The Goal of the "New Evangelization": Vortex

As usual, Michael Voris has a good point in today’s (January 15) Vortex: is the goal of the “New Evangelization” to convert people to the Catholic faith…or not?

The goal is seldom specified. To me, "new evangelization" often seems to mean the “evangelizing” of Catholics, to the exclusion of non-Catholics. That is not an unnecessary or unworthy goal, really, because it’s pretty self-evident that half of the self-identified Catholics in this country do not adhere to the teachings of the Church - otherwise, Obama would not be president. 

Some unfaithful “Catholics” stay in the Church to try to change Her teachings; others are probably just plain ignorant of Catholic teaching on homosexual behavior, contraception, abortion, etc.  That’s a sad commentary on the state of our Church, but that’s where we find ourselves.

Still, “evangelization” is really about converting non-Catholics to the faith…isn’t it? In some ways, I think we would better spend our efforts at evangelizing non-Catholics than trying to rehabilitate some of the "progressive" ones we already have. 

But, as Michael Voris notes, we seldom hear the “new evangelization” described as having the goal of converting people from their non-Catholic faiths. Why? We wouldn’t want to offend anyone…

The script:

Just curious here – is anyone else confused about what EXACTLY is meant by the often tossed around phrase The New Evangelization”?

I mean – just WHAT does this mean anyway?

Call me old-fashioned, but it seems to me evangelizing is telling people the truth of the

Gospel – the whole truth. Right? Or did I miss something in Catechism 101?

If telling people the truth of the gospel is what evangelizing is, then the POINT – the GOAL – of evangelizing is to bring them into the Faith and ultimately to salvation. Or did I get something wrong there as well?

What you never seem to hear in all this talk about the New Evangelization is the goal; the only goal is to make converts – anything else is simply a waste of time. If people aren’t either converting to the Catholic faith or “reverting” to it from a life of bad catechesis, then cut all the PR nonsense, fold up your tents, and go home.

But…it’s easy to get the sense that this is NOT the goal of many engaged in this work – to make converts to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Christ Himself personally. The reason it’s easy feel this way is simple: you almost never hear it.  

Where is there a website, a press release, a statement, issued by an authoritative body or leader that says in plain simple language: The Goal is to make Converts.

Perhaps the reason we don’t see this plastered all over church bulletins and bulletin boards, and hear sermons about it, or see mailers stuffed in our mailboxes from the diocesan office for the New Evangelization is because none of the above really see it this

Way – or even agree this should be the goal.

What exactly the goal is – besides just some new level of bureaucracy for its own sake, some new department or office downtown at Church headquarters – isn’t exactly clear. But what sure seems to be clear is this: IF the goal of the New Evangelization IS to make converts, then this is the stealthiest, most cunning program in all of Church history with such a goal – because you don’t hear this goal anywhere.

And why might that be? Could it be because so many Catholics in mid-management positions in the establishment Church have been fed such baby food gook for so long now, that THEY no longer believe in anything superior about the faith?

It certainly isn’t a stretch to imagine program directors sitting around in offices at the chancery having meeting after meeting about plans and budgets and strategies to launch this year’s New Evangelization programs in all the parishes and nearby college campuses without ever giving a thought to the actual PURPOSE of said strategies. Why? Because they don’t believe it themselves. They have been schooled for so long by errant teachers that there is nothing especially noteworthy about the faith, noting head and shoulders about it compared to other faiths, that the idea of trying to convince people to CONVERT to it – to abandon their current faiths and commit to this – seems positively medieval, if not downright insulting to other religions.

This “nothing special” attitude isn’t of course spoken of in those exact terms – that precise language; it’s couched in expressions like  “the value of other faiths” and “there are elements of truth to be found in other religions as well”.

While that’s true, as far as it goes, it isn’t the WHOLE truth – not by a longshot. Those

“other truths” aren’t really “OTHER” truths; they are Catholic truths that have been accepted by other religions, like: Jesus Christ is God; there is Eternal Life; God is a Trinity and so forth.

Those are CATHOLIC truths, period. The fact that other religions may have adopted them doesn’t legitimize THAT religion. It simply points out the fact that various aspects of Catholic truth are capable of finding acceptance outside of the visible Church, but it does not make those other faiths valid and sure pathways to Christ.

Only the Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ. He founded ONE Church, period. He called it “MY” Church. And it is to this Church that all men are called and through which salvation is found and outside of which there is no salvation.

This NECESSARILY makes the Catholic Church unique and superior – not just one among many that needs to open up some kind of dialog with every other faith on earth, like they are somehow equal in their teachings. They most certainly are not.

Any Catholic officially engaged in the work of the New Evangelization who doesn’t have as his goal the conversion of souls to the Catholic faith should hand in his retirement notice, effective immediately.