Vatican City, Oct 24, 2010 / 09:26 am
Declaring that the Church exists in order to evangelize, the Holy Father announced on Sunday that the next Synod for bishops, to take place in 2012, will focus on “new evangelization.” The Church must work “to welcome every man and offer him in Christ the fullness of life,” he said.
This is the Holy Father’s most recent initiative to re-propose the Gospel message in historically Christian areas. A new pontifical council was instituted on Oct 12, under the presidency of Archbishop Rino Fisichella, for this very purpose.
At the Mass to close the Synod for the Middle East on Sunday morning, the Pope reported that evangelization was one of the recurring themes of deliberations. The need to “offer the Gospel anew to people who do not know it very well or who have even moved away from the Church” was underlined often, especially by bishops from countries with ancient Christian roots.
To address this theme, he noted he had consulted the bishops of the world and the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.