With realism and confidence

“The new evangelisation happens in a changing world. In this day and age, we have to speak of God in an often indifferent, sometimes hostile context”. This realisation, expressed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, in Rome this morning, opened the workshop on Europe and the New Evangelisation, promoted by the Council of European Bishops Conferences to pay tribute to the “forty years of work at the service of the communion between the bishops of Europe”. In greeting the participants in the workshop, Cardinal Bertone asked them not to lose their “confidence in God and in His Word”. Rather, they should experience evangelisation in Europe with healthy “realism, which calls us to acknowledge the obstacles, try to dispel prejudice, and prepare the ground as best as we can before we cast the seed of the Gospel”. The meeting was organized jointly with the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. Immediately after the seminar, the Presidency of the CCEE, composed of its President, Cardinal Péter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest (Hungary), and its two Vice-Presidents, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa (Italy), and Archbishop Józef Michalik of Przemysl (Poland) will begin their traditional visit to the offices of the Roman Curia. Their visit to Rome will be concluded on Friday 25 November with a private audience with the Holy Father.A “new spring”. “In today’s Europe – the Secretary of State added -, it is more and more difficult to tell the difference between truth, mistakes and lies. A certain kind of pluralism does not want to let us tell the difference between good and evil. Along with a healthy laicism, there is an intolerant laicism. The non-discrimination principle is often abused as a weapon in the conflict of rights, to build a dictatorship of relativism which tends to push out God, the communal and public dimension of faith or the open display of religious symbols”. Cardinal Bertone spoke of a European cultural context that is often “in open conflict with the traditional Christian values: against marriage between a man and a woman, against the defence of life from its conception to its natural death”. So, according to the cardinal, we are witnessing a veritable “critical, and sometimes even dramatic, evolution of the religious experience”. But, while we see a sort “of cultural and social erosion of the traditional values”, on the other hand “we have also witnessed a new personal, sometimes bewildered, quest for God, especially among young people”. In his speech, the Secretary of State also mentioned the economic crisis, which – he said – “highlights the non-sustainability of a totally self-referential market, and, while it raises new issues about the responsibility and ethics of the financial processes, it asks again, with poignant relevance, a fundamental question about the meaning of fate, dignity and the spiritual vocation of human beings”. “The Church – Bertone concluded – intends to take up this challenge favourably, offering all society new ways to meet and talk, based on the Gospel. Therefore, the new evangelisation is not just about ‘taking measures’, but it is about a ‘new spring’: a way to give value to the new shoots sprouting in an ancient wood”.With great enthusiasm. “The fact that in today’s Europe the cases of persecution are not so outrageous as in other continents – declared for his part Cardinal Péter Erdo, President of the CCEE – should not make us lose sight of the fact that, even in European societies, there are veritable cases of discrimination”. “We are here today – the archbishop said – at a time when the economy of lots of European countries is experiencing a severe crisis. This has very serious consequences on the life of society and individuals. However, even deeper and more treacherous is the ethical and anthropological crisis that is lurking around, especially in the life of families, in educational facilities, and in the media”. In his speech, the archbishop mentioned the cases presented by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination of Christians in Europe. And he asked: “We are in a very secularised world which is paradoxically longing for God and for the meaning of life – what can we do to bring the gospel of Christ to those who seem to be no longer interested?”. His answer is a call: “We should not be inhibited – the cardinal pointed out – by the fact that, in Europe, we are in a context that often does not welcome the Christian proposal. We have seen through history that those who have been persecuted the most are those who have proven to be most confident in the Lord. They did not wait for their circumstances to become more favourable to start working at evangelisation. Actually, there are lots of witnesses, both in the East and in the West, that have already begun to work at the New Evangelisation with great enthusiasm. And we see that God never fails offering His gifts and charisms”.