Friday, September 28, 2012

"The New Evangelization: Quo Vadis?"

An interesting discussion published in an article by Paul Kokosi, "The New Evangelization: Quo Vadis?" (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, September 20, 2012), begins thus:
More and more, Catholics are shying away from using terms like “proselytizing,” “conversion,” and even “Catholic” in their ecumenical and inter-religious efforts, almost as if they were ashamed of the Gospel, or afraid of appearing as a “sign of contradiction.”
New Catholic posts the article online, and introduces it with the following remarks in the post, "Vatican II: A discussion that can no longer be stopped" (Rorate Caeli, September 28, 2012):
"Whatever might be said about the current situation of the talks between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), and whatever one's doctrinal position might be, one thing is clear: the frank discussion of the ambiguities of Vatican II and of post-Conciliar Vatican documents vis-a-vis the pre-Conciliar Magisterium has begun, and can no longer be stopped. While it would be easy to exaggerate the quality, extent and openness of the discussion so far, it cannot be denied that signs of it have been appearing in unlikely places ..."
In a related article, "Should the SSPX be excommunicated? An Apostolic Nuncio's thoughts," Rorate Caeli posts the remarks of Archbishop Thomas Edward Gullickson, Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, in response to the earlier post of Fr. Schmidberger's video interview (see "SSPX-Rome: Important - Father Schmidberger speaks on conditions and current status of negotiations with Rome," posted on YouTube September 18, 2012). The operative words seem to be "level-headed" and "clear-headed."

2 comments:

JM said...

http://www.cfnews.org/page10/page11/muller_disaster.html

and

http://www.cfnews.org/page10/page26/hermeneutic_of_continuity.html

Both quite damning in an unoffensive way. The point on Ratzinger's unprovoked comment on the resurrection of bodies points to the obvious fact: as we equivocate on non-essentials, we unwittingly strengthen the encroachment of the essentials. WWhy are these European clerics especially so utterly clueless to this fact, or are they entirely cowed by the zeitgeist. I simply do not get it.

Anonymous said...

JM: thanks for the references. It's been pretty clear that the essentials are in the process of being destroyed.

So what is the purpose of the New Evangelization? To accustom Catholics to temporize about their faith? So why then should we evangelize at all?