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1. Thank you, Noel, for your informative and reflective article.
   Up until recently, New Evangelisation has been something of an empty bucket which all and sundry could throw a definition into.
   When Archbishop Fisichella first took up the role as the head of the newly-formed Pontifical Council for promoting the New Evangelization, it is said that he discovered 27 different definitions for New Evangelisation.
   On page 23 of Fisichella’s book, The New Evangelisation: Responding to the Challenge of Indifference, he speaks “of the new evangelisation as a form by means of which one and the same Gospel from the beginning is proclaimed with new enthusiasm, in a new language which is comprehensible in a different cultural situation and with new methodologies which are capable of transmitting its deepest sense, that sense which remains immutable.”
   As a Church we have much to learn from what occurs outside the Church in discovering signs of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom, in understanding our cultural situation and in developing new methods of transmitting that which is immutable.
   What is ‘new’ in the New Evangelisation is a new enthusiasm and the use of new methods.
   The New Evangelisation is a genetic line of development springing from all that has come before it, it is neither a refutation of past endeavours nor a rejection of the many positive and life-giving initiatives that bear fruit outside of the Church.
   

   Posted By: John Francis Collins

2. Bravo, Father Noel.
   Your hymn words reminded me of an alternative to the National Anthem recommended by the Catholic Bishops back in the 1920s.
   Wish I still had them to send. Some verses awful!
   There's nothing like a bit of tribal 'them and us' to re-kindle Catholic alliegance.

   Posted By: Michael Herry

3. The Church has been through all sorts of upheavals and there is no sign they will cease anytime soon.
   Of course there is much good in the fractured limbs of Christendom outside the Catholic Church now, but I can’t help wondering about what we might find by looking back in history as well as forward.
   What if the Reformation had never happened? What should have prevented it? Likewise going back further to the Great Schism? What should have prevented that?
   Above all, what if all of Judaism had accepted Jesus? He and his first disciples were Jews. They worshipped in synagogue and temple.
   What if the miraculous first Pentecost had drawn all of Judaism to Jesus? Would we be receiving Reconciliation and the Eucharist in synagogues and temples to this day? What then should our places of worship really look like?
   I doubt any answers will be found in the present German experience. What’s going on there (see item, German Catholics to exclude church tax dodgers) looks like an unfortunate throwback to Charlemagne and Otto. It looks like one Unholy Axis of Injustice.
   This church-state tangle started with Emperor Constantine. High time it was untangled.

   Posted By: Denis Goodwin

4. Noel: Thank you for the refreshing article based on the teaching of Vat II.

   Posted By: marie oconnor sgs

5. Well said, Noel. It might be my age, but I find more sense and direction in Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World and in Pope Paul's 1975 Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi than I do in much of what is being served up these days. The Church will most effectively teach when it is prepared to learn and to listen to God speaking through all sorts of people and circumstances.

   Posted By: (Bishop) Pat Power

6. We cannot solve the problems of the New Evangelization without the help of the poor. The faith must express itself in charity and in solidarity, which is the civil form of charity. Today more than ever, the church faces this challenge. In fact, effective solidarity with the poor, both individual persons and entire nations, is indispensable for the construction of peace.'
   May I suggest a way to practice this “solidarity” here in the USA: A preferential option for the poor should be maintained in our Catholic Schools. If we find that we cannot afford to keep our schools open to the poor, the schools should be closed and the resources used for something else which can be kept open to the poor. We cannot allow our Church to become a church primarily for the middle-class and rich while throwing a bone to the poor. The priority should be given to the poor even if we have to let the middle-class and rich fend for themselves.
   Practically speaking, the Catholic Schools must close and the resources used for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and other programs which can be kept open to the poor. The essential factor is to cultivate enough Faith to act in the Gospel Tradition, namely, the poor come first.
   

   Posted By: William Horan

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