Blessed John Paul II calls for a New Evangelization

A politcal scientist and the Blessed John Paul II's biographer George Weigel suggests that the Catholic Church should look forward instead of constantly remembering history. His article is addressed to the Polish Catholic friends but the same message can be also directed to the Catholic Church in the West. I think that this is a key paragraph to this article.

Polish Catholicism should adopt this future-oriented stance. Remembering the John Paul II years should now be a remembering in service to the future. The 21st century Church in Poland must take up John Paul’s challenge in the 1991 encyclical Redemptoris Missio and re-imagine itself as a Church that is a mission, not an institution for which mission is one among many activities. Or as John Paul put it in closing the Great Jubilee of 2000, the Church must leave the shallow water of institutional maintenance and put out “into the deep” of the New Evangelization.


As a result of the Vatican Council II the Catholic Church was renewed and brought up to date thanks to the Holy Spirit. Millions of people rediscovered his presence in their lives thanks to the experience of the Renewal Movement (watch 10 min video). Empowered by the Holy Spirit they started to share the Gospel with others. The Blessed Pope John Paul II was the one, who initiated that Catholic Charismatic Renewal should be a part of evangilization and make the church vibrant and alive. Holy Father also gave his blessing to the Evangelisation 2000 movement.

There were many signs and wonders that believers could witness. In 2000 Fr Larry Carew shared a testimony of the Holy Spirit's miracle in one of the American prisons. This article is especially relevant today when there is an enormous belief in the political power or a grass-roots movements that are able to resolve people's problems.


There is also a growing danger that believers will close themselves inside the church building forgetting the Great Mission, the evangelization (see also here). However one has to remember that the first church was concentrated especially on the aspect of the sharing with Gospel. Once that dimension is absent in the life of the believers the Church looses its essence.

An Open Letter to My Friends in Poland
May 25, 2011
George Weigel

A son of Poland is now Blessed John Paul II. What is Poland to do now?

If a friend might offer a suggestion: The Church in Poland should start looking forward rather than backward.

Ever since the late pope’s death in 2005, the Polish Church seems to have been looking over its shoulder at the colossal figure of John Paul II. Given the magnitude of John Paul’s accomplishment, and the widely shared sentiment that John Paul II was a God-given blessing to Poland in thanks for the country’s fidelity during decades of partition and totalitarian occupation, that nostalgia is understandable. But it is now time to look forward, which is what Blessed John Paul II would want.

I’m often asked about the human traits I saw in John Paul II. One answer I often give is that the late pope was the most intensely curious man I’ve ever known. He always wanted to know about the new books, the new articles, and the new arguments in my corner of the intellectual and cultural world. He even wanted to know the latest pope-jokes.

That intense curiosity was a matter of theology, not psychology. John Paul II truly believed that in the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences. What seems to us “coincidence” is actually an aspect of Providence we have not understood yet. So his curiosity was a matter of looking into “here” and “now” to see where the wind of the Holy Spirit might be blowing, and in what direction.

Polish Catholicism should adopt this future-oriented stance. Remembering the John Paul II years should now be a remembering in service to the future. The 21st century Church in Poland must take up John Paul’s challenge in the 1991 encyclical Redemptoris Missio and re-imagine itself as a Church that is a mission, not an institution for which mission is one among many activities. Or as John Paul put it in closing the Great Jubilee of 2000, the Church must leave the shallow water of institutional maintenance and put out “into the deep” of the New Evangelization.

Please continue reading at First Things


George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.



A Pope’s Prophecy and a President’s Pardon


Fr Larry Carew

Since that time, I, like many others, have found myself challenged by that prophecy. Each day, I repeatedly and prayerfully cry out for its fulfillment as I look for opportunities to prepare the way for that new season of grace. Key happenings in my own life and ministry over the past year and a half suddenly came together for me in startling clarity as I read a paper presented at the 1999 Theological Symposium sponsored by the Association of Diocesan Liaisons. A theological reflection, “Leadership in an Ecclesial Movement: An Attempt to Think with the Church,” by Tom Curran, sparkles with inspired insights
and prophetic challenges.

One observation in particular hit me squarely between “the eyes of the heart.” Please allow me to share it here: “…instead of supposing that the (Charismatic) Renewal is a movement that exists relatively independently of the Year 2000 (and therefore can best be  understood by looking back at its history),
suppose instead that the Renewal was established by God in view of his plans for the Year 2000. In other words, God brought the Renewal into the Catholic Church when he did precisely because of what he intended to do in and through it in the time of the Great Jubilee…God has been powerfully at work in
the Renewal not only as an end in itself but also so that the Renewal would be aware, ready and prepared to take up its God-assigned role in this time of Jubilee!” (pp. 9-10, italics mine).

Please continue reading at The Pentecost Today