Catholic Mission In Canada

Plans are in place in various dioceses for this gradual process of bringing life and light back to the Church.

We have begun to hear about the notion of “New Evangelization” from time to time in the last couple of years. This has arisen from Pope Benedict XVI’s realization that the European continent and other parts of the Catholic world have become more and more secular, easily adopting godless ways of the irreligious society in which they live.

The Pope has developed a new Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. This council will be a central element in spreading ideas of revitalization of the Catholic faith to the world. Archbishop Rino Fisichella has been put in charge of this council, and he has explained the need and the first methods of a new evangelization. He has noted how many Catholics no longer know their faith, and also that many Catholics don’t really know what it means to be Catholic.

These difficulties are seen and lamented in Canada, as well, in the cities, and also in the more rural, mission regions. Our Canadian bishops and missionaries are already alert as to how to make the Catholic faith something real and living in the lives of children, young people and adults. They have considered Archbishop Fisichella’s two-part main plan: 1) To help build identity so Catholics learn what it means to be a Christian today, and 2) To re-instill a sense of belonging to the Church.

Many of our missionary bishops and priests, sisters and lay men and women who have the privilege of handing on the faith have embraced the plans for this gradual process of bringing life and light back to the Church. In the fall of the year 2012, there will be a World Synod of Bishops on the topic of New Evangelization, and our Canadian bishops will be represented in Rome at that event.

One of the projects supported by Catholic Missions In Canada in several regions of this country is the regular annual Diocesan Lay Formation Program. This kind of periodic gathering helps to educate adults in their faith and strengthen them to be examples of true Catholic identity. One such program is held regularly in different parts of Prince George Diocese, British Columbia, such as in the Smithers Region, where about 20 participants study their faiths and the tenets of Catholicism every month. The same series of sessions are done in two other places in that very large diocese.

Archbishop Fisichella insists that “our faith needs to be studied, so that even as an adult, people will know what the Church teaches and how to live that faith in today’s world with today’s challenges.” Just as we have to know the faith, we need to know who we are in the world, and “know our tradition in our cultures to build up a Catholic identity.”

These intentions of identity and community as Catholics are important aims for First Nations peoples within their missions, as well as all Canadians who call themselves Catholic.

Catholic Missions in Canada Magazine, Winter 2011