Having just moved NEM to Georgetown, TX, I am in the throws of getting faculties to serve in the Diocese of Austin, TX. As a permanent Deacon, I am still incardinated in the diocese of Raleigh, NC. This means that I not only have to keep up my Safe Child Environment certifications in Raleigh, but now also in Austin. Thus, I have been reflecting on the checks and balances in place that not only protect the people in our Church, but also train those serving in the Church to look for various signs of abuse. 

I came to a conclusion the other day that has resonated not only within me but also those I have shared it with. 

The Church needs to roll out the New Evangelization 

like it did the Safe Child Environment Protocols!

Why, you might ask? Because of the vast results in this area — universally!

Let’s look at just a few of the main elements that has allowed this to be universally implemented:

  1. In just a few short years (relatively speaking) this initiative was implemented in every parish around the country. 
  2. It doesn’t matter what area of parish life you are involved with, everyone who serves has had to go through the training – No exceptions – Not even for the Clergy. 
  3. Every Diocese, as well as parish, has made it THE priority “that must get done” and they have invested money and other resources to make that happen.
  4. This was a brand new initiative, everyone in leadership went through the difficult  and painful task of learning what to do and how to do it. Then they passed it on down the line. 

The rabbit hole that we will let go!

The next logical question in the pursuit of truth would be to ask “WHY?” Why was this initiative able to reach every parish so quickly and why didn’t the Church put its full measure of effort into the New Evangelization? I’m sure each of us could come up with a few good answers, but let’s leave those questions for our Bishops to examine and determine what to do with the answers. For this blog, we would be better served to look at some key ideas of implementation that will help us improve what we are already doing.

Taking the numbers above, let’s brainstorm some ideas concerning these elements.

1. The force and weight of the episcopacy was behind this initiative and rightly so. The Church was in the middle of a huge crisis due to the abuse scandal and the subsequent cover up by the Bishops. They needed to regain the trust of not only their own parishioners, but also the world. 

Application: Are we not in an even greater crisis of faith today? We are bleeding membership in great numbers. Add the increase of people who have stopped coming, due to Covid 19, and we are hemorrhaging everywhere. Yet the faithful, meaning those who have been evangelized and grown into mature discipleship, remain. Why? Because they have faith in Christ, they live in the life and power of the Holy Spirit, their faith is not dependent upon men but Christ, and because their faith is personal. 

The more I look around, the more I see everyone talking about the need to evangelize yet I still see so very little preaching or teaching on the Holy Spirit. I know that there are many in all levels in the Church that won’t touch the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with a ten foot pole, but what about living in the life of the Spirit? Isn’t that why Jesus left? So that we could receive the Holy Spirit and all that that entails?

Every year our homilies dutifully follow the Lectionary and very little is said from the pulpit about the need for parishioners to enter into life with and live by the power of the Holy Spirit. Can we say that this initiative established by God the Father and God the Son has penetrated every level of diocesan and parish life?

2. Every level of parish life now has to have this training. Can we say that training in evangelization (and even more importantly, being evangelized) has been established on every level? You may think that the Clergy have had this training, yet there are many Seminaries today that focus very little on being evangelized and training on how to evangelize. 

3. Can we say that an equal emphasis has been placed on Evangelization as that of the Safe Child Environment initiative? We hear a lot of talk about the New Evangelization and it’s need, but I don’t see Diocesesan nor Parish structures and measurements changing to measure our efforts to evangelize. If we say something has to change but never measure to see if it has, then we aren’t really trying to change. I don’t see a universal voice reaching every pulpit that instructs each person in the pew of the universal need to be evangelized… and to be trained to evangelize.

4. Many people cite the lack of knowledge as the reason why – “we simply don’t know how to do it.” I could agree with that, but that didn’t stop us from learning how to do the safe child environment initiative and we had never done that before. At least with the evangelization initiative, we have a biblical example of how to do it. No, there has to be a reason why evangelization has not rolled out universally. Maybe it is time to start asking tougher questions and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the real reasons why.

We certainly won’t be able to come to conclusions here. Might I offer one question to get us thinking about these issues? It goes back to the Holy Spirit.

Could it be that we are afraid of implementing the New Evangelization fully because it would place the Holy Spirit (God) in control of our lives and the Church instead of us?

Meet you in the silence of prayer! 

drp