VATICAN - “The universal Church faces the challenge of the new evangelization”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “There are regions in the world that still wait for a first evangelization; others that received it but need more profound work; others still in which the Gospel put down roots a long time ago, giving place to a true Christian tradition, but where in the last centuries -- with complex dynamics -- the process of secularization has produced a grave crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church.” These were the words of the Holy Father Benedict XVI during the Celebration of First Vespers for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, which he presided in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls on the afternoon of June 28.
“In this perspective, I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of pontifical council, with the specific task of promoting a renewed evangelization in countries where the first proclamation of the faith already resounded, and where Churches are present of ancient foundation, but which are going through a progressive secularization of society and a sort of 'eclipse of the sense of God,' which constitutes a challenge to find the appropriate means to propose again the perennial truth of the Gospel of Christ. Dear brothers and sisters, the universal Church faces the challenge of the new evangelization, which asks us also to continue with commitment the search for the full unity among Christians.”
In his homily, Benedict XVI particularly reflected on the “missionary vocation of the Church,” inspired by the Apostle of the Gentiles, and recalled the missionary teachings of his predecessors. In particular, the Servant of God Giovanni Battista Montini, who chose to bear the name of the Apostle Paul, in 1974 convoked an Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the subject of Evangelization in the contemporary world and published the Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii nuntiandi” which shows “all the particular missionary sensibility of Paul VI and, through his voice, the great conciliar yearning to evangelize the contemporary world.”
“Pope John Paul II presented 'live' the missionary nature of the Church, with the apostolic journeys and with the insistence of his magisterium on the urgency of a 'new evangelization,' Benedict XVI said. “Evident to all is that my predecessor gave an extraordinary impulse to the mission of the Church, not only -- I repeat -- by the distances covered by him, but above all by the genuine missionary spirit that animated him and that he left in legacy at the dawn of the third millennium.”
Benedict XVI then continued: “Taking up this legacy, I have been able to affirm, at the beginning of my Petrine ministry, that the Church is young, and open to the future. And I repeat it today, near the sepulcher of St. Paul: The Church is an immense force of renewal in the world, not because of her strength, but because of the force of the Gospel, in which the Holy Spirit of God breathes, the God Creator and Redeemer of the world. The challenges of the present age are certainly beyond human capacities; they are the historical and social challenges, and with greater reason, the spiritual challenges...Man of the third millennium also desires an authentic and full life, he has need of truth, of profound liberty, of gratuitous love. Also in the deserts of the secularized world, man's soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Because of this John Paul II wrote: 'The mission of Christ the Redeemer, entrusted to the Church, is still very far from its fulfillment,' and he added: 'a look on the whole of humanity demonstrates that such a mission is still at the beginning and that we must commit ourselves with all our strength to its service' ("Redemptoris Missio," No. 1).” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 30/06/2010)