Our People

Today's Cultural Setting for the New Evangelisation

Colloquium on Evangelisation at Toongabbie

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
10/3/2006

On December 8, 1975 Pope Paul VI promulgated his great encyclical, Evangelii Nuntiandi. Towards its conclusion he gave a stirring call to the Church, “our heartfelt plea”, he called it:

Let us therefore preserve our fervor of spirit. Let us preserve the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is 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 history- an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench. [1]

Each of us here are drawn to this mission to evangelise. We can recognise that it is for us a calling, an impetus, a fire within, and it impels us to the task of proclaiming Jesus Christ. It may well be something of a mystery to us, this call, this need. It is not something that we can simply see as our “thing”, our interest, our hobby. When we seriously look within ourselves we can see little of ourselves in this interest in evangelisation. We realise that it is a mysterious working of Grace. It is a fire within us that will not go out. It is truly of divine origin. It is a work of God and, perhaps, a vocation from God that drives our lives forward.

It could be a very interesting project to ask each one how they have come to have an interest in and a commitment towards evangelisation!

Cultural Setting

I do not need to rehearse any explanations of the nature of evangelisation, but I would like to reflect with you on the cultural setting in which we find ourselves. I will be speaking of the culture of Australia as we experience it. The question I want to raise for you is what implications does an appreciation of the character of contemporary culture have for the approaches we have to evangelisation.

We are all very familiar with the consideration of the inroads of secularism into our culture. Our culture now is so strongly characterised by what Pope John Paul said in his great document on the role of the lay person in the Church, that they “live as though God does not exist” [2].

Further we are conscious of that analysis of our culture which depicts it as Post Modern. One can trace the intellectual streams since the eighteenth century Enlightenment which have provided the conceptual framework for modern thought.

Epidemic of Depression

I would like to refer to some of the ways in which these influences are working themselves out in the lives of individuals. I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald of Wednesday, 22 February, this year written by Ross Gittins. A subtitle to the article said, “Depression is rife in rich countries – more proof that money can’t buy happiness”.

Ross Gittins drew his thought from the writings of American psychologist, Professor Martin Seligman. He says that the rich countries are facing an “epidemic of depression”.

Seligman identifies four suggestions for the rise of depression.

1. The rise of individualism. He describes it as the “Big I and the small we”. He says, “The more I believe that I am all that matters, and the more I believe that my goals, my success and my pleasures are extremely important, the more hurtful the blow when I fail.” He goes on to comment that in past times there was some comfortable “spiritual furniture” to sit in. He mentions belief in causes bigger than ourselves, “be it God, nation, family or Duty”. These could give us consolation in times of adversity.

2. The depredations of the self-esteem movement. Much contemporary educational theory promotes the idea that parents and teachers should make children feel good about themselves. Seligman argues that rather than encouraging children feel good about themselves, “we should be teaching them the skills to do well in their commerce with the world.”

3. The rise of victimhood. We can see this so clearly as people blame others for their misfortunes. Seligman speaks of “learned helplessness”. Here there is the abdication of responsibility and the preparedness to work to overcome our problems.

4. Finally he speaks of “short cuts to happiness”. Here he refers to the pursuit of instant gratification – in junk food, television, shopping, drugs, loveless sex, spectator sport, chocolate, and so on. Pursuing short cuts to happiness allows our strengths and virtues to wither rather than develop.

This brief summary of some of his ideas would ring a bell with us. These are some of the expressions of the social decline we are all witnessing.

As we look over this list we can also see that the Gospel is the antidote that is needed. I do not need to detail how each of these four areas can be met by aspects of living a life of faith in Jesus Christ, embracing the disciplines of the Christian life and experiencing the communal environment of the Church.

Evangelising in the Culture

If this description of contemporary culture is valid, we, as evangelisers, need to ask ourselves: How can we effectively engage with the culture to enable to Gospel to be preached? Is the way of the megachurches, like Hillsong, the way to go? Is a strict intellectual evangelicalism, as expressed in the Sydney Anglican Church the way to go? Is a strong pentecostal focus on the manifestations of the Spirit the way to go?

To answer this question I would like to consider the elements that go to make up a vital and sustaining faith – the faith we know as Catholics.

I would like to propose:

1. A person needs a real and immediate relationship with Jesus Christ [3]. As the document on Catechesis says, people must be brought not only into contact but into communion with Christ . One of the issues we face at the present time is that many Catholics have a “tribal” or “cultural” faith, but not a personal faith.

2. People are searching for the sacred. Our Catholic faith offers a great variety of ways in which the sacred can be encountered – the sacraments, adoration, meditation and contemplation, the Scriptures as the Word of God, and our tradition of art, architecture and music.

3. The contemporary generation of young people have grown up in a fog of relativism and post modernism’s destruction of authority. They are seeking surety. They want a rock upon which to stand. They seek true and faithful guides. Hence, the extraordinary appeal of Pope John Paul II to the young. They have a quest for truth.

4. Young people want to belong to something greater and more noble than themselves. The Catholic Church has a standing and a heritage that attracts young people.

What are the implications for us in our evangelising activity?

1. We need to proclaim Jesus Christ and call on people to open their hearts to him. This must always lie at the heart of our evangelising activity.

2. We need to utilize the wonderful treasures of our faith. We should be offering truly sacred moments where people can be spiritually touched.

3. We need to proclaim unashamedly the moral tenets of our Catholic faith – sacredness of life, the sacredness of sex, poverty, chastity and obedience.

4. We have the great value of a Church which is historically grounded and universally present across all cultures. It is a richly diverse, yet soundly united around practices of the faith and clear and definable leadership.

These considerations can highlight for us what is at our disposal as Catholics. We do not need to look elsewhere for ways to reach the contemporary generation. All that we need is readily available for us.

Pope John Paul in his document on lay people gave a great call – the time has come for a new evangelisation [4]. I would like to echo his words. Now the time has come for us here to put the new evangelisation at the heart of the mission of the Church in Sydney. We must put the Church on a missionary footing.

Endnotes:

[1] Evangelii Nuntiandi, 80.

[2] Christifideles Laici, 34 (1988). 

[3] The definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch, but also in communion and intimacy, with Jesus Christ (Catechesi Tradendae, 5). 

[4] Cf. Christifideles Laici, 34.