Friday, August 10, 2012

Archbishop Fisichella: We need new evangelizers


The following comes from the Vatican News site:

“We cannot conduct a new evangelisation without new evangelizers”, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella Thursday as he opened a three day conference on New Evangelisation in down town Sydney, Australia.

As keynote speaker at Proclaim 2012, the President of the Vatican Council for New Evangelisation spoke of the decline of the faith in Europe and western societies, which, he said, cannot be stemmed by a “reform of structures” but only by a personal encounter with the Risen Christ. He also urged “new relationships of esteem, of trust and of welcome of people’s various gifts” within the Church.

“To be an evangelizer is a vocation so that all people may be able to hear the Gospel of Jesus, believe in him and call upon him. That vocation is born on the very day of our baptism and it is a vocation to every believer in Christ to make of himself or herself a credible bearer of the good news encapsulated in his teaching. To be sent, then, is intrinsic to the baptismal vocation; this implies for all Christians that they assume this responsibility, each one in their own person, without any possibility of delegating it to others. The proclamation of the Gospel cannot be delegated to others; rather, it requires the awareness specific to the believer that he or she is to be a bearer of Christ wherever they go”.

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