Special Assembly of the Synod for America
November-December, 1997
INTERVENTION
by
Most Reverend Donald W. Wuerl, STD
Bishop of Pittsburgh
CATECHESIS/THE NEW EVANGELIZATION
Instrumentum Laboris (Nos. 29-30)
The preparation for this Synod coincided for me with production of the Quinquennial Report as part of the ad limina visit this coming year, as well as planning for the International Catechetical Congress held in this Synod Hall last month. I found a convergence of ideas at the center of which is the Church's catechetical initiative. Recognizing catechesis as a significant part of the new evangelization, called for by the circumstances of our day and our Holy Father, provides us a perspective from which to approach the concerns of our hemisphere.
The pastoral challenges we face now and into the immediate future are those that, for the most part, are endemic to many so-called first world countries and seem to be reflected throughout the new world. First among them is the fact that the social mores, particularly in large urban centers and reflected in the means of social communications, have so changed in the past years as to produce a climate that is extremely secular and very much focused on the material world.
Where once there was a community and social structure that supported religious faith and encouraged family life, we now find an increasing lack of both the support and the encouragement. In fact, the heavy emphasis on the individual and his or her rights has greatly eroded the concept of the common good and its ability to call people to something beyond themselves. This impacts strongly on our capacity to bring meaningful social change or positive advancement in the conditions affecting human life and development.
In the exercise of pastoral ministry, I find that the social climate is such that allegiance to the Church is weakened for many and the claim of the teaching office to oblige conscience is questioned by a growing number of the faithful. All of this translates into a pastoral challenge for ministry because our people increasingly are lead to believe, and this is particularly true of young people, that their consent is necessary to make anything true and certainly obligatory. Here, too, the effectiveness of the Church's social mission is reduced as her message is viewed as optional.
By far, the most pervasive challenge that pastoral ministry faces today and into the next millennium is the powerful voice of secularism and its arrogant claim to the sole possession of the public forum. In the United States, a particular concern is the "privatization" of religion and morality. Both are seen by many as matters of purely personal and private concern, such as a hobby or an appreciation of music, but without a proper role in the public arena. For many, it is not a matter of alienation from or hostility towards religion but simply sheer indifference to spiritual values. Without adequate evangelization that brings one to an experience of God, there is little hope to alter significantly the current economic or social conditions.
Where once it was an accepted part of our life to recognize, invoke and praise God in the public life of our civic community, we now face a situation where the sacred, the spiritual dimension of human life and the concept of God are consistently bleached out of our state-run schools, community gatherings and public life in general. Much of the impact of the secular hegemony and the substitution of political correctness for moral obligation finds reverberation in the collapse of the family and the subsequent violence that riddles our society.
There is today, as there has always been to some extent, a temptation by some of the faithful to treat the Church as if it were incidental to salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has, perhaps, devoted such a large section to the function of bishops and priests precisely because the acceptance of the teaching authority of Christ exercised by bishops and priests in union with them throughout the world is a "hard saying" today.
On the brighter side is a sense among some of our young people that the secular, material world does not provide them sufficient answers for their lives. Over and over, the phenomena of youth gatherings from as large as World Youth Day to as modest as parish programs speak of the searching for value and direction that characterizes a growing number of our faithful. There is a hunger for God and the things of the Spirit but it needs to be encouraged, informed and directed.
The search for meaning manifests itself in various ways, including interest in "Eastern religions" and various sects and cults. A notable feature of this spiritual searching is the amorphous New Age phenomenon. Its popularity is seen in the amount of literature and number of courses available. Perhaps this quality of our culture—its search for meaning—provides a key for an approach to evangelization—at least to this particular group of people.
In reaching out to the young, I have experienced their openness, sense of searching, and desire for a clear affirmation of the faith. The basic truths of the faith often evoke in them a positive and affirmative response. To challenge our young to do the works of Jesus -- works of charity and justice—requires a personal awareness of Jesus in their lives.
Religious ignorance, or as some call it, "illiteracy," is a significant part of the culture with which we deal pastorally. Within the United States Catholic Conference, the bishops have attempted, through the implementation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to address this disquieting phenomenon by strengthening catechetical texts where there appears to be insufficient attention to the basics of the faith, such as the Trinity and the Trinitarian structure of Catholic beliefs and teachings, and the centrality of Christ in salvation history. The effort to improve catechetical instruments addresses those materials where there was an indistinct treatment of the ecclesial context of Catholic beliefs and magisterial teachings or that seemed to make insufficient emphasis on God's initiative in the world with corresponding overemphasis on human enterprise.
While we have worked hard to ensure the quality of our religious education programs with significant effort to integrate the Catechism of the Catholic Church into all of them, nonetheless, the religious literacy level of our faithful is still a concern and one that needs to continue to be the focus of our pastoral ministry. This is all the more true if the faith is to be a leaven in society capable of changing life and institutions.
Catechesis, as the recently published General Directory for Catechesis reminds us, is part of a far-wider process—evangelization itself. The works of social justice can be part of the preevangelization process. Equally important is the presence of committed and informed catechists, support structures in the local Church and the necessary catechetical tools. This whole continuum of sharing the faith should be the foundation for all of our other efforts.
In our work to provide a good and just society modeled on the gospel imperatives, our social-service ministry must be seen as truly the fruit of our faith conviction. The most effective way to encourage and attain that social development that is rooted in Christian social justice is to achieve that change of heart that follows on conversion.
Obviously the two, growth in the appropriation of the faith and the practical manifestation of that faith in the social order, are deeply interrelated. The profession of faith without its manifestation in works is, as the Letter of St. James suggests, dead. The effort to encourage works without the light of faith to guide them is to empty Christian witness of its most significant motivational force.
The single-most powerful force in human life is faith. It is in the communication of our Catholic faith that we can hope to change the social structures of our time. Whatever energies we spend passing on the faith will ultimately redound to the development of a good and just society. Love of God and love of neighbor remain the focus of our religious educational effort.
Whatever operative pastoral plan or suggestions emerge for future orientation of the Church's pastoral ministry in our hemisphere, it should include, I respectfully suggest, both renewal of our catechetical energies and the application of our teaching to the current social order.
Thank you.