Re-evangelization of europe

[CrossofChrist]

I am interested greatly in this subject. I heard that Benedict XVI set that as a goal. There were a few news articles asking or explaining why he failed. I was just interested in re-evangelization of the continent that incubated the faith.

I wouldn’t say Benedict failed. The New Evangelization started under JPII (one could even say it started with Vatican II and the movements preceding it) has only just begun. So maybe the better question is why is the New Evangelization needed in the first place?

The answer to that question is a long one, but in a nutshell you could say that somewhere along the line the Church lost the ability to communicate with European culture on both an intellectual level and a practical level. On an intellectual level the Church failed to engage in dialogue with modern currents of thought that swept across the continent. If there was engagement it was more of an appeal to authority, and if not it failed to get to the heart of the questions that were being posed. It didn’t matter that the logic behind the Catholic Faith as it was being presented in the Scholastic tradition was correct; what mattered was that by ignoring or evading what was happening in the modern intellectual world, and by failing to present its positions in a convincing way, the Church was isolating itself from modern European culture. This is a major reason why the “new theology” was concerned with Scholasticism; not because it was wrong, but because it made itself appear dry and unappealing. (Thinkers behind the “new theology” movement such as de Lubac weren’t actually antiScholastic like they are sometimes made out to be. The problem was that Scholasticism was being presented as theological logic-chopping that could be done in isolation from spirituality and inspiration from the Holy Scriptures and God.) Von Balthasar and Ratzinger were big proponents of making Catholicism appear beautiful–it has to appear as though it were too good to be true.

And that leads in to why Catholicism lost touch with Western society on a practical level. People couldn’t find a spiritual home in the Church. They had trouble deriving their spirituality in the liturgy and in connection with the Church. With a theology of prohibitions and the large political presence the Church historical had, it seemed to many in Europe that there was more freedom to be found outside of Christianity than within it. This is in my opinion why places that experience oppression are as a whole more likely to be devoutly religious, because they know that the Faith really does bring freedom and liberation. In many places in Western Europe, especially France, the Church has been seen as the oppressor by aligning itself with the ruling powers and making itself seem powerful. That ultimately destroys the Church in the long run, and is one reason among many why we need “a poor Church and a Church for the poor”.

Benedict has written a lot about all of that, and done so in quite a bit of depth. I encourage you to read what he has said.

 

[KEP1983]

2 Thes 2:1-4 “As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way; ***for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first ***and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God.”

 

[Rakata8]

It is true that many in europe and north America have rebelled against God His laws his morality and his perfect gift.

 

[Viewer]

Viewer:

Your posts were painful to read…and I read them several times to maximize the mortification. No doubt the Church governance failed spectacularly in Ireland, and elsewhere, but that’s not the only reason Europe is post-Christian. Communism, Hitler and two World Wars on native soil no doubt have contributed to the secular/atheistic attitude of the population. And let’s face it: the new God is technology, not just for Europe but in all nations.

I’m not entirely sure how we can criticize communism in Europe as a whole. Clearly the athiestic principles the soviet states held were undesirable, but it was the USSR that beat down Hitler and took Berlin.

Without the communists, Hitler would have taken Europe and do you honestly think he would have left the Vatican unscathed? He’d have wiped it from the face of the earth.

It is true that many in europe and north America have rebelled against God His laws his morality and his perfect gift.

Again, I wouldn’t be so sure about this. The majority of people may now be openly hostile to the idea of a Theocracy or Organized religion, but not to God.

The independent protestant congregations in my area are undergoing something of a Renaissance and an expansion, while others are seeking God in other traditions or the New Age movement.

Clearly they are not going to find the full truth, but it does indicate to me people still want God, they just don’t want the Catholic Church as an organization.

 

[Rakata8]

Well then perhaps catholics should make more efforts to evangelize.

 

[Avila123]

Well then perhaps catholics should make more efforts to evangelize.

Fair comment. We are starting in our diocese and it is a long term project involving re-evangelisation of the faithful and the lost sheep.

 

[Rakata8]

You are in the UK well that is a plus-given less and less people believe in God and those that do are increasingly muslims. I am interested regarding evangelization in the places like the UK, France, Germany, the Scandinavian countries as well as Italy. These places are becoming either increasingly hedonistic and secular or are becoming islamic colonies.

 

[kate_jackson]

Securalism, atheism, anticatholism, antivatican etc has failed spectacularly in europe. Look at the mess …broken families, massive debts etc there has been a huge concentration on the faults and sins of the Catholic church yet in all other areas not the same attention. I believe wholeheartedly in the Catholic Church and when I recieve the Eucharist that is between me and Jesus and nothing to do with anyothers failings and sin.Our Father is perfect and any failing on our part doesnt stop that being true forever…He will always be there and remain true…and so will the Catholic church remain because of that. If there is a huge scandal in government or a bank does that scandal right off banking or government forever because of a few people.
I personally think there will be a turn around in europe as we have had a belly full of antifamily, antimarriage, antichildren and excessive attention to wealth and money which has led to massive debt…ie no success.i lived in france for 3 years and although meant to be secular in culture still good solid catholic community with far more faithful priests than not faithful and actually the same in Britain…far more faithful priests than not faithful and so the Catholic church will go on…as I do because I like to concentrate on my growing faithfulness not any lack of it!

 

[TuAutem]

Securalism, atheism, anticatholism, antivatican etc has failed spectacularly in europe. Look at the mess …broken families, massive debts etc

An analysis of this question as if the Church were a human institution is bound to fail. We can’t even make sense of the past with that approach. How would the Church have ever come to be established in Europe in the first place, by human means? An illiterate fisherman and his friends show up in Rome from a backwater province of the Roman Empire? Who would take them seriously, especially when what they’re preaching is so contrary to everything that civilised people think and do? All of society should agree they are hopelessly deluded.

Closer to us, the recent example of Eastern Europe, mentioned above, is as relevant and complete as you can imagine: the communists brought a totally materialistic society, with all the weight of modern technology and notions of progress behind it, and sought to totally eradicate the church. The Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow was dynamited and turned into the world’s largest swimming pool. Who on earth would have believed in the 1960s that the cathedral would be rebuilt? Such a thing would have been considered absolutely impossible.

France and Britain today are nowhere near so anti-catholic as Poland and Slovakia were 40 years ago. If people in those countries could do such a 180 when they realise the truth about materialism, so shall people here.

Western European society today (people who have not known war or famine) seems majoritarily more interested in freedom to sin than in the freedom of loving the truth… so be it. The fruits of that sin will be self-desctruction (on a personal level if not a national one), and the falseness of a false path will only make the true one shine more strongly in contrast. Those that never left the Church will be there to welcome back those who have gone astray, and they (however imperfect the church on earth will always be) will join us in confessing “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”