St. Joseph's, Diocese are Leaders in the “New Evangelization”

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Brad Wente doesn’t like to talk about it. He’s a bit embarrassed by the way he used to live his life. Raised in a devout Catholic family and educated in parochial schools, he had become a Christmas Catholic, putting the tenets of his faith in his pocket while living by the tenets of what he called a relativist, secular culture.

“You let the world work on you,” Wente recalled, “and sooner or later you’re not going to church and you just put God on the shelf.”

St. Joseph's parishioner Brad Wente
had a change of heart when a good
friend rejected the Church.

Wente, a St. Joseph’s parishioner, is a husband, father, and an engineer by trade. Like most people, he was not open to change. Human nature dictates that our comfort zones are far more – well, comfortable – than risking the unknown. It took a dear friend’s repudiation of his own Catholicism for Wente to realize the value of his faith.

“He said ‘You know, I don’t believe in the Catholic Church, and I don’t believe the Eucharist is the Body of Christ,’” Wente recalled. “I was not prepared for that. I looked at him and it was like looking at myself.” Wente says it was his “road to Damascus” moment that brought him back to active membership in the church.

Although his friend was the catalyst, Wente may not have recognized that the example set by the many active Catholics in his life set the foundation that left him open to his change of heart. Their examples were the type of evangelization Pope Francis has made a cornerstone of his papacy. This “new evangelization” initiative is promoted by the Vatican and embraced by dioceses worldwide. In the United States, the Diocese of St. Augustine is the first to adopt a new evangelization effort, and parishioners from St. Joseph’s are among the first to join.

Pope Francis, in his Joy of the Gospel, writes that all
Christians by virtue of their baptism, are "agents of
evangelization."

Second Vatican Council actually issued the call for this “new evangelization” 50 years ago. But the many other changes and reforms instituted by the council pushed evangelization to the back burner. Vatican II’s Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People stated all Catholics are responsible for promoting our faith. It interprets the term “church” as the Apostles did – not as a parish building or hierarchy of clergy, but a community of disciples. In short, “church” is “us.”

Fast-forward to the 21^st century. Catholics did not see evangelization as being a significant factor in their faith. One survey of American Catholics showed only six percent believe evangelization is important. For American Protestants, that figure was 75 percent.

Shortly after his election, Pope Francis issued his five-chapter document Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium), urging the faithful to make evangelization a priority. Francis writes, “Every Christian is chal­lenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization.” In accordance with the pope, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, in its 2013-2016 Strategic Plan, calls on clergy and congregation to engage the new evangelization as an opportunity to “turn back to Jesus and enter into a deeper relationship with him.”

Bishop Felipe Estevez celebrating Mass at St.
Joseph's, assisted by Dcn. Kevin Boudreaux. In
his pastoral letter Come, Live in the Light,
Estevez writes this is the time to re-kindle faith.

In our diocese, Bishop Felipe Estévez has made the new evangelization his first priority. More accurately, he learned that evangelization was the top priority of the people of the diocese – the church – during the series of listening sessions he conducted shortly after his installation in June 2011. He believes the effort must begin with our families at home and in our parish families.

“We are a family,” Estévez asserted. “Because we are a family, we have to act like a family.”

The bishop says that means actively welcoming people into our home churches – visitors and even fellow parishioners we may have seen for years in the pews but never bothered to learn their names or even say hello.

“It’s like being a stranger when we are family,” Estévez said. “If people don’t feel welcome, we risk losing them. They will go once to another church and they will be treated nicely and they will switch, because all of a sudden they discover a family or a sense of community that was very warm.”

The bishop also took two major steps on the diocesan level. One was inviting the second-highest official in the Vatican’s new evangelization office to address clergy and lay ministry leaders last February 7-8. Archbishop José Octavio Ruiz Arenas, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, established by Pope Benedict XVI in June 2010, told the gathering a greater dedication to spreading the faith is desperately needed.

Archbishop Ruiz told diocesan clergy and ministry leaders
that evangelization is a joyful process and should not
be done with "a face of vinegar."

“The world has dragged everyone into secularism,” he said. “God is presented as a useless hypothesis. Man doesn’t know what to do with his life. We are only trying to satisfy our desires.”

“There is no ‘new’ in the content of the New Evangelization,” Ruiz continued, “but rather, a newness in our attitude and approach to it.”

Ruiz cited the 2012 Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle East in suggesting digital networks and social media be used as modern tools to spread the Gospel. He also called for a focus on youth, identifying young people as the present, not just the future of the Church.

Estévez’s second major step to nurture the new evangelization is a training initiative for lay leaders. He contracted with the Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) of Wayne, Penn., for the

training. This past January, St. Joseph’s became one of seven parishes in the diocese to

participate in CLI’s year-long Parish Missionary Disciples initiative. Five lay members of the parish have joined Fr. Thanh Nguyen, pastor, and Dcn. Kevin Boudreaux in honing skills in prayer, sharing the Gospel with others, sharing the stories of their own faith journeys with others, and helping others along their own faith journeys, creating the beginnings of a ripple effect throughout the parish.

Barbara Eckert, a senior leadership consultant with CLI, says Catholic dogma is a small part of the initiative. The most important part, she says, is showing others “who we are” by the way Catholics live their lives.

“We hope that, in these parishes, there’ll be a new breath of what it means to be a Catholic,” Eckert said. “And, along with all that beauty, try to let people know we’re Catholic in a way that’s highly invitational and approachable.”

St. Augustine was the first diocese to adopt the initiative. Miami, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Tulsa followed. The six other local parishes are Christ the King, San Juan del Rio, St. Anastasia, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Matthew, and St. Paul in Riverside. Fr. Thanh said he accepted Bishop Estévez’s invitation despite the fact that, on the surface, St. Joseph’s is an unusually vibrant and active parish.

“But if you look deeper, you will see a deep problem,” Fr. Thanh said. “There’s a lot of brokenness in our parish that we don’t reach out to. There’s a lot of misunderstanding of the Church. And there’s a lot impacting the lives of Catholics that move them away from the Church little by little.”

Fr. Thanh believes it is important to return to the core
message of the Gospel, which is to love unconditionally.

Noting that the greatest commandment is to love God and love each other, Fr. Thanh said we are called to love people “where they are.” That means, he said, going back to the core of the Gospel. To illustrate his point, he gave an example that challenged three different parishioners during his first year as pastor. All three had received invitations from family members to attend weddings – gay weddings – and asked Fr. Thanh if they should attend.

The parishioners saw the invitations as a moral dilemma. Fr. Thanh told them they were actually opportunities to demonstrate the power of the greatest commandment.

Fr. Thanh said he told one of the three, “If you want to go the wedding or not, it’s up to you. But if you stay home and have hostility against your (relative), then you are a sinner. If you go to the wedding and you show your love, that is the witness to the Truth.”

  

“If people believe it’s a sign of acceptance of gay marriage,” Fr. Thanh continued, “simply say ‘No, it’s a sign of love.’ Go to the wedding. Don’t judge. Just love, because love is our greatest testimony.”

Fr. Thanh cited Gospel stories to punctuate his point that Catholics should love unconditionally. He noted that Jesus socialized with those judged the worst sinners in his own society – prostitutes who sold their bodies and their human dignity, and the extortionist tax collectors who collaborated with Rome, the superpower that occupied their nation. 

These prostitutes and tax collectors were real people, not fictional characters whose lives were sanitized by the Gospel writers. What might their lives had been like if Jesus put judgment before love? What if Jesus – Son of God who loves unconditionally – had insisted they first amend their lives as a condition for breaking bread with them? By demonstrating his love right from the beginning, Jesus set the example for our own evangelization efforts.

Parishioner Brad Wente risked change and is now determined to live his life as an example of the Gospels. He has become active in parish organizations – Christ Renews His Parish, the Knights of Columbus, RCIA as a sponsor – but his greatest transformation is his attitude with others.

“I describe it as having a more pastoral tone,” Wente said. “I think people appreciate that a lot more. And it’s a great feeling for me to push back some of the misunderstandings that exist.”

In other words, Wente is now setting the same type of example that led to his own renewal, hoping others will now benefit. It’s the ripple effect of the new evangelization.