What is Evangelization?

“Making Jesus Christ known and loved in our time
by choosing to live out the Gospel in every moment.”

Utter the word “evangelization” and any number of images likely pop into your mind.  For many Catholics evangelization is seen as a special calling of missionaries or something other denominations do. But evangelization is and always has been, the core mission of the church – something we are all called to by baptism. 

Vatican II reaffirmed this.  Pope Paul VI reinforced it again in 1976 in “On Evangelization in the Modern World (Evangelii Nuntiandi).”  And Pope John Paul II has been passionate about it in such documents as, “On the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate (Redemptoris Missio),” “The Church in America (Ecclesia in America)” and “At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 (Novo Millennio Ineunte).” 

The bishops of the United States have been no less vocal issuing “Go and Make Disciples, A National Plan and Strategy for Catholic Evangelization in the United States.”

Faced with the breadth of perceptions about evangelization, Auxiliary Bishop Richard Pates first assembled a task force of lay and clergy from across the archdiocese.  In January 2003 this group studied Church documents and arrived at the definition, “Making Jesus Christ known and loved in our time by choosing to live out the Gospel in every moment.” It also concluded, as the pope has, that true witness of faith is “hopelessly inadequate” if we do not first contemplate the face of Jesus Christ.

That is the goal of the Awakening phase of our Evangelization Initiative.