Re-evangelizing culture

Cardinal Sean Brady, archbishop of Armagh and primate of All Ireland, a few days ago presented at the Mater Dei Institute of Education in Dublin the first National Directory for the Catechesis of the Church of Ireland: “A most significant document. It addresses in a unified, coherent and co-ordinated manner many of the issues that are very pressing for the Church in Ireland today. One of these is Catechesis – the process by which people are introduced to faith”, His Eminence said. A decade of renewal. The document, titled “Share the Good News”, by Rev Gareth Byrne, introduces “a ten-year program for evangelization, catechesis, along with religious education”, the promoters state in a release. “My hope – Cardinal Brady said – is that as many adults as possible” will “make this document their own – so that what we are launching today will really be a decade of renewed evangelization and catechesis in Ireland”. “This is an ideal moment, amidst all the reflection that is going on in our society at this time, for us to reflect together on the great gift of faith we have been given”, His Eminence pointed out. “I believe that there are many people who know they have a part to play in handing on that faith to the new generations. They know that religious education can make a big contribution to help to enrich people’s lives and enable them to see each other as brothers and sisters. What an achievement that would be in the area of peace alone”, he continued. For this, concluded Cardinal Brady, it is important that Christians be prepared to address “this challenge”. “A time bomb”. The archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin describes the Directory as a “revolutionary” proposal which is not “a magic formula or a programme” which “can be launched in the way one would launch a sales push or a political platform. Faith is a deeper matter; it is a matter of a deep encounter between the individual and God”. The National Directory is directed to and must involve “the entire Church in Ireland” as it is a “time bomb thrown into the catechetical establishment and indeed into the religious education establishment”, it is “an invitation to break away from our current situation, which is overly school-oriented, and bring back into the picture in a more focused way the central role of the parish and the family”, which need “a new generation of catechists”. Msgr. Martin thus addressed the problem of “a growing undermining of religious sense in our culture”; that “will not arise automatically from within contemporary culture as was to a great extent the case in the past”. Today, the archbishop says, “There are aspects of our contemporary culture which can lead us all to deviate from a true religious sense. Even our liturgies can lose the sense of a transcendent God”. Grasping the religious significance. “A positivistic current in our culture alters our understanding of our relationship with reality” – pointed out the Archbishop of Dublin. “This is especially so in parts of an Anglo-Saxon culture in which language can be formed and transformed in different ways, leaving the impression that in the same way meaning and reality are being changed”. A “strong individualism” in contemporary culture can make it more and more difficult to encapsulate the relational dimension of being. This has catastrophic consequences when the relational dimension of sexuality is undermined or not adequately appreciated”, and “a radical individualist understanding of faith can undermine the sense of the Church”. “Our catechesis – underlines archbishop Martin – must assist people to enter into the religious sense in a culture in which it is increasingly absent. Without this, catechesis would only become indoctrination”, and this does lead “not to freedom but to fundamentalism”. Evangelisation “is always counter cultural but not a-cultural”, it is “culture” that “must be evangelized”, the Archbishop concluded. The contribution of the laity. According to Msgr. William Murphy, bishop of Kerry and president of the Episcopal Commission for the catechesis, the Directory “responds to the call for the New Evangelization proposed by John Paul II, which was taken up by Benedict XVI”. It is a “fundamental tool in all the areas in the Church’s one mission to evangelize”, i.e. Catechism for children, faith development for young adults, marriage preparation and the education and training of lay persons for active participation in the Church’s mission. As regards the latter, Murphy underlined the “exclusive role” of the laity in the “evangelization of culture in our secularized societies and the deep renewal of the Church in Ireland”. The bishops will set up a specific Commission charged with the implementation of the directory along with the “formation of qualified staff at diocesan and parish level”.