectiveness?

Invitation to meditation

5. We can all see the urgency of giving a loyal, humble and

courageous answer to this question, and of acting accordingly.

In our “anxiety for all the Churches,’’ 8 we would like to help

our Brethren and sons and daughters to reply to these inquiries.

Our words come from the wealth of the Synod and are meant to

be a meditation on evangelization. May they succeed in inviting

the whole People of God assembled in the Church to make the

same meditation; and may they give a fresh impulse to everyone,

especially those “who are assiduous in preaching and teaching,” 9

7



so that each one of them may follow “a straight course in the

message of the truth ," 10 and may work as a preacher of the Gospel

and acquit himself perfectly of his ministry.

Such an exhortation seems to us to be of capital importance,

for the presentation of the Gospel message is not an optional

contribution for the Church. It is the duty incumbent on her by

the command of the Lord Jesus, so that people can believe and

be saved. This message is indeed necessary. It is unique. It cannot

be replaced. It does not permit either indifference, syncretism or

accommodation. It is a question of people’s salvation. It is the

beauty of the Revelation that it represents. It brings with it a wis-

dom that is not of this world. It is able to stir up by itself faith-

faith that rests on the power of God . 11 It is truth. It merits having

the apostle consecrate to it all his time and all his energies, and

to sacrifice for it, if necessary, his own life.



FROM CHRIST THE

EVANGELIZER TO THE

EVANGELIZING CHURCH

Witness

and mission of Jesus

6. The witness that the Lord gives of himself and that Saint

Luke gathered together in his Gospel— “I must proclaim the Good

News of the kingdom of God" 12—without doubt has enormous
consequences, for it sums up the whole mission of Jesus: “That

is what I was sent to do." 13 These words take on their full sig-

nificance if one links them with the previous verses, in which

Christ has just applied to himself the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed

me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor." 14

Going from town to town, preaching to the poorest—and fre-

quently the most receptive—the joyful news of the fulfillment of

the promises and of the Covenant offered by God is the mission

for which Jesus declares that he is sent by the Father. And all the

aspects of his mystery—the Incarnation itself, his miracles, his

teaching, the gathering together of the disciples, the sending out

of the Twelve, the Cross and the Resurrection, the permanence of

his presence in the midst of his own—were components of his

evangelizing activity.

9



Jesus,

the first Evangelizer

7. During the Synod, the Bishops very frequently referred

to this truth: Jesus himself, the Good News of God, 15 was the very

first and the greatest evangelizer; he was so through and through:

to perfection and to the point of the sacrifice of his earthly life.

To evangelize: what meaning did this imperative have for

Christ? It is certainly not easy to express in a complete synthesis

the meaning, the content and the modes of evangelization as Jesus

conceived it and put it into practice. In any case the attempt to

make such a synthesis will never end. Let it suffice for us to recall

a few essential aspects.

Proclamation

of the Kingdom of God

8. As an evangelizer, Christ first of all proclaims a kingdom,

the Kingdom of God; and this is so important that, by comparison,

everything else becomes ‘'the rest,” which is ‘‘given in addition.” 16

Only the Kingdom therefore is absolute, and it makes everything

else relative. The Lord will delight in describing in many ways the

happiness of belonging to this Kingdom (a paradoxical happiness

which is made up of things that the world rejects), 17 the demands

of the Kingdom and its Magna Charta, 18 the heralds of the King-

dom, 19 its mysteries, 20 its children, 21 the vigilance and fidelity

demanded of whoever awaits its definitive coming. 22

Proclamation

of liberating salvation

9. As the kernel and center of his Good News, Christ pro-

claims salvation, this great gift of God which is liberation from

everything that oppresses man but which is above all liberation

from sin and the Evil One, in the joy of knowing God and being

known by him, of seeing him, and of being given over to him. All

of this is begun during the life of Christ and definitively accom-

plished by his death and Resurrection. But it must be patiently

carried on during the course of history, in order to be realized

fully on the day of the final coming of Christ, whose date is known

to no one except the Father. 23

10



At the price

of crucifying effort

10. This Kingdom and this salvation, which are the key

words of Jesus Christ's evangelization, are available to every

human being as grace and mercy, and yet at the same tir • 3 each

individual must gain them by force—they belong to the violent,

says the Lord, 24 through toil and suffering, through a life lived

according to the Gospel, through abnegation and the Cross,

through the spirit of the beatitudes. But above all each individual

gains them through a total interior renewal which the Gospel calls

metanoia; it is a radical conversion, a profound change of mind

and heart. 25

Tireless preaching

11. Christ accomplished this proclamation of the Kingdom

of God through the untiring preaching of a word which, it will

be said, has no equal elsewhere: “Here is a teaching that is new,

and with authority behind it." 25 “And he won the approval of all,

and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from

his lips." 27 “There has never been anybody who has spoken like

him." 28 His words reveal the secret of God, his plan and his prom-

ise, and thereby change the heart of man and his destiny.

With evangelical signs

12. But Christ also carries out this proclamation by innu-

merable signs, which amaze the crowds and at the same time draw

them to him in order to see him, listen to him and allow them-

selves to be transformed by him: the sick are cured, water is

changed into wine, bread is multiplied, the dead come back to life.

And among all these signs there is the one to which he attaches

great importance: the humble and the poor are evangelized, be-

come his disciples and gather together “in his name" in the great

community of those who believe in him. For this Jesus who de-

clared, “I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God," 29

is the same Jesus of whom John the Evangelist said that he had

come and was to die “to gather together in unity the scattered

children of God." 30 Thus he accomplishes his revelation, com-

pleting it and confirming it by the entire revelation that he makes

of himself, by words and deeds, by signs and miracles, and more

li



especially by his death, by his Resurrection and by the sending

of the Spirit of Truth. 31

For an evangelized

and evangelizing community

13. Those who sincerely accept the Good News, through the

power of this acceptance and of shared faith, therefore gather

together in Jesus’ name in order to seek together the Kingdom,

build it up and live it. They make up a community which is in its

turn evangelizing. The command to the Twelve to go out and pro-

claim the Good News is also valid for all Christians, though in a

different way. It is precisely for this reason that Peter calls Chris-

tians "a people set apart to sing the praises of God,” 32 those

marvellous things that each one was able to hear in his own lan-

guage. 33 Moreover, the Good News of the Kingdom which is com-

ing and which has begun is meant for all people of all times. Those

who have received the Good News and who have been gathered

by it into the community of salvation can and must communicate

and spread it.

Evangelization:

vocation proper to the Church

14. The Church knows this. She has a vivid awareness of the

fact that the Saviour’s words, “I must proclaim the Good News

of the kingdom of God,” 34 apply in all truth to herself. She willingly

adds with Saint Paul: “Not that I boast of preaching the gospel,

since it is a duty that has been laid on me; I should be punished

if I did not preach it!” 35 It is with joy and consolation that at the

end of the great Assembly of 1974 we heard these illuminating

words: “We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangeliz-

ing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.” 36

It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of

present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in

fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest

identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say in order

to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to

reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in

the Mass, which is the memorial of his death and glorious

Resurrection.

12



Reciprocal links between

the Church and evangelization

15. Anyone who re-reads in the New Testament the origins

of the Church, follows her history step by step and watches her

live and act, sees that she is linked to evangelization in her most

intimate being:

— The Church is born of the evangelizing activity of Jesus and
the Twelve. She is the normal, desired, most immediate and most

visible fruit of this activity: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all

the nations." 37 Now, “they accepted what he said and were bap-

tized. That very day about three thousand were added to their

number. . . . Day by day the Lord added to their community

those destined to be saved." 38

— Having been born consequently out of being sent, the
Church in her turn is sent by Jesus. The Church remains in the

world when the Lord of glory returns to the Father. She remains as

a sign—simultaneously obscure and luminous—of a new presence

of Jesus, of his departure and of his permanent presence. She

prolongs and continues him. And it is above all his mission and

his condition of being an evangelizer that she is called upon to

continue. 39 For the Christian community is never closed in upon

itself. The intimate life of this community—the life of listening to

the Word and the Apostles' teaching, charity lived in a fraternal

way, the sharing of bread 40—this intimate life only acquires its
full meaning when it becomes a witness, when it evokes admira-

tion and conversion, and when it becomes the preaching and

proclamation of the Good News. Thus it is the whole Church that

receives the mission to evangelize, and the work of each indi-

vidual member is important for the whole.

— The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being
evangelized herself. She is the community of believers, the com-

munity of hope lived and communicated, the community of broth-

erly love; and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must

believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of

love. She is the People of God immersed in the world, and often

tempted by idols, and she always needs to hear the proclamation

of the “mighty works of God" 41 which converted her to the Lord;

she always needs to be called together afresh by him and reunited.

In brief, this means that she has a constant need of being evan-

13



gelized, if she wishes to retain freshness, vigor and strength in

order to proclaim the Gospel. The Second Vatican Council recalled42

and the 1974 Synod vigorously took up again this theme of the

Church which is evangelized by constant conversion and renewal,

in order to evangelize the world with credibility.

— The Church is the depositary of the Good News to be
proclaimed. The promises of the New Alliance in Jesus Christ,

the teaching of the Lord and the Apostles, the Word of life, the

sources of grace and of God’s loving kindness, the path of salva-

tion— all these things have been entrusted to her. It is the content

of the Gospel, and therefore of evangelization, that she preserves

as a precious living heritage, not in order to keep it hidden but

to communicate it.

— Having been sent and evangelized, the Church herself
sends out evangelizers. She puts on their lips the saving Word, she

explains to them the message of which she herself is the deposi-

tary, she gives them the mandate which she herself has received

and she sends them out to preach. To preach not their own selves

or their personal ideas, 43 but a Gospel of which neither she nor

they are the absolute masters and owners, to dispose of it as

they wish, but a Gospel of which they are the ministers, in order

to pass it on with complete fidelity.

The Church,

inseparable from Christ

16. There is thus a profound link between Christ, the Church

and evangelization. During the period of the Church that we are

living in, it is she who has the task of evangelizing. This mandate

is not accomplished without her, and still less against her.

It is certainly fitting to recall this fact at a moment like the

present one when it happens that not without sorrow we can hear

people—whom we wish to believe are well-intentioned but who are

certainly misguided in their attitude—continually claiming to love

Christ but without the Church, to listen to Christ but not the

Church, to belong to Christ but outside the Church. The absurdity

of this dichotomy is clearly evident in this phrase of the Gospel:

“Anyone who rejects you rejects me." 44 And how can one wish to

love Christ without loving the Church, if the finest witness to

Christ is that of Saint Paul: “Christ loved the Church and sacri-

ficed himself for her?" 45

14



II

WHAT IS EVANGELIZATION?

Complexity

of evangelizing action

17. In the Church’s evangelizing activity there are of course

certain elements and aspects to be specially insisted on. Some of

them are so important that there will be a tendency simply to

identify them with evangelization. Thus it has been possible to

define evangelization in terms of proclaiming Christ to those who

do not know him, of preaching, of catechesis, of conferring Bap-

tism and the other Sacraments.

Any partial and fragmentary definition which attempts to

render the reality of evangelization in all its richness, complexity

and dynamism does so only at the risk of impoverishing it and

even of distorting it. It is impossible to grasp the concept of evan-

gelization unless one tries to keep in view all its essential elements.

These elements were strongly emphasized at the last Synod,

and are still the subject of frequent study, as a result of the

Synod’s work. We rejoice in the fact that these elements basically

follow the lines of those transmitted to us by the Second Vatican

Council, especially in Lumen Gentium
,
Gaudium et Spes and Ad

Gentes.

Renewal of Humanity

18. For the Church, evangelizing means bringing the Good

News into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence

transforming humanity from within and making it new: “Now 1

15



am making the whole of creation new." 46 But there is no new

humanity if there are not first of all new persons renewed by

Baptism47 and by lives lived according to the Gospel. 48 The pur-

pose of evangelization is therefore precisely this interior change,

and if it had to be expressed in one sentence the best way of

stating it would be to say that the Church evangelizes when she

seeks to convert, 49 solely through the divine power of the Message

she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of

people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and

concrete milieux which are theirs.

And of the strata

of humanity

19. Strata of humanity which are transformed: for the

Church it is a question not only of preaching the Gospel in ever

wider geographic areas or to ever greater numbers of people, but

also of affecting and as it were upsetting, through the power of

the Gospel, mankind’s criteria of judgment, determining values,

points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and

models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of God and

the plan of salvation.

Evangelization

of cultures

20. All this could be expressed in the following words: what

matters is to evangelize man’s culture and cultures (not in a purely

decorative way as it were by applying a thin veneer, but in a vital

way, in depth and right to their very roots), in the wide and rich

sense which these terms have in Gaudium et Spes, 50 always tak-

ing the person as one’s starting-point and always coming back

to the relationships of people among themselves and with God.

The Gospel, and therefore evangelization, are certainly not

identical with culture, and they are independent in regard to all

cultures. Nevertheless, the Kingdom which the Gospel proclaims

is lived by men who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the

building up of the Kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements

of human culture or cultures. Though independent of cultures,

the Gospel and evangelization are not necessarily incompatible

16



with them; rather they are capable of permeating them all without

becoming subject to any one of them.

The split between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt

the drama of our time, just as it was of other times. Therefore

every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of cul-

ture, or more correctly of cultures. They have to be regenerated

by an encounter with the Gospel. But this encounter will not take

place if the Gospel is not proclaimed.

Primary importance

of witness of life

21. Above all the Gospel must be proclaimed by witness.

Take a Christian or a handful of Christians who, in the midst of

their own community, show their capacity for understanding and

acceptance, their sharing of life and destiny with other people,

their solidarity with the efforts of all for whatever is noble and

good. Let us suppose that, in addition, they radiate in an altogether

simple and unaffected way their faith in values that go beyond

current values, and their hope in something that is not seen and

that one would not dare to imagine. Through this wordless witness

these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of

those who see how they live: Why are they like this? Why do they

live in this way? What or who is it that inspires them? Why are

they in our midst? Such a witness is already a silent proclamation

of the Good News and a very powerful and effective one. Here we

have an initial act of evangelization. The above questions will

perhaps be the first that many non-Christians will ask, whether

they are people to whom Christ has never been proclaimed, or

baptized people who do not practice, or people who live as nominal

Christians but according to principles that are in no way Christian,

or people who are seeking, and not without suffering, something

or someone whom they sense but cannot name. Other questions

will arise, deeper and more demanding ones, questions evoked

by this witness which involves presence, sharing, solidarity, and

which is an essential element, and generally the first one, in

evangelization. 51

All Christians are called to this witness, and in this way they

can be real evangelizers. We are thinking especially of the respon-

17



sibility incumbent on immigrants in the country that receives

them.

Need of explicit

proclamation

22. Nevertheless this always remains insufficient, because

even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if it is

not explained, justified—what Peter called always having “your

answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that

you all have” 52—and made explicit by a clear and unequivocal
proclamation of the Lord Jesus. The Good News proclaimed by

the witness of life sooner or later has to be proclaimed by the

word of life. There is no true evangelization if the name, the

teaching, the life, the promises, the Kingdom and the mystery of

Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed. The history

of the Church, from the discourse of Peter on the morning of

Pentecost onwards, has been intermingled and identified with the

history of this proclamation. At every new phase of human history,

the Church, constantly gripped by the desire to evangelize, has

but one preoccupation: whom to send to proclaim the mystery of

Jesus? In what way is this mystery to be proclaimed? How can

one ensure that it will resound and reach all those who should

hear it? This proclamation—kerygma, preaching or catechesis—

occupies such an important place in evangelization that it has

often become synonymous with it; and yet it is only one aspect

of evangelization.

For a vital

and community acceptance

23. In fact the proclamation only reaches full development

when it is listened to, accepted and assimilated, and when it

arouses a genuine adherence in the one who has thus received it.

An adherence to the truths which the Lord in his mercy has

revealed; still more, an adherence to a program of life—a life

henceforth transformed—which he proposes. In a word, adherence

to the Kingdom, that is to say the “new world,” to the new state

of things, to the new manner of being, of living, of living in corn-

unity, which the Gospel inaugurates. Such an adherence, which

cannot remain abstract and unincarnated, reveals itself concretely

18



by a visible entry into a community of believers. Thus those whose

life has been transformed enter a community which is itself a

sign of transformation, a sign of newness of life: it is the Church,

the visible sacrament of salvation. 53 But entry into the ecclesial

community will in its turn be expressed through many other signs

which prolong and unfold the sign of the Church. In the dynamism

of evangelization, a person who accepts the Church as the Word

which saves54 normally translates it into the following sacramental

acts: adherence to the Church, and acceptance of the Sacraments,

which manifest and support this adherence through the grace

which they confer.

Involving a

new apostolate

24. Finally: the person who has been evangelized goes on

to evangelize others. Here lies the test of truth, the touchstone

of evangelization: it is unthinkable that a person should accept

the Word and give himself to the Kingdom without becoming a

person who bears witness to it and proclaims it in his turn.

To complete these considerations on the meaning of evan-

gelization, a final observation must be made, one which we con-

sider will help to clarify the reflections that follow.

Evangelization, as we have said, is a complex process made

up of varied elements: the renewal of humanity, witness, explicit

proclamation, inner adherence, entry into the community, ac-

ceptance of signs, apostolic initiative. These elements may appear

to be contradictory, indeed mutually exclusive. In fact they are

complementary and mutually enriching. Each one must always be

seen in relationship with the others. The value of the last Synod

was to have constantly invited us to relate these elements rather

than to place them in opposition one to the other, in order to

reach a full understanding of the Church’s evangelizing activity.

It is this global vision which we now wish to outline, by

examining the content of evangelization and the methods of evan-

gelizing and by clarifying to whom the Gospel message is ad-

dressed and who today is responsible for it.

19



Ill

THE CONTENT OF

EVANGELIZATION

Essential content

and secondary elements

25. In the message which the Church proclaims there are

certainly many secondary elements. Their presentation depends

greatly on changing circumstances. They themselves also change.

But there is the essential content, the living substance, which

cannot be modified or ignored without seriously diluting the nature

of evangelization itself.

Witness given

to the Father’s love

26. It is not superfluous to recall the following points: to

evangelize is first of all to bear witness, in a simple and direct

way, to God revealed by Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit; to bear

witness that in his Son God has loved the world—that in his Incar-

nate Word he has given being to all things and has called men to

eternal life. Perhaps this attestation of God will be for many

people the unknown God 55 whom they adore without giving him a

name, or whom they seek by a secret call of the heart when they

experience the emptiness of all idols. But it is fully evangelizing

in manifesting the fact that for man the Creator is not an anony-

mous and remote power; he is the Father: . . that we should

be called children of God; and so we are.” 56 And thus we are one

another’s brothers and sisters in God.

20



At the center of the message:

salvation in Jesus Christ

27. Evangelization will also always contain—as the founda-

tion, center and at the same time summit of its dynamism—a clear

proclamation that, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man,

who died and rose from the dead, salvation is offered to all men,

as a gift of God’s grace and mercy. 57 And not an immanent salva-

tion, meeting material or even spiritual needs, restricted to the

framework of temporal existence and completely identified with

temporal desires, hopes, affairs and struggles, but a salvation

which exceeds all these limits in order to reach fulfillment in a

communion with the one and only divine Absolute: a transcendent

and eschatological salvation, which indeed has its beginning in

this life but which is fulfilled in eternity.

Under the sign of hope

28. Consequently evangelization cannot but include the pro-

phetic proclamation of a hereafter, man’s profound and definitive

calling, in both continuity and discontinuity with the present situa-

tion: beyond time and history, beyond the transient reality of this

world, and beyond the things of this world, of which a hidden

dimension will one day be revealed— beyond man himself, whose

true destiny is not restricted to his temporal aspect but will be

revealed in the future life. 58 Evangelization therefore also includes

the preaching of hope in the promises made by God in the new

Covenant in Jesus Christ, the preaching of God’s love for us and

of our love for God; the preaching of brotherly love for all men—

the capacity of giving and forgiving, of self-denial, of helping one’s

brother and sister—which, springing from the love of God, is the

kernel of the Gospel; the preaching of the mystery of evil and of

the active search for good. The preaching likewise—and this is

always urgent—of the search for God himself through prayer which

is principally that of adoration and thanksgiving, but also through

communion with the visible sign of the encounter with God which

is the Church of Jesus Christ; and this communion in its turn is

expressed by the application of those other signs of Christ living

and acting in the Church which are the Sacraments. To live the

Sacraments in this way, bringing their celebration to a true full-

ness, is not, as some would claim, to impede or to accept a dis-

21



tortion of evangelization: it is rather to complete it. For in its

totality, evangelization—over and above the preaching of a mes-

sage-consists in the implantation of the Church, which does not

exist without the driving force which is the sacramental life cul-

minating in the Eucharist. 59

Message touching life

as a whole

29. But evangelization would not be complete if it did not

take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man's

concrete life, both personal and social. This is why evangelization

involves an explicit message, adapted to the different situations

constantly being realized, about the rights and duties of every

human being, about family life without which personal growth

and development is hardly possible, 60 about life in society, about

international life, peace, justice and development—a message

especially energetic today about liberation.

A message
of liberation

30. It is well known in what terms numerous Bishops from

all the continents spoke of this at the last Synod, especially the

Bishops from the Third World, with a pastoral accent resonant

with the voice of the millions of sons and daughters of the Church

who make up those peoples. Peoples, as we know, engaged with

all their energy in the effort and struggle to overcome everything

which condemns them to remain on the margin of life: famine,

chronic disease, illiteracy, poverty, injustices in international rela-

tions and especially in commercial exchanges, situations of eco-

nomic and cultural neo-colonialism sometimes as cruel as the old

political colonialism. The Church, as the Bishops repeated, has

the duty to proclaim the liberation of millions of human beings,

many of whom are her own children—the duty of assisting the

birth of this liberation, of giving witness to it, of ensuring that it

is complete. This is not foreign to evangelization.

Necessarily linked

to human advancement

31. Between evangelization and human advancement—devel-

22



opment and liberation—there are in fact profound links. These

include links of an anthropological order, because the man who

is to be evangelized is not an abstract being but is subject to

social and economic questions. They also include links in the

theological order, since one cannot dissociate the plan of creation

from the plan of Redemption. The latter plan touches the very

concrete situations of injustice to be combatted and of justice to

be restored. They include links of the eminently evangelical order,

which is that of charity: how in fact can one proclaim the new

commandment without promoting in justice and in peace the true,

authentic advancement of man? We ourself have taken care to

point this out, by recalling that it is impossible to accept “that in

evangelization one could or should ignore the importance of the

problems so much discussed today, concerning justice, liberation,

development and peace in the world. This would be to forget the

lesson which comes to us from the Gospel concerning love of

our neighbor who is suffering and in need.” 61

The same voices which during the Synod touched on this

burning theme with zeal, intelligence and courage have, to our

great joy, furnished the enlightening principles for a proper under-

standing of the importance and profound meaning of liberation,

such as it was proclaimed and achieved by Jesus of Nazareth and

such as it is preached by the Church.

Without reduction

or ambiguity

32. We must not ignore the fact that many, even generous

Christians who are sensitive to the dramatic questions involved in

the problem of liberation, in their wish to commit the Church to

the liberation effort are frequently tempted to reduce her mission

to the dimensions of a simply temporal project. They would reduce

her aims to a man-centered goal; the salvation of which she is the

messenger would be reduced to material well-being. Her activity,

forgetful of all spiritual and religious preoccupation, would become

initiatives of the political or social order. But if this were so, the

Church would lose her fundamental meaning. Her message of

liberation would no longer have any originality and would easily

be open to monopolization and manipulation by ideological sys-

tems and political parties. She would have no more authority to

proclaim freedom as in the name of God. This is why we have

23



wished to emphasize, in the same address at the opening of the

Synod, “the need to restate clearly the specifically religious finality

of evangelization. This latter would lose its reason for existence

if it were to diverge from the religious axis that guides it: the

Kingdom of God, before anything else, in its fully theological

meaning . . . .” 62

Evangelical liberation

33. With regard to the liberation which evangelization pro-

claims and strives to put into practice one should rather say this:

— it cannot be contained in the simple and restricted dimen-
sion of economics, politics, social or cultural life; it must envisage

the whole man, in all his aspects, right up to and including his

openness to the absolute, even the divine Absolute;

— it is therefore attached to a certain concept of man, to
a view of man which it can never sacrifice to the needs of any

strategy, practice or short-term efficiency.

Centered

on the Kingdom of God

34. Hence, when preaching liberation and associating her-

self with those who are working and suffering for it, .the Church

is certainly not willing to restrict her mission only to the religious

field and dissociate herself from man’s temporal problems. Never-

theless she reaffirms the primacy of her spiritual vocation and

refuses to replace the proclamation of the Kingdom by the procla-

mation of forms of human liberation; she even states that her

contribution to liberation is incomplete if she neglects to proclaim

salvation in Jesus Christ.

On an evangelical

concept of man

35. The Church links human liberation and salvation in

Jesus Christ, but she never identifies them, because she knows

through revelation, historical experience and the reflection of

faith that not every notion of liberation is necessarily consistent

and compatible with an evangelical vision of man, of things and

of events; she knows too that in order that God's Kingdom should

24



come it is not enough to establish liberation and to create well-

being and development.

And what is more, the Church has the firm conviction that

all temporal liberation, all political liberation—even if it endeavors

to find its justification in such or such a page of the Old or New

Testament, even if it claims for its ideological postulates and its

norms of action theological data and conclusions, even if it pre-

tends to be today’s theology—carries within itself the germ of

its own negation and fails to reach the ideal that it proposes for

itself, whenever its profound motives are not those of justice in

charity, whenever its zeal lacks a truly spiritual dimension and

whenever its final goal is not salvation and happiness in God.

Involving

a necessary conversion

36. The Church considers it to be undoubtedly important to

build up structures which are more human, more just, more re-

spectful of the rights of the person and less oppressive and less

enslaving, but she is conscious that the best structures and the

most idealized systems soon become inhuman if the inhuman

inclinations of the human heart are not made wholesome, if those

who live in these structures or who rule them do not undergo a

a conversion of heart and of outlook.

Excluding violence

37. The Church cannot accept violence, especially the force

of arms—which is uncontrollable once it is let loose—and indis-

criminate death as the path to liberation, because she knows that

violence always provokes violence and irresistibly engenders new

forms of oppression and enslavement which are often harder to

bear than those from which they claimed to bring freedom. We

said this clearly during our journey in Colombia: “We exhort you

not to place your trust in violence and revolution: that is contrary

to the Christian spirit, and it can also delay instead of advancing

that social uplifting to which you lawfully aspire.” 63 “We must say

and reaffirm that violence is not in accord with the Gospel, that

it is not Christian; and that sudden or violent changes of structures

would be deceitful, ineffective of themselves, and certainly not in

conformity with the dignity of the people.” 64

25



Specific contribution

of the Church

38. Having said this, we rejoice that the Church is becoming

ever more conscious of the proper manner and strictly evangelical

means that she possesses in order to collaborate in the liberation

of many. And what is she doing? She is trying more and more to

encourage large numbers of Christians to devote themselves to

the liberation of men. She is providing these Christian “liberators"

with the inspiration of faith, the motivation of fraternal love, a

social teaching which the true Christian cannot ignore and which

he must make the foundation of his wisdom and of his experience

in order to translate it concretely into forms of action, participa-

tion and commitment. All this must characterize the spirit of a

committed Christian, without confusion with tactical attitudes or

with the service of a political system. The Church strives always to

insert the Christian struggle for liberation into the universal plan

of salvation which she herself proclaims.

What we have just recalled comes out more than once in the

Synod debates. In fact we devoted to this theme a few clarifying

words in our address to the Fathers at the end of the Assembly. 65

It is to be hoped that all these considerations will help to

remove the ambiguity which the word “liberation" very often takes

on in ideologies, political systems or groups. The liberation which

evangelization proclaims and prepares is the one which Christ

himself announced and gave to man by his sacrifice.

Religious liberty

39. The necessity of ensuring fundamental human rights

cannot be separated from this just liberation which is bound up

with evangelization and which endeavors to secure structures

safeguarding human freedoms. Among these fundamental human

rights, religious liberty occupies a place of primary importance.

We recently spoke of the relevance of this matter, emphasizing

“how many Christians still today, because they are Christians,

because they are Catholics, live oppressed by systematic persecu-

tion! The drama of fidelity to Christ and of the freedom of religion

continues, even if it is disguised by categorical declarations in

favor of the rights of the person and of life in society!" 66

26



IV

THE METHODS OF

EVANGELIZATION

Search

for suitable means

40. The obvious importance of the content of evangelization

must not overshadow the importance of the ways and means.

This question of “how to evangelize" is permanently rele-

vant, because the methods of evangelizing vary according to the

different circumstances of time, place and culture, and because

they thereby present a certain challenge to our capacity for dis-

covery and adaptation.

On us particularly, the pastors of the Church, rests the re-

sponsibility for reshaping with boldness and wisdom, but in

complete fidelity to the content of evangelization, the means that

are most suitable and effective for communicating the Gospel

message to the men and women of our times.

Let it suffice, in this meditation, to mention a number of

methods which, for one reason or another, have a fundamental

importance.

The witness

of life

41. Without repeating everything that we have already men-

tioned, it is appropriate first of all to emphasize the following

27



point: for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the

witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a

communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time

given to one’s neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently

to a group of lay people, “Modern man listens more willingly to

witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it

is because they are witnesses.” 67 Saint Peter expressed this well

when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that

wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word. 68

It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the

Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living

witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus—the witness of poverty and

detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world,

in short, the witness of sanctity.

A living
preaching

42. Secondly, it is not superfluous to emphasize the impor-

tance and necessity of preaching. “And how are they to believe

in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear

without a preacher? ... So faith comes from what is heard and

what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” 69 This law once

laid down by the Apostle Paul maintains its full force today.

Preaching, the verbal proclamation of a message, is indeed

always indispensable. We are well aware that modern man is sated

by talk; he is obviously often tired of listening and, what is worse,

impervious to words. We are also aware that many psychologists

and sociologists express the view that modern man has passed

beyond the civilization of the word, which is now ineffective and

useless, and that today he lives in the civilization of the image.

These facts should certainly impel us to employ, for the purpose

of transmitting the Gospel message, the modern means which this

civilization has produced. Very positive efforts have in fact already

been made in this sphere. We cannot but praise them and encour-

age their further development. The fatigue produced these days

by so much empty talk and the relevance of many other forms of

communication must not however diminish the permanent power

of the word, or cause a loss of confidence in it. The word remains

ever relevant, especially when it is the bearer of the power of

28



God. 70 This is why Saint Paul’s axiom, “Faith comes from what is

heard,” 71 also retains its relevance: it is the Word that is heard

which leads to belief.

Liturgy

of the Word

43. This evangelizing preaching takes on many forms, and

zeal will inspire the reshaping of them almost indefinitely. In fact

there are innumerable events in life and human situations which

offer the opportunity for a discreet but incisive statement of what

the Lord has to say in this or that particular circumstance. It

suffices to have true spiritual sensitivity for reading God's message

in events. But at a time when the liturgy renewed by the Council

has given greatly increased value to the Liturgy of the Word, it

would be a mistake not to see in the homily an important and very

adaptable instrument of evangelization. Of course it is necessary

to know and put to good use the exigencies and the possibilities of

the homily, so that it can acquire all its pastoral effectiveness. But

above all it is necessary to be convinced of this and to devote

oneself to it with love. This preaching, inserted in a unique way

into the Eucharistic celebration, from which it receives special

force and vigor, certainly has a particular role in evangelization,

to the extent that it expresses the profound faith of the sacred

minister and is impregnated with love. The faithful assembled as

a Paschal Church, celebrating the feast of the Lord present in

their midst, expect much from this preaching, and will greatly

benefit from it provided that it is simple, clear, direct, well-

adapted, profoundly dependent on Gospel teaching and faithful

to the Magisterium, animated by a balanced apostolic ardor

coming from its own characteristic nature, full of hope, fostering

belief, and productive of peace and unity. Many parochial or other

communities live and are held together thanks to the Sunday

homily, when it possesses these qualities.

Let us add that, thanks to the same liturgical renewal, the

Eucharistic celebration is not the only appropriate moment for

the homily. The homily has a place and must not be neglected in

the celebration of all the Sacraments, at paraliturgies, and in

assemblies of the faithful. It will always be a privileged occasion

for communicating the Word of the Lord.

29



Catechetics

44. A means of evangelization that must not be neglected

is that of catechetical instruction. The intelligence, especially that

of children and young people, needs to learn through systematic

religious instruction the fundamental teachings, the living content

of the truth which God has wished to convey to us and which the

Church has sought to express in an ever richer fashion during the

course of her long history. No one will deny that this instruction

must be given to form patterns of Christian living and not to

remain only notional. Truly the effort for evangelization will profit

greatly—at the level of catechetical instruction given at church,

in the schools, where this is possible, and in every case in Chris-

tian homes— if those giving catechetical instruction have suitable

texts, updated with wisdom and competence, under the authority

of the Bishops. The methods must be adapted to the age, culture

and aptitude of the persons concerned; they must seek always

to fix in the memory, intelligence and heart the essential truths

that must impregnate all of life. It is necessary above all to pre-

pare good instructors— parochial catechists, teachers, parents—

who are desirous of perfecting themselves in this superior art,

which is indispensable and requires religious instruction. More-

over, without neglecting in any way the training of children, one

sees that present conditions render ever more urgent catechetical

instruction, under the form of the catechumenate, for innumer-

able young people and adults who, touched by grace, discover

little by little the face of Christ and feel the need of giving them-

selves to him.

Utilization

of the mass media

45. Our century is characterized by the mass media or

means of social communication, and the first proclamation,

catechesis or the further deepening of faith cannot do without

these means, as we have already emphasized.

When they are put at the service of the Gospel, they are

capable of increasing almost indefinitely the area in which the

Word of God is heard; they enable the Good News to reach mil-

lions of people. The Church would feel guilty before the Lord if

she did not utilize these powerful means that human skill is daily

30



rendering more perfect. It is through them that she proclaims

“from the housetops" 72 the message of which she is the deposi-

tary. In them she finds a modern and effective version of the

pulpit. Thanks to them she succeeds in speaking to the multitudes.

Nevertheless the use of the means of social communication

for evangelization presents a challenge: through them the evan-

gelical message should reach vast numbers of people, but with

the capacity of piercing the conscience of each individual, of

implanting itself in his heart as though he were the only person

being addressed, with all his most individual and personal quali-

ties, and evoke an entirely personal adherence and commitment.

Indispensable

personal contact

46. For this reason, side-by-side with the collective procla-

mation of the Gospel, the other form of transmission, the person-

to-person one, remains valid and important. The Lord often used

it (for example with Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, the Samaritan woman,

Simon the Pharisee), and so did the Apostles. In the long run, is

there any other way of handing on the Gospel than by transmitting

to another person one’s personal experience of faith? It must not

happen that the pressing need to proclaim the Good News to the

multitudes should cause us to forget this form of proclamation

whereby an individual’s personal conscience is reached and

touched by an entirely unique word that he receives from someone

else. We can never sufficiently praise those priests who through

the Sacrament of Penance or through pastoral dialogue show

their readiness to guide people in the ways of the Gospel, to sup-

port them in their efforts, to raise them up if they have fallen,

and always to assist them with discernment and availability.

Role

of the Sacraments

47. Yet, one can never sufficiently stress the fact that evan-

gelization does not consist only of the preaching and teaching of

a doctrine. For evangelization must touch life: the natural life to

which it gives a new meaning, thanks to the evangelical perspec-

tives that it reveals; and the supernatural life, which is not the

negation but the purification and elevation of the natural life.

31



This supernatural life finds its living expression in the seven

Sacraments and in the admirable radiation of grace and holiness

which they possess.

Evangelization thus exercises its full capacity when it achieves

the most intimate relationship, or better still a permanent and

unbroken intercommunication, between the Word and the Sacra-

ments. In a certain sense it is a mistake to make a contrast be-

tween evangelization and sacramentalization, as is sometimes

done. It is indeed true that a certain way of administering the

Sacraments, without the solid support of catechesis regarding

these same Sacraments and a global catechesis, could end up by

depriving them of their effectiveness to a great extent. The role

of evangelization is precisely to educate people in the faith in

such a way as to lead each individual Christian to live the Sacra-

ments as true Sacraments of faith—and not to receive them

passively or to undergo them.

Popular piety

48. Here we touch upon an aspect of evangelization which

cannot leave us insensitive. We wish to speak about what today

is often called popular religiosity.

One finds among the people particular expressions of the

search for God and for faith, both in the regions where the Church

has been established for centuries and where she is in the course

of becoming established. These expressions were for a long time

regarded as less pure and were sometimes despised, but today

they are almost everywhere being rediscovered. During the last

Synod the Bishops studied their significance with remarkable pas-

toral realism and zeal.

Popular religiosity of course certainly has its limits. It is

often subject to penetration by many distortions of religion and

even superstitions. It frequently remains at the level of forms of

worship not involving a true acceptance by faith. It can even lead

to the creation of sects and endanger the true ecclesial community.

But if it is well oriented, above all by a pedagogy of evan-

gelization, it is rich in values. It manifests a thirst for God which

only the simple and poor can know. It makes people capable of

generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is

32



a question of manifesting belief. It involves an acute awareness of

profound attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and

constant presence. It engenders interior attitudes rarely observed

to the same degree elsewhere: patience, the sense of the Cross

in daily life, detachment, openness to others, devotion. By reason

of these aspects, we readily call it “popular piety,” that is. religion

of the people, rather than religiosity.

Pastoral charity must dictate to all those whom the Lord has

placed as leaders of the ecclesial communities the proper attitude

in regard to this reality, which is at the same time so rich and so

vulnerable. Above all one must be sensitive to it. know how to

perceive its interior dimensions and undeniable values, be ready

to help it to overcome its risks of deviation. When it is well ori-

ented, this popular religiosity can be more and more for multi-

tudes of our people a true encounter with God in Jesus Christ.

33



V

THE BENEFICIARIES OF

EVANGELIZATION

Addressed

to everyone

49. Jesus’ last words in Saint Mark’s Gospel confer on the

evangelization which the Lord entrusts to his Apostles a limitless

universality: “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News

to all creation.” 73

The Twelve and the first generation of Christians understood

well the lesson of this text and other similar ones; they made them

into a program of action. Even persecution, by scattering the

Apostles, helped to spread the Word and to establish the Church

in ever more distant regions. The admission of Paul to the rank

of the Apostles and his charism as the preacher to the pagans

(the non-Jews) of Jesus’ Coming underlined this universality still

more.

Despite

all the obstacles

50. In the course of twenty centuries of history, the genera-

tions of Christians have periodically faced various obstacles to

this universal mission. On the one hand, on the part of the evan-

gelizers themselves, there has been the temptation for various

reasons to narrow down the field of their missionary activity. On

the other hand, there has been the often humanly insurmountable

34



resistance of the people being addressed by the evangelizer.

Furthermore, we must note with sadness that the evangelizing

work of the Church is strongly opposed, if not prevented, by cer-

tain public powers. Even in our own day it happens that preachers

of God's Word are deprived of their rights, persecuted, threatened

or eliminated solely for preaching Jesus Christ and his Gospel.

But we are confident that despite these painful trials the activity

of these apostles will never meet final failure in any part of the

world.

Despite such adversities the Church constantly renews her

deepest inspiration, that which comes to her directly from the

Lord: To the whole world! To all creation! Right to the ends of

the earth! She did this once more at the last Synod, as an appeal

not to imprison the proclamation of the Gospel by limiting it to

one sector of mankind or to one class of people or to a single type

of civilization. Some examples are revealing.

First proclamation

to those who are far off

51. To reveal Jesus Christ and his Gospel to those who do

not know them has been, ever since the morning of Pentecost,

the fundamental program which the Church has taken on as

received from her Founder. The whole of the New Testament, and

in a special way the Acts of the Apostles, bears witness to a privi-

leged and in a sense exemplary moment of this missionary effort

which will subsequently leave its mark on the whole history of

the Church.

She carries out this first proclamation of Jesus Christ by a

complex and diversified activity which is sometimes termed “pre-

evangelization" but which is already evangelization in a true sense,

although at its initial and still incomplete stage. An almost indefi-

nite range of means can be used for this purpose: explicit preach-

ing, of course, but also art, the scientific approach, philosophical

research and legitimate recourse to the sentiments of the human

heart.

Renewed proclamation

to a dechristianized world

52. This first proclamation is addressed especially to those

who have never heard the Good News of Jesus, or to children.

35



But, as a result of the frequent situations of dechristianization in

our day, it also proves equally necessary for innumerable people

who have been baptized but who live quite outside Christian life,

for simple people who have a certain faith but an imperfect

knowledge of the foundations of that faith, for intellectuals who

feel the need to know Jesus Christ in a light different from the

instruction they received as children, and for many others.

Non-Christian

religions

53. This first proclamation is also addressed to the immense

sections of mankind who practice non-Christian religions. The

Church respects and esteems these non-Christian religions because

they are the living expression of the soul of vast groups of people.

They carry within them the echo of thousands of years of searching

for God, a quest which is incomplete but often made with great

sincerity and righteousness of heart. They possess an impressive

patrimony of deeply religious texts. They have taught generations

of people how to pray. They are all impregnated with innumerable

“seeds of the Word’' 74 and can constitute a true “preparation for

the Gospel," 75 to quote a felicitous term used by the Second Vati-

can Council and borrowed from Eusebius of Caesarea.

Such a situation certainly raises complex and delicate ques-

tions that must be studied in the light of Christian Tradition and

the Church's Magisterium, in order to offer to the missionaries of

today and of tomorrow new horizons in their contacts with non-

Christian religions. We wish to point out, above all today, that

neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity

of the questions raised is an invitation to the Church to withhold

from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ. On

the contrary the Church holds that these multitudes have the right

to know the riches of the mystery of Christ 76— riches in which we
believe that the whole of humanity can find, in unsuspected full-

ness, everything that it is gropingly searching for concerning God,

man and his destiny, life and death, and truth. Even in the face

of natural religious expressions most worthy of esteem, the Church

finds support in the fact that the religion of Jesus, which she pro-

claims through evangelization, objectively places man in relation

with the plan of God, with his living presence and with his action;

36



she thus causes an encounter with the mystery of divine paternity

that bends over towards humanity. In other words, our religion

effectively establishes with God an authentic and living relation-

ship which the other religions do not succeed in doing, even

though they have, as it were, their arms stretched out towards

heaven.

This is why the Church keeps her missionary spirit alive, and

even wishes to intensify it in the moment of history in which we

are living. She feels responsible before entire peoples. She has no

rest so long as she has not done her best to proclaim the Good

News of Jesus the Saviour. She is always preparing new genera-

tions of apostles. Let us state this fact with joy at a time when

there are not lacking those who think and even say that ardor

and the apostolic spirit are exhausted, and that the time of the

missions is now past. The Synod has replied that the missionary

proclamation never ceases and that the Church will always be

striving for the fulfillment of this proclamation.

Support for the faith

of believers

54. Nevertheless the Church does not feel dispensed from

paying unflagging attention also to those who have received the

faith and who have been in contact with the Gospel often for

generations. Thus she seeks to deepen, consolidate, nourish and

make ever more mature the faith of those who are already called

the faithful or believers, in order that they may be so still more.

This faith is nearly always today exposed to secularism, even

to militant atheism. It is a faith exposed to trials and threats, and

even more, a faith besieged and actively opposed. It runs the risk

of perishing from suffocation or starvation if it is not fed and

sustained each day. To evangelize must therefore very often be to

give this necessary food and sustenance to the faith of believers,

especially through a catechesis full of Gospel vitality and in a

language suited to people and circumstances.

The Church also has a lively solicitude for the Christians who

are not in full communion with her. While preparing with them the

unity willed by Christ, and precisely in order to realize unity in

truth, she has the consciousness that she would be gravely lacking

in her duty if she did not give witness before them of the fullness

of the revelation whose deposit she guards.

37



Non-believers

55. Also significant is the preoccupation of the last Synod

in regard to two spheres which are very different from one another

but which at the same time are very close by reason of the chal-

lenge which they make to evangelization, each in its own way.

The first sphere is the one which can be called the increase

of unbelief in the modern world. The Synod endeavored to de-

scribe this modern world: how many currents of thought, values

and countervalues, latent aspirations or seeds of destruction, old

convictions which disappear and new convictions which arise are

covered by this generic name!

From the spiritual point of view, the modern world seems to

be for ever immersed in what a modern author has termed “the

drama of atheistic humanism.” 77

On the one hand one is forced to note in the very heart of this

contemporary world the phenomenon which is becoming almost its

most striking characteristic: secularism. We are not speaking of

secularization, which is the effort, in itself just and legitimate and

in no way incompatible with faith or religion, to discover in crea-

tion, in each thing or each happening in the universe, the laws

which regulate them with a certain autonomy, but with the inner

conviction that the Creator has placed these laws there. The last

Council has in this sense affirmed the legitimate autonomy of

culture and particularly of the sciences. 78 Here we are thinking of

a true secularism: a concept of the world according to which the

latter is self-explanatory, without any need for recourse to God,

who thus becomes superfluous and an encumbrance. This sort of

secularism, in order to recognize the power of man, therefore ends

up by doing without God and even by denying him.

New forms of atheism seem to flow from it: a man-centered

atheism, no longer abstract and metaphysical but pragmatic,

systematic and militant. Hand in hand with this atheistic secu-

larism, we are daily faced, under the most diverse forms, with a

consumer society, the pursuit of pleasure set up as the supreme

value, a desire for power and domination, and discrimination of

every kind: the inhuman tendencies of this “humanism.”
*

In this same modern world, on the other hand, and this is a

paradox, one cannot deny the existence of real stepping-stones

38



to Christianity, and of evangelical values at least in the form of a

sense of emptiness or nostalgia. It would not be an exaggeration

to say that there exists a powerful and tragic appeal to be

evangelized.

The non-practicing

56. The second sphere is that of those who do not practice.

Today there is a very large number of baptized people who for

the most part have not formally renounced their Baptism but who

are entirely indifferent to it and not living in accordance with it.

The phenomenon of the non-practicing is a very ancient one in

the history of Christianity; it is the result of a natural weakness,

a profound inconsistency which we unfortunately bear deep within

us. Today however it shows certain new characteristics. It is often

the result of the uprooting typical of our time. It also springs

from the fact that Christians live in close proximity with non-

believers and constantly experience the effects of unbelief. Fur-

thermore, the non-practicing Christians of today, more so than

those of previous periods, seek to explain and justify their position

in the name of an interior religion, of personal independence or

authenticity.

Thus we have atheists and unbelievers on the one side and

those who do not practice on the other, and both groups put up

a considerable resistance to evangelization. The resistance of the

former takes the form of a certain refusal and an inability to grasp

the new order of things, the new meaning of the world, of life and

of history; such is not possible if one does not start from a divine

absolute. The resistance of the second group takes the form of

inertia and the slightly hostile attitude of the person who feels

that he is one of the family, who claims to know it all and to have

tried it all and who no longer believes it.

Atheistic secularism and the absence of religious practice

are found among adults and among the young, among the leaders

of society and among the ordinary people, at all levels of educa-

tion, and in both the old Churches and the young ones. The

Church's evangelizing action cannot ignore these two worlds, nor

must it come to a standstill when faced with them; it must con-

stantly seek the proper means and language for presenting, or

re-presenting, to them God’s revelation and faith in Jesus Christ.

39



Proclamation

to the multitudes

57. Like Christ during the time of his preaching, like the

Twelve on the morning of Pentecost, the Church too sees before

her an immense multitude of people who need the Gospel and have

a right to it, for God “wants everyone to be saved and reach full

knowledge of the truth.” 79

The Church is deeply aware of her duty to preach salvation

to all. Knowing that the Gospel message is not reserved to a small

group of the initiated, the privileged or the elect but is destined

for everyone, she shares Christ’s anguish at the sight of the wan-

dering and exhausted crowds “like sheep without a shepherd” and

she often repeats his words: “I feel sorry for all these people.” 80

But the Church is also conscious of the fact that, if the preaching

of the Gospel is to be effective, she must address her message to

the heart of the multitudes, to communities of the faithful whose

action can and must reach others.

Ecclesial

communautes de base

58. The last Synod devoted considerable attention to these

“small communities,” or communautes de base, because they are

often talked about in the Church today. What are they; and why

should they be the special beneficiaries of evangelization and at

the same time evangelizers themselves?

According to the various statements heard in the Synod,

such communities flourish more or less throughout the Church.

They differ greatly among themselves, both within the same region

and even more so from one region to another.

In some regions they appear and develop, almost without

exception, within the Church, having solidarity with her life, being

nourished by her teaching and united with her pastors. In these

cases, they spring from the need to live the Church's life more

intensely, or from the desire and quest for a more human dimen-

sion such as larger ecclesial communities can only offer with diffi-

culty, especially in the big modern cities which lend themselves

both to life in the mass and to anonymity. Such communities can

quite simply be in their own way an extension on the spiritual and

40



religious level—worship, deepening of faith, fraternal charity,

prayer, contact with pastors—of the small sociological community

such as the village, etc. Or again their aim may be to bring to-

gether, for the purpose of listening to and meditating on the Word,

for the Sacraments and the bond of the agape, groups of people

who are linked by age, culture, civil state or social situation:

married couples, young people, professional people, etc., people

who already happen to be united in the struggle for justice,

brotherly aid to the poor, human advancement. In still other cases

they bring Christians together in places where the shortage of

priests does not favor the normal life of a parish community.

This is all presupposed within communities constituted by the

Church, especially individual Churches and parishes.

In other regions, on the other hand, communautes de base

come together in a spirit of bitter criticism of the Church, which

they are quick to stigmatize as “institutional” and to which they

set themselves up in opposition as charismatic communities, free

from structures and inspired only by the Gospel. Thus their obvi-

ous characteristic is an attitude of fault-finding and of rejection

with regard to the Church’s outward manifestations: her hierarchy,

her signs. They are radically opposed to the Church. By following

these lines their main inspiration very quickly becomes ideological,

and it rarely happens that they do not quickly fall victim to some

political option or current of thought, and then to a system, even

a party, with all the attendant risks of becoming its instrument.

The difference is already notable: the communities which by

their spirit of opposition cut themselves off from the Church, and

whose unity they wound, can well be called communautes de base,

but in this case it is a strictly sociological name. They could not,

without a misuse of terms, be called ecclesial communautes de

base, even if, while being hostile to the hierarchy, they claim to

remain within the unity of the Church. This name belongs to the

other groups, those which come together within the Church in

order to unite themselves to the Church and to cause the Church

to grow.

These latter communities will be a place of evangelization,

for the benefit of the bigger communities, especially the individual

Churches. And, as we said at the end of the last Synod, they will

be a hope for the universal Church to the extent:

41



— that they seek their nourishment in the Word of God and
do not allow themselves to be ensnared by political polarization or

fashionable ideologies, which are ready to exploit their immense

human potential;

—
- that they avoid the ever present temptation of systematic

protest and a hypercritical attitude, under the pretext of authen-

ticity and a spirit of collaboration;

— that they remain firmly attached to the local Church in
which they are inserted, and to the universal Church, thus avoiding

the very real danger of becoming isolated within themselves, then

of believing themselves to be the only authentic Church of Christ,

and hence of condemning the other ecclesial communities;

— that they maintain a sincere communion with the pastors
whom the Lord gives to his Church, and with the Magisterium

which the Spirit of Christ has entrusted to these pastors;

— that they never look on themselves as the sole benefici-
aries or sole agents of evangelization—or even the only deposi-

taries of the Gospel— but, being aware that the Church is much

more vast and diversified, accept the fact that this Church be-

comes incarnate in other ways than through themselves;

— that they constantly grow in missionary consciousness,
fervor, commitment and zeal;

— that they show themselves to be universal in all things
and never sectarian.

On these conditions, which are certainly demanding but also

uplifting, the ecclesial communautds de base will correspond to

their most fundamental vocation: as hearers of the Gospel which

is proclaimed to them and privileged beneficiaries of evangeliza-

tion, they will soon become proclaimers of the Gospel themselves.

42



VI

THE WORKERS FOR

EVANGELIZATION

The Church:

missionary in her entirety

59. If people proclaim in the world the Gospel of salvation,

they do so by the command of, in the name of and with the grace

of Christ the Saviour. “They will never have a preacher unless

one is sent,” 81 wrote he who was without doubt one of the greatest

evangelizers. No one can do it without having been sent.

But who then has the mission of evangelizing?

The Second Vatican Council gave a clear reply to this ques-

tion: it is upon the Church that “there rests, by divine mandate,

the duty of going out into the whole world and preaching the

gospel to every creature.” 82 And in another text: “. . . the whole

Church is missionary, and the work of evangelization is a basic

duty of the People of God.” 83

We have already mentioned this intimate connection between

the Church and evangelization. While the Church is proclaiming

the Kingdom of God and building it up, she is establishing herself

in the midst of the world as the sign and instrument of this King-

dom which is and which is to come. The Council repeats the fol-

lowing expression of Saint Augustine on the missionary activity

43



of the Twelve: “They preached the word of truth and brought forth

Churches." 84

An ecclesial act

60. The observation that the Church has been sent out and

given a mandate to evangelize the world should awaken in us two

convictions.

The first is this: evangelization is for no one an individual

and isolated act; it is one that is deeply ecclesial. When the most

obscure preacher, catechist or pastor in the most distant land

preaches the Gospel, gathers his little community together or

administers a Sacrament, even alone, he is carrying out an eccle-

sial act, and his action is certainly attached to the evangelizing

activity of the whole Church by institutional relationships, but also

by profound invisible links in the order of grace. This presupposes

that he acts not in virtue of a mission which he attributes to him-

self or by a personal inspiration, but in union with the mission

of the Church and in her name.

From this flows the second conviction: if each individual

evangelizes in the name of the Church, who herself does so by

virtue of a mandate from the Lord, no evangelizer is the absolute

master of his evangelizing action, with a discretionary power to

carry it out in accordance with individualistic criteria ’ and per-

spectives; he acts in communion with the Church and her pastors.

We have remarked that the Church is entirely and completely

evangelizing. This means that, in the whole world and in each part

of the world where she is present, the Church feels responsible

for the task of spreading the Gospel.

The perspective

of the universal Church

61. Brothers and sons and daughters, at this stage of our

reflection, we wish to pause with you at a question which is par-

ticularly important at the present time. In the celebration of the

liturgy, in their witness before judges and executioners and in

their apologetical texts, the first Christians readily expressed their

deep faith in the Church by describing her as being spread

throughout the universe. They were fully conscious of belonging

44



to a large community which neither space nor time can limit:

“From the just Abel right to the last of the elect," 85 “indeed to

the ends of the earth," 86 “to the end of time." 87

This is how the Lord wanted his Church to be: universal, a

great tree whose branches shelter the birds of the air, 88 a net

which catches fish of every kind 89 or which Peter drew in filled

with one hundred and fifty-three big fish, 90 a flock which a single

shepherd pastures. 91 A universal Church without boundaries or

frontiers except, alas, those of the heart and mind of sinful man.

The perspective

of the individual Church

62. Nevertheless this universal Church is in practice incar-

nate in the individual Churches made up of such or such an actual

part of mankind, speaking such and such a language, heirs of a

cultural patrimony, of a vision of the world, of an historical past,

of a particular human substratum. Receptivity to the wealth of the

individual Church corresponds to a special sensitivity of modern

man.

Let us be very careful not to conceive of the universal Church

as the sum, or, if one can say so, the more or less anomalous

federation of essentially different individual Churches. In the mind

of the Lord the Church is universal by vocation and mission, but

when she puts down her roots in a variety of cultural, social and

human terrains, she takes on different external expressions and

appearances in each part of the world.

Thus each individual Church that would voluntarily cut itself

off from the universal Church would lose its relationship to God’s

plan and would be impoverished in its ecclesial dimension. But,

at the same time, a Church toto orbe diffusa would become an

abstraction if she did not take body and life precisely through the

individual Churches. Only continual attention to these two poles

of the Church will enable us to perceive the richness of this rela-

tionship between the universal Church and the individual Churches.

Adaptation and fidelity

in expression

63. The individual Churches, intimately built up not only of

45



people but also of aspirations, of riches and limitations, of ways

of praying, of loving, of looking at life and the world which dis-

tinguish this or that human gathering, have the task of assimilating

the essence of the Gospel message and of transposing it, without

the slightest betrayal of its essential truth, into the language that

these particular people understand, then of proclaiming it in this

language.

The transposition has to be done with the discernment, seri-

ousness, respect and competence which the matter calls for in the

field of liturgical expression, 92 and in the areas of catechesis,

theological formulation, secondary ecclesial structures, and minis-

tries. And the word “language" should be understood here less

in the semantic or literary sense than in the sense which one may

call anthropological and cultural.

The question is undoubtedly a delicate one. Evangelization

loses much of its force and effectiveness if it does not take into

consideration the actual people to whom it is addressed, if it does

not use their language, their signs and symbols, if it does not

answer the questions they ask, and if it does not have an impact

on their concrete life. But on the other hand evangelization risks

losing its power and disappearing altogether if one empties or

adulterates its content under the pretext of translating it; if, in

other words, one sacrifices this reality and destroys the unity

without which there is no universality, out of a wish to adapt a

universal reality to a local situation. Now, only a Church which

preserves the awareness of her universality and shows that she is

in fact universal is capable of having a message which can be

heard by all, regardless of regional frontiers.

Legitimate attention to individual Churches cannot fail to

enrich the Church. Such attention is indispensable and urgent.

It responds to the very deep aspirations of peoples and human

communities to find their own identity ever more clearly.

Openness

to the universal Church

64. But this enrichment requires that the individual Churches

should keep their profound openness towards the universal Church.

46



It is quite remarkable, moreover, that the most simple Christians,

the ones who are most faithful to the Gospel and most open to the

true meaning of the Church, have a completely spontaneous sensi-

tivity to this universal dimension. They instinctively and very

strongly feel the need for it, they easily recognize themselves in

such a dimension. They feel with it and suffer very deeply within

themselves when, in the name of theories which they do not

understand, they are forced to accept a Church deprived of this

universality, a regionalist Church, with no horizon.

As history in fact shows, whenever an individual Church has

cut itself off from the universal Church and from its living and

visible center—sometimes with the best of intentions, with theo-

logical, sociological, political or pastoral arguments, or even in the

desire for a certain freedom of movement or action— it has escaped

only with great difficulty (if indeed it has escaped) from two

equally serious dangers. The first danger is that of a withering

isolationism, and then, before long, of a crumbling away, with

each of its cells breaking away from it just as it itself has broken

away from the central nucleus. The second danger is that of losing

its freedom when, being cut off from the center and from the other

Churches which gave it strength and energy, it finds itself all

alone and a prey to the most varied forces of enslavery and

exploitation.

The more an individual Church is attached to the universal

Church by solid bonds of communion, in charity and loyalty, in

receptiveness to the Magisterium of Peter, in the unity of the

lex orandi which is also the lex credendi, in the desire for unity

with all the other Churches which make up the whole—the more

such a Church will be capable of translating the treasure of faith

into the legitimate variety of expressions of the profession of faith,

of prayer and worship, of Christian life and conduct and of the

spiritual influence on the people among which it dwells. The more

will it also be truly evangelizing, that is to say capable of drawing

upon the universal patrimony in order to enable its own people

to profit from it, and capable too of communicating to the uni-

versal Church the experience and the life of this people, for the

benefit of all.

47



The unchangeable

deposit of faith

65. It was precisely in this sense that at the end of the last

Synod we spoke clear words full of paternal affection, insisting on

the role of Peter's Successor as a visible, living and dynamic

principle of the unity between the Churches and thus of the uni-

versality of the one Church. 93 We also insisted on the grave respon-

sibility incumbent upon us
f
but which we share with our Brothers

in the Episcopate, of preserving unaltered the content of the

Catholic faith which the Lord entrusted to the Apostles. While

being translated into all expressions, this content must be neither

impaired nor mutilated. While being clothed with the outward

forms proper to each people, and made explicit by theological

expression which takes account of differing cultural, social and

even racial milieux, it must remain the content of the Catholic

faith just exactly as the ecclesial Magisterium has received it and

transmits it.

Differing tasks

66. The whole Church therefore is called upon to evangelize,

and yet within her we have different evangelizing tasks to accom-

plish. This diversity of services in the unity of the same mission

makes up the richness and beauty of evangelization. - We shall

briefly recall these tasks.

First, we would point out in the pages of the Gospel the

insistence with which the Lord entrusts to the Apostles the task of

proclaiming the Word. He chose them, 94 trained them during sev-

eral years of intimate company, 95 constituted 96 and sent them

out97 as authorized witnesses and teachers of the message of sal-

vation. And the Twelve in their turn sent out their successors who,

in the apostolic line, continue to preach the Good News.

The Successor

of Peter

67. The Successor of Peter is thus, by the will of Christ,

entrusted with the pre-eminent ministry of teaching the revealed

truth. The New Testament often shows Peter “filled with the Holy

Spirit" speaking in the name of all. 98 It is precisely for this reason

48



that Saint Leo the Great describes him as he who has merited the

primacy of the apostolate." This is also why the voice of the

Church shows the Pope “at the highest point— in apice, in specula

—of the apostolate." 100 The Second Vatican Council wished to
reaffirm this when it declared that “Christ’s mandate to preach

the Gospel to every creature (cf. Mk 16:15) primarily and imme-

diately concerns the Bishops with Peter and under Peter.’’ 101

The full, supreme and universal power 102 which Christ gives

to his Vicar for the pastoral government of his Church is thus

specially exercised by the Pope in the activity of preaching and

causing to be preached the Good News of salvation.

Bishops

and priests

68. In union with the Successor of Peter, the Bishops, who

are successors of the Apostles, receive through the power of their

episcopal ordination the authority to teach the revealed truth in

the Church. They are teachers of the faith.

Associated with the Bishops in the ministry of evangelization

and responsible by a special title are those who through priestly

ordination “act in the person of Christ." 103 They are educators of

the People of God in the faith and preachers, while at the same

time being ministers of the Eucharist and of the other Sacraments.

We pastors are therefore invited to take note of this duty,

more than any other members of the Church. What identifies our

priestly service, gives a profound unity to the thousand and one

tasks which claim our attention day by day and throughout our

lives, and confers a distinct character on our activities, is this

aim, ever present in all our action: to proclaim the Gospel of

God. 104

A mark of our identity which no doubts ought to encroach

upon and no objection eclipse is this: as pastors, we have been

chosen by the mercy of the Supreme Pastor, 105 in spite of our

inadequacy, to proclaim with authority the Word of God, to assem-

ble the scattered People of God, to feed this People with the signs

of the action of Christ which are the Sacraments, to set this

People on the road to salvation, to maintain it in that unity of

which we are, at different levels, active and living instruments, and

49



unceasingly to keep this community gathered around Christ faith-

ful to its deepest vocation. And when we do all these things, within

our human limits and by the grace of God, it is a work of evangeli-

zation that we are carrying out. This includes ourself as Pastor

of the universal Church, our Brother Bishops at the head of the

individual Churches, priests and deacons united with their Bishops

and whose assistants they are, by a communion which has its

source in the Sacrament of Orders and in the charity of the

Church.

Religious

69. Religious, for their part, find in their consecrated life

a privileged means of effective evangelization. At the deepest level

of their being they are caught up in the dynamism of the Church's

life, which is thirsty for the divine Absolute and called to holiness.

It is to this holiness that they bear witness. They embody the

Church in her desire to give herself completely to the radical

demands of the beatitudes. By their lives they are a sign of total

availability to God, the Church and the brethren.

As such they have a special importance in the context of the

witness which, as we have said, is of prime importance in evan-

gelization. At the same time as being a challenge to the world and

to the Church herself, this silent witness of poverty and abnega-

tion, of purity and sincerity, of self-sacrifice in obedience, can

become an eloquent witness capable of touching also non-Chris-

tians who have good will and are sensitive to certain values.

In this perspective one perceives the role played in evan-

gelization by religious men and women consecrated to prayer,

silence, penance and sacrifice. Other religious, in great numbers,

give themselves directly to the proclamation of Christ. Their

missionary activity depends clearly on the hierarchy and must be

coordinated with the pastoral plan which the latter adopts. But

who does not see the immense contribution that these religious

have brought and continue to bring to evangelization? Thanks to

their consecration they are eminently willing and free to leave

everything and to go and proclaim the Gospel even to the ends of

the earth. They are enterprising and their apostolate is often

marked by an originality, by a genius that demands admiration.

They are generous: often they are found at the outposts of the

50



mission, and they take the greatest of risks for their health and

their very lives. Truly the Church owes them much.

The laity

70. Lay people, whose particular vocation places them in

the midst of the world and in charge of the most varied temporal

tasks, must for this very reason exercise a very special form of

evangelization.

Their primary and immediate task is not to establish and

develop the ecclesial community—this is the specific role of the

pastors— but to put to use every Christian and evangelical possi-

bility latent but already present and active in the affairs of the

world. Their own field of evangelizing activity is the vast and

complicated world of politics, society and economics, but also the

world of culture, of the sciences and the arts, of international life,

of the mass media. It also includes other realities which are open

to evangelization, such as human love, the family, the education

of children and adolescents, professional work, suffering. The

more Gospel-inspired lay people there are engaged in these reali-

ties, clearly involved in them, competent to promote them and

conscious that they must exercise to the full their Christian powers

which are often buried and suffocated, the more these realities

will be at the service of the Kingdom of God and therefore of

salvation in Jesus Christ, without in any way losing or sacrificing

their human content but rather pointing to a transcendent dimen-

sion which is often disregarded.

The family

71. One cannot fail to stress the evangelizing action of the

family in the evangelizing apostolate of the laity.

At different moments in the Church’s history and also in the

Second Vatican Council, the family has well deserved the beautiful

name of “domestic Church.” 106 This means that there should be

found in every Christian family the various aspects of the entire

Church. Furthermore, the family, like the Church, ought to be

a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from which the

Gospel radiates.

In a family which is conscious of this mission, all the mem-

bers evangelize and are evangelized. The parents not only com-

51



municate the Gospel to their children, but from their children

they can themselves receive the same Gospel as deeply lived by

them.

And such a family becomes the evangelizer of many other

families, and of the neighborhood of which it forms part. Families

resulting from a mixed marriage also have the duty of proclaiming

Christ to the children in the fullness of the consequences of a

common Baptism; they have moreover the difficult task of becom-

ing builders of unity.

Young people

72. Circumstances invite us to make special mention of the

young. Their increasing number and growing presence in society

and likewise the problems assailing them should awaken in every-

one the desire to offer them with zeal and intelligence the Gospel

ideal as something to be known and lived. And on the other hand,

young people who are well trained in faith and prayer must be-

come more and more the apostles of youth. The Church counts

greatly on their contribution, and we ourself have often manifested

our full confidence in them.

Diversified

ministries

73. Hence the active presence of the laity in the temporal

realities takes on all its importance. One cannot, however, neglect

or forget the other dimension: the laity can also feel themselves

called, or be called, to work with their pastors in the service of

the ecclesial community, for its growth and life, by exercising a

great variety of ministries according to the grace and charisms

which the Lord is pleased to give them.

We cannot but experience a great inner joy when we see so

many pastors, religious and lay people, fired with their mission

to evangelize, seeking ever more suitable ways of proclaiming the

Gospel effectively. We encourage the openness which the Church

is showing today in this direction and with this solicitude. It is an

openness to meditation first of all, and then to ecclesial ministries

capable of renewing and strengthening the evangelizing vigor of

the Church.

52



It is certain that, side-by-side with the ordained ministries,

whereby certain people are appointed pastors and consecrate

themselves in a special way to the service of the community, the

Church recognizes the place of non-ordained ministries which are

able to offer a particular service to the Church.

A glance at the origins of the Church is very illuminating,

and gives the benefit of an early experience in the matter of

ministries. It was an experience which was all the more valuable

in that it enabled the Church to consolidate herself and to grow

and spread. Attention to the sources however has to be comple-

mented by attention to the present needs of mankind and of the

Church. To drink at these ever inspiring sources without sacrificing

anything of their values, and at the same time to know how to

adapt oneself to the demands and needs of today—these are the

criteria which will make it possible to seek wisely and to discover

the ministries which the Church needs and which many of her

members will gladly embrace for the sake of ensuring greater

vitality in the ecclesial community. These ministries will have a

real pastoral value to the extent that they are established with

absolute respect for unity and adhering to the directives of the

pastors, who are the ones who are responsible for the Church’s

unity and the builders thereof.

These ministries, apparently new but closely tied up with

the Church’s living experience down the centuries—such as cate-

chists, directors of prayer and chant, Christians devoted to the

service of God’s Word or to assisting their brethren in need, the

heads of small communities, or other persons charged with the

responsibility of apostolic movements—these ministries are valu-

able for the establishment, life, and growth of the Church, and

for her capacity to influence her surroundings and to reach those

who are remote from her. We owe also our special esteem to all

the laypeople who accept to consecrate a part of their time, their

energies, and sometimes their entire lives, to the service of the

missions.

A serious preparation is needed for all workers for evangeli-

zation. Such preparation is all the more necessary for those who

devote themselves to the ministry of the Word. Being animated by

the conviction, ceaselessly deepened, of the greatness and riches

of the Word of God, those who have the mission of transmitting

53



it must give the maximum attention to the dignity, precision and

adaptation of their language. Everyone knows that the art of

speaking takes on today a very great importance. How would

preachers and catechists be able to neglect this?

We earnestly desire that in each individual Church the

Bishops should be vigilant concerning the adequate formation of

all the ministers of the Word. This serious preparation will increase

in them the indispensable assurance and also the enthusiasm to

proclaim today Jesus Christ.

54



VII

THE SPIRIT OF

EVANGELIZATION

Pressing appeal

74. We would not wish to end this encounter with our be-

loved Brethren and sons and daughters without a pressing appeal

concerning the interior attitudes which must animate those who

work for evangelization.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name of the

Apostles Peter and Paul, we wish to exhort all those who, thanks

to the charisms of the Holy Spirit and to the mandate of the

Church, are true evangelizers, to be worthy of this vocation, to

exercise it without the reticence of doubt or fear, and not to

neglect the conditions that will make this evangelization not only

possible but also active and fruitful. These, among many others,

are the fundamental conditions which we consider it important to

emphasize.

Under the action

of the Holy Spirit

75. Evangelization will never be possible without the action

of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descends on Jesus of Nazareth at

the moment of his baptism when the voice of the Father—“This is

my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” 107— manifests in an
external way the election of Jesus and his mission. Jesus is “led

by the Spirit” to experience in the desert the decisive combat and

55



the supreme test before beginning this mission . 108 It is “in the

power of the Spirit
”
109 that he returns to Galilee and begins his

preaching at Nazareth, applying to himself the passage of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And he proclaims: “Today

this Scripture has been fulfilled .” 110 To the disciples whom he

was about to send forth he says, breathing on them: “Receive the

Holy Spirit .” 111

In fact, it is only after the coming of the Holy Spirit on the

day of Pentecost that the Apostles depart to all the ends of the

earth in order to begin the great work of the Church’s evangeliza-

tion. Peter explains this event as the fulfillment of the prophecy of

Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit .” 112 Peter is filled with the Holy

Spirit so that he can speak to the people about Jesus, the Son of

God . 113 Paul too is filled with the Holy Spirit 114 before dedicating

himself to his apostolic ministry, as is Stephen when he is chosen

for the ministry of service and later on for the witness of blood . 115

The Spirit, who causes Peter, Paul and the Twelve to speak, and

who inspires the words that they are to utter, also comes down

“on those who heard the word .” 116

It is in the “consolation of the Holy Spirit” that the Church

increases . 117 The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. It is he

who explains to the faithful the deep meaning of the teaching of

Jesus and of his mystery. It is the Holy Spirit who, today just as

at the beginning of the Church, acts in every evangelizer who

allows himself to be possessed and led by him. The Holy Spirit

places on his lips the words which he could not find by himself,

and at the same time the Holy Spirit predisposes the soul of the

hearer to be open and receptive to the Good News and to the

Kingdom being proclaimed.

Techniques of evangelization are good, but even the most

advanced ones could not replace the gentle action of the Spirit.

The most perfect preparation of the evangelizer has no effect

without the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit the most convinc-

ing dialectic has no power over the heart of man. Without him

the most highly developed schemas resting on a sociological or

psychological basis are quickly seen to be quite valueless.

We live in the Church at a privileged moment of the Spirit.

Everywhere people are trying to know him better, as the Scripture

reveals him. They are happy to place themselves under his inspi-

56



ration. They are gathering about him; they want to let themselves

be led by him. Now if the Spirit of God has a pre-eminent place

in the whole life of the Church, it is in her evangelizing mission

that he is most active. It is not by chance that the great inaugura-

tion of evangelization took place on the morning of Pentecost,

under the inspiration of the Spirit.

It must be said that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of

evangelization: it is he who impels each individual to proclaim the

Gospel, and it is he who in the depths of consciences causes the

word of salvation to be accepted and understood. 118 But it can

equally be said that he is the goal of evangelization: he alone

stirs up the new creation, the new humanity of which evangeliza-

tion is to be the result, with that unity in variety which evangeliza-

tion wishes to achieve within the Christian community. Through

the Holy Spirit the Gospel penetrates to the heart of the world,

for it is he who causes people to discern the signs of the times—

signs willed by God—which evangelization reveals and puts to use

within history.

The Bishops’ Synod of 1974, which insisted strongly on the

place of the Holy Spirit in evangelization, also expressed the desire

that pastors and theologians—and we would also say the faithful

marked by the seal of the Spirit by Baptism—should study more

thoroughly the nature and manner of the Holy Spirit’s action in

evangelization today. This is our desire too, and we exhort all

evangelizers, whoever they may be, to pray without ceasing to the

Holy Spirit with faith and fervor and to let themselves prudently

be guided by him as the decisive inspirer of their plans, their

initiatives and their evangelizing activity.

Authentic witnesses

of life

76. Let us now consider the very persons of the evangelizers.

It is often said nowadays that the present century thirsts for

authenticity. Especially in regard to young people it is said that

they have a horror of the artificial or false and that they are

searching above all for truth and honesty.

These “signs of the times” should find us vigilant. Either

tacitly or aloud— but always forcefully—we are being asked: Do

57



you really believe what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you

believe? Do you really preach what you live? The witness of life

has become more than ever an essential condition for real effec-

tiveness in preaching. Precisely because of this we are, to a

certain extent, responsible for the progress of the Gospel that

we proclaim.

“What is the state of the Church ten years after the Council?”

we asked at the beginning of this meditation. Is she firmly estab-

lished in the midst of the world and yet free and independent

enough to call for the world’s attention? Does she testify to soli-

darity with people and at the same time to the divine Absolute?

Is she more ardent in contemplation and adoration and more zeal-

ous in missionary, charitable and liberating action? Is she ever

more committed to the effort to search for the restoration of the

complete unity of Christians, a unity that makes more effective

the common witness, “so that the world may believe ”? 119 We are

all responsible for the answers that could be given to these

questions.

We therefore address our exhortation to our brethren in the

Episcopate, placed by the Holy Spirit to govern the Church . 120 We

exhort the priests and deacons, the Bishops’ collaborators in

assembling the People of God and in animating spiritually the

local communities. We exhort the religious, witnesses of a Church

called to holiness and hence themselves invited to a life that bears

testimony to the beatitudes of the Gospel. We exhort the laity:

Christian families, youth, adults, all those who exercise a trade

or profession, leaders, without forgetting the poor who are often

rich in faith and hope— all lay people who are conscious of their

evangelizing role in the service of their Church or in the midst of

society and the world. We say to all of them: our evangelizing zeal

must spring from true holiness of life, and, as the Second Vatican

Council suggests, preaching must in its turn make the preacher

grow in holiness, which is nourished by prayer and above all by

love for the Eucharist . 121

The world which, paradoxically, despite innumerable signs

of the denial of God, is nevertheless searching for him in unex-

pected ways and painfully experiencing the need of him—the

world is calling for evangelizers to speak to it of a God whom the

evangelists themselves should know and be familiar with as if

58



they could see the invisible.
122 The world calls for and expects

from us simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all,

especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility,

detachment and self-sacrifice. Without this mark of holiness, our

word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man. It

risks being vain and sterile.

The search

for unity

77. The power of evangelization will find itself considerably

diminished if those who proclaim the Gospel are divided among

themselves in all sorts of ways. Is this not perhaps one of the

great sicknesses of evangelization today? Indeed, if the Gospel

that we proclaim is seen to be rent by doctrinal disputes, ideo-

logical polarizations or mutual condemnations among Christians,

at the mercy of the latters' differing views on Christ and the Church

and even because of their different concepts of society and human

institutions, how can those to whom we address our preaching

fail to be disturbed, disoriented, even scandalized?

The Lord's spiritual testament tells us that unity among his

followers is not only the proof that we are his but also the proof

that he is sent by the Father. It is the test of the credibility of

Christians and of Christ himself. As evangelizers, we must offer

Christ's faithful not the image of people divided and separated by

unedifying quarrels, but the image of people who are mature in

faith and capable of finding a meeting-point beyond the real ten-

sions, thanks to a shared, sincere and disinterested search for

truth. Yes, the destiny of evangelization is certainly bound up

with the witness of unity given by the Church. This is a source of

responsibility and also of comfort.

At this point we wish to emphasize the sign of unity among

all Christians as the way and instrument of evangelization. The

division among Christians is a serious reality which impedes the

very work of Christ. The Second Vatican Council states clearly

and emphatically that this division “damages the most holy cause

of preaching the Gospel to all men, and it impedes many from

embracing the faith." 123 For this reason, in proclaiming the Holy

Year we considered it necessary to recall to all the faithful of the

Catholic world that “before all men can be brought together and

59



restored to the grace of God our Father, communion must be

re-established between those who by faith have acknowledged and

accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of mercy who sets men free

and unites them in the Spirit of love and truth." 124

And it is with a strong feeling of Christian hope that we look

to the efforts being made in the Christian world for this restoration

of the full unity willed by Christ. Saint Paul assures us that "hope

does not disappoint us." 125 While we still work to obtain full unity

from the Lord, we wish to see prayer intensified. Moreover we

make our own the desire of the Fathers of the Third General

Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, for a collaboration marked

by greater commitment with the Christian brethren with whom

we are not yet united in perfect unity, taking as a basis the foun-

dation of Baptism and the patrimony of faith which is common to

us. By doing this we can already give a greater common witness

to Christ before the world in the very work of evangelization.

Christ’s command urges us to do this; the duty of preaching and

of giving witness to the Gospel requires this.

Servants

of the truth

78. The Gospel entrusted to us is also the word of truth.

A truth which liberates 126 and which alone gives peace of heart

is what people are looking for when we proclaim the Good News

to them. The truth about God, about man and his mysterious

destiny, about the world; the difficult truth that we seek in the

Word of God and of which, we repeat, we are neither the masters

nor the owners, but the depositaries, the heralds and the servants.

Every evangelizer is expected to have a reverence for truth,

especially since the truth that he studies and communicates is

none other than revealed truth and hence, more than any other,

a sharing in the first truth which is God himself. The preacher of

the Gospel will therefore be a person who even at the price of

personal renunciation and suffering always seeks the truth that he

must transmit to others. He never betrays or hides truth out of a

desire to please men, in order to astonish or to shock, nor for

the sake of originality or a desire to make an impression. He does

not refuse truth. He does not obscure revealed truth by being too

idle to search for it, or for the sake of his own comfort, or out of

60



fear. He does not neglect to study it. He serves it generously, with-

out making it serve him.

We are the pastors of the faithful people, and our pastoral

service impels us to preserve, defend, and to communicate the

truth regardless of the sacrifices that this involves. So many emi-

nent and holy pastors have left us the example of this love of

truth. In many cases it was an heroic love. The God of truth ex-

pects us to be the vigilant defenders and devoted preachers of

truth.

Men of learning—whether you be theologians, exegetes or

historians—the work of evangelization needs your tireless work of

research, and also care and tact in transmitting the truth to which

your studies lead you but which is always greater than the heart

of men, being the very truth of God.

Parents and teachers, your task—and the many conflicts of

the present day do not make it an easy one— is to help your chil-

dren and your students to discover truth, including religious and

spiritual truth.

Animated by love

79. The work of evangelization presupposes in the evan-

gelizer an ever increasing love for those whom he is evangelizing.

That model evangelizer, the Apostle Paul, wrote these words to the

Thessalonians, and they are a program for us all: “With such

yearning love we chose to impart to you not only the gospel of

God but our very selves, so dear had you become to us." 127 What

is this love? It is much more than that of a teacher; it is the love

of a father; and again, it is the love of a mother. 128 It is this love

that the Lord expects from every preacher of the Gospel, from

every builder of the Church. A sign of love will be the concern to

give the truth and to bring people into unity. Another sign of love

will be a devotion to the proclamation of Jesus Christ, without

reservation or turning back. Let us add some other signs of this

love.

The first is respect for the religious and spiritual situation of

those being evangelized. Respect for their tempo and pace; no

one has the right to force them excessively. Respect for their

conscience and convictions, which are not to be treated in a harsh

manner.

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Another sign of this love is concern not to wound the other

person, especially if he or she is weak in faith, 129 with statements

that may be clear for those who are already initiated but which

for the faithful can be a source of bewilderment and scandal, like

a wound in the soul.

Yet another sign of love will be the effort to transmit to

Christians, not doubts and uncertainties born of an erudition

poorly assimilated but certainties that are solid because they are

anchored in the Word of God. The faithful need these certainties

for their Christian life; they have a right to them, as children of

God who abandon themselves entirely into his arms and to the

exigencies of love.

With the fervor

of the Saints

80. Our appeal here is inspired by the fervor of the greatest

preachers and evangelizers, whose lives were devoted to the

apostolate. Among these we are glad to point out those whom

we have proposed to the veneration of the faithful during the

course of the Holy Year. They have known how to overcome many

obstacles to evangelization.

Such obstacles are also present today, and we shall limit

ourself to mentioning the lack of fervor. It is all the more serious

because it comes from within. It is manifested in fatigue, dis-

enchantment, compromise, lack of interest and above all lack of

joy and hope. We exhort all those who have the task of evangeliz-

ing, by whatever title and at whatever level, always to nourish

spiritual fervor. 130

This fervor demands first of all that we should know how

to put aside the excuses which would impede evangelization. The

most insidious of these excuses are certainly the ones which

people claim to find support for in such and such a teaching of

the Council.

Thus one too frequently hears it said, in various terms, that

to impose a truth, be it that of the Gospel, or to impose a way,

be it that of salvation, cannot but be a violation of religious lib-

erty. Besides, it is added, why proclaim the Gospel when the whole

world is saved by uprightness of heart? We know likewise that the

62



world and history are filled with “seeds of the Word”; is it not

therefore an illusion to claim to bring the Gospel where it already

exists in the seeds that the Lord himself has sown?

Anyone who takes the trouble to study in the Council’s docu-

ments the questions upon which these excuses draw too super-

ficially will find quite a different view.

It would certainly be an error to impose something on the

consciences of our brethren. But to propose to their consciences

the truth of the Gospel and salvation in Jesus Christ, with complete

clarity and with a total respect for the free options which it pre-

sents—“without coercion, or dishonorable or unworthy pres-

sure” 131—far from being an attack on religious liberty is fully to
respect that liberty, which is offered the choice of a way that even

nonbelievers consider noble and uplifting. Is it then a crime against

others’ freedom to proclaim with joy a Good News which one has

come to know through the Lord’s mercy? 132 And why should only

falsehood and error, debasement and pornography have the right

to be put before people and often unfortunately imposed on them

by the destructive propaganda of the mass media, by the tolerance

of legislation, the timidity of the good and the impudence of the

wicked? The respectful presentation of Christ and his Kingdom

is more than the evangelizer's right; it is his duty. It is likewise the

right of his fellowmen to receive from him the proclamation of the

Good News of salvation. God can accomplish this salvation in

whomsoever he wishes by ways which he alone knows . 133 And yet,

if his Son came, it was precisely in order to reveal to us, by his

word and by his life, the ordinary paths of salvation. And he has

commanded us to transmit this revelation to others with his own

authority. It would be useful if every Christian and every evan-

gelizer were to pray about the following thought: men can gain

salvation also in other ways, by God’s mercy, even though we do

not preach the Gospel to them; but as for us, can we gain salva-

tion if through negligence or fear or shame—what Saint Paul called

“blushing for the Gospel” 134—or as a result of false ideas we fail
to preach it? For that would be to betray the call of God, who

wishes the seed to bear fruit through the voice of the ministers of

the Gospel; and it will depend on us whether this grows into trees

and produces its full fruit.

Let us therefore preserve our fervor of spirit. Let us preserve

the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is

63



in tears that we must sow. May it mean for us—as it did for John

the Baptist, for Peter and Paul, for the other Apostles and for a

multitude of splendid evangelizers all through the Church's his-

tory—an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench.

May it be the great joy of our consecrated lives. And may the world

of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, some-

times with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from

evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious,

but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor,

who have first received the joy of Christ, and who are willing to

risk their lives so that the Kingdom may be proclaimed and the

Church established in the midst of the world.

64



CONCLUSION

Heritage

of the Holy Year

81. This then, Brothers and sons and daughters, is our

heartfelt plea. It echoes the voice of our Brethren assembled for

the Third General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. This is the

task we have wished to give you at the close of a Holy Year which

has enabled us to see better than ever the needs and the appeals

of a multitude of brethren, both Christians and non-Christians,

who await from the Church the Word of salvation.

May the light of the Holy Year, which has shone in the local

Churches and in Rome for millions of consciences reconciled with

God, continue to shine in the same way after the Jubilee through

a program of pastoral action with evangelization as its basic

feature, for these years which mark the eve of a new century, the

eve also of the third millennium of Christianity.

Mary,

Star of evangelization

82. This is the desire that we rejoice to entrust to the hands

and the heart of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin Mary, on this day

which is especially consecrated to her and which is also the tenth

anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council. On the

morning of Pentecost she watched over with her prayer the begin-

ning of evangelization prompted by the Holy Spirit: may she be

the Star of the evangelization ever renewed which the Church,

docile to her Lord’s command, must promote and accomplish,

especially in these times which are difficult but full of hope!

65



In the name of Christ we bless you, your communities, your

families, all those who are dear to you, in the words which Paul

addressed to the Philippians: “I give thanks to my God every time

I think of you—which is constantly, in every prayer I utter— rejoic-

ing, as I plead on your behalf, at the way you have all continually

helped to promote the gospel ... I hold all of you dear—you

who ... are sharers of my gracious lot . . . to defend the

solid grounds on which the gospel rests. God himself can testify

how much I long for each of you with the affection of Christ

Jesus!" 135

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on the Solemnity of the

Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8,

1975, the thirteenth year of our Pontificate.

1 Cf. Lk 22:32.

2 2 Cor 11:28.
3 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Church's

Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 1: AAS 58 (1966), p. 947.
4 Cf. Eph 4:24; 2:15; Col 3:10; Gal 3:27; Rom 13:14; 2 Cor 5:17.
3 2 Cor 5:20.

6 Cf. Paul VI, Address for the closing of the Third General Assembly of

the Synod of Bishops (October 26, 1974): AAS 66 (1974), pp. 634-635; 637.

7 Paul VI, Address to the College of Cardinals (June 22, 1973): AAS 65

(1973), p. 383.

s 2 Cor 11:28.

9 1 Tim 5:17.

2 Tim 2:15.

11 Cf. 1 Cor 2:5.

12 Lk 4:43.

is Ibid.

i4 Lk 4:18; cf. Is 61:1.

13 Cf. Mk 1:1; Rom 1:1-3.
18 Cf. Mt 6:33.

i7 Cf. Mt 5:3-12.

is Cf. Mt 5-7.

19 Cf. Mt 10.

20 Cf. Mt 13.

66



21 Cf. Mt 18.

22 Cf. Mt 24-25.

23 Cf. Mt 24:36; Acts 1:7; 1 Thess 5:1-2.

24 Cf. Mt 11:12; Lk 16:16.

25 Cf. Mt 4:17.

26 Mk 1:27.
27 Lk 4:22.

28 Jn 7:46.

29 Lk 4:43.

30 Jn 11:52.

31 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on

Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 4: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 818-819.

32 1 Pt 2:9.

33 Cf. Acts 2:11.

34 Lk 4:43.

35 1 Cor 9:16.

36 “Declaration of the Synod Fathers," 4: L’Osservatore Romano (Octo-

ber 27, 1974), p. 6.

37 Mt 28:19.

as Acts 2:41, 47.

39 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on

the Church Lumen Gentium, 8: AAS 57 (1965), p. 11; Decree on the

Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 5: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 951-952.

40 Cf. Acts 2:42-46; 4:32-35; 5:12-16.

41 Cf. Acts 2:11; 1 Pt 2:9.

42 Cf. Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 5, 11-12:

AAS 58 (1966), pp. 951-952, 959-961.
43 Cf. 2 Cor 4:5; Saint Augustine, Sermo XLVI, De Pastoribus: CCL XU,

pp. 529-530.

44 Lk 10:16; cf. Saint Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiae, 14: PL 4, 527;

Saint Augustine, Enarrat. 88, Sermo, 2, 14: PL 37, 1140: Saint John

Chrysostom, Horn, de capto Eutropio, 6: PG 52, 402.
45 Eph 5:25.

46 Rev 21:5, cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15.

47 Cf. Rom 6:4.
48 Cf. Eph 4:23-24; Col 3:9-10.

49 Cf. Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18, 2:4.
50 Cf. 53: AAS 58 (1966), p. 1075.

51 Cf. Tertullian Apologeticum, 39: CCL, I, pp. 150-153; Minucius Felix,

Octavius 9 and 31: CSLP, Turin 19632
, pp. H-13, 47-48.

52 1 Pt 3:15.

53 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on

the Church Lumen Gentium, 1, 9, 48: AAS 57 (1965), pp. 5, 12-14, 53-54;

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes,

42, 45: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 1060-1061, 1065-1066; Decree on the Church's

Missionary Activity Ad Gentes
, 1, 5: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 947, 951-952.

54 Cf. Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18.
55 Cf. Acts 17:22-23.

56 1 Jn 3:1; cf. Rom 8:14-17.

57 Cf. Eph 2:8; Rom 1:16. Cf. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of

the Faith, Declaratio ad fidem tuendam in mysteria Incarnationis et SS.

Trinitatis e quibusdam recentibus erroribus (February 21, 1972): AAS 64

(1972), pp. 237-241.

58 Cf. 1 Jn 3:2; Rom 8:29; Phil 3:20-21. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 48-51: AAS

57 (1965), pp. 53-58.

67



« Cf. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaratio

circa Catholicam Doctrinam de Ecclesia contra non-nullos errores hodiernos

tuendam (June 24, 1973): AAS 65 (1973), pp. 396-408.

«° Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the

Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 47-52: AAS 58 (1966), pp.

1067-1074; Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae: AAS 60 (1968), pp.
481-503.

41 Paul VI, Address for the opening of the Third General Assembly of

the Synod of Bishops (September 27, 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 562.

« Ibid.
63 Paul VI, Address to the Campesinos of Colombia (August 23, 1968):

AAS 60 (1968), p. 623.
64 Paul VI, Address for the "Day of Development” at Bogota (August 23,

1968): AAS 60 (1968), p. 627; cf. Saint Augustine, Epistola 229, 2: PL 33,

102°.

65 Paul VI, Address for the closing of the Third General Assembly of the

Synod of Bishops (October 26, 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 637.
66 Address given on October 15, 1975: L'Osservatore Romano (October

17, 1975).

67 Pope Paul VI, Address to the Members of the Consilium de Laicis

(October 2, 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 568.
m Cf. 1 Pt 3:1.
67 Rom 10:14, 17.
20 Cf. 1 Cor 2:1-5.

71 Rom 10:17.
72 Cf. Mt 10:27; Lk 12:3.
73 Mk 16:15.
74 Cf. Saint Justin, / Apol. 46, 1-4: PG 6, II Apol. 7 (8) 1-4; 10, 1-3; 13,

3-4; Florilegium Patristicum II, Bonn 19112
, pp. 81, 125, 129, 133; Clement

of Alexandria, Stromata I, 19, 91; 94: S. Ch. pp. 117-118; 119-120; Second

Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad

Gentes, 11: AAS 58 (1966), p. 960; cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

Lumen Gentium, 17: AAS 57 (1965), p. 21.
75 Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica I, 1: PG 21, 26-28; cf.

Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

Lumen Gentium, 16: AAS 57 (1965), p. 20.
74 Cf. Eph 3:8.

77 Cf. Henri de Lubac, Le drame de I'humanisme ath6e, ed. Spes, Paris,

1945.

78 Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium

et Spes, 59: AAS 58 (1966), p. 1080.
79 1 Tim 2:4.

eo Mt 9:36; 15:32.

8' Rom 10:15.
82 Declaration on Religious Liberty Dignitatis Humanae, 13: AAS 58

(1966), p. 939; cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,

5: AAS 57 (1965), pp. 7-8; Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad

Gentes, 1: AAS 58 (1966), p. 947.

83 Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 35: AAS 58

(1966), p. 983.

84 Saint Augustine, Enarratio in Ps 44:23 CCL XXXVIII, p. 510; cf.

Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 1: AAS 58 (1966),

p. 947.

85 Saint Gregory the Great, Homil. in Evangelia 19, 1: PL 76, 1154.

84 Acta 1:8; cf. Didache 9, 1: Funk, Patres Apostolici, 1, 22.

68



87 Mt 28:20.

es Cf. Mt 13:32.

89 Cf. Mt 13:47.

90 Cf. Jn 21:11.

91 Cf. Jn 10:1-16.

92 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred

Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 37-38: AAS 56 (1964), p. 110; cf. also the

liturgical books and other documents subsequently issued by the Holy See

for the putting into practice of the liturgical reform desired by the same

Council.

93 Paul VI, Address for the closing of the Third General Assembly of the

Synod of Bishops (October 26, 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 636.

94 Cf. Jn 15:16; Mk 3:13-19; Lk 6:13-16.
95 Cf. Acts 1:21-22.

98 Cf. Mk 3:14.
97 Cf. Mk 3:14-15; Lk 9:2.
98 Acts 4:8; cf. 2:14; 3:12.

99 Cf. St Leo the Great, Sermo 69, 3; Sermo 70, 1-3; Sermo 94, 3;

Sermo 95, 2: S.C. 200, pp. 50-52; 58-66; 258-260; 268.
io» Cf. First Ecumenical Council of Lyons, Constitution Ad apostolicae

dignitatis: Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. Istituto per le Scienze

Religiose, Bologna 19733, p. 278; Ecumenical Council of Vienne, Constitution

Ad providam Christi, ed. cit, p. 343; Fifth Lateran Ecumenical Council,

Constitution In apostolici culminis, ed. cit., p. 608; Constitution Postquam

ad universalis, ed. cit., p. 609; Constitution Supernae dispositionis, ed. cit.,

p. 614; Constitution Divina disponente dementia, ed. cit., p. 638.

101 Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 38: AAS 58

(1966), p. 985.

10 2 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on

the Church Lumen Gentium, 22: AAS 57 (1965), p. 26.
103 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on

the Church Lumen Gentium, 10, 37: AAS 57 (1965), pp. 14, 43; Decree on

the Church’s Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 39: AAS 58 (1966), p. 986;

Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2, 12, 13:

AAS 58 (1966), pp. 992, 1010, 1011.
104 Cf. 1 Thess 2:9.

105 Cf. 1 Pt 5:4.

105 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 11: AAS 57

(1965), p. 16; Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolicam Actuosi-

tatem, 11: AAS 58 (1966), p. 848; Saint John Chrysostom, In Genesim

Serm. VI, 2; VII, 1: PG 54, 607-68.

io7 Mt 3:17.

’os Mt 4:1.

io9 Lk 4:14.

no Lk 4:18, 21; cf. Is 61:1.

in Jn 20:22.

in Acts 2:17.

in Cf. Acts 4:8.

in Cf. Acts 9:17.

in Cf. Acts 6:5, 10; 7:55.

in Acts 10:44.

in Acts 9:31.

i' 8 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Church’s

Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 4: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 950-951.

69



119 Jn 17:21.

120 Cf. Acts 20:28.

1 2 1 Cf. Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests Presbyterorum

Ordinis, 13: AAS 58 (1966), p. 1011.
1 22 Cf. Heb. 11:27.

123 Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 6: AAS 58

(1966), pp. 954-955; cf. Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 1:

AAS 57 (1965), pp. 90-91.

124 Bull Apostolorum Limina, VII: AAS 66 (1974), p. 305.
i 2i Rom 5:5.
125 Cf. Jn 8:32.

i27 1 Thess 2:8; cf. Phil 1:8.

1 28 Cf. 1 Thess 2:7-11; 1 Cor 4:15; Gal 4:19.

129 Cf. 1 Cor 8:9-13; Rom 14:15.
iso Cf. Rom 12:11.
131 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration on Religious

Liberty Dignitatis Humanae, 4: AAS 58 (1966), p. 933.
132 Cf. Ibid., 9-14: loc. cit, pp. 935-940.

133 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Church’s

Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 7: AAS 58 (1966), p. 955.
134 Cf. Rom 1:16.
135 Phil 1:3-4, 7-8.

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