In the Catholic Church over recent years there has been much talk of evangelisation, the New Evangelisation and, more recently, of Evangelical Catholicism. These phrases are often used as slogans, but the questions to which they are answers are important beyond the Catholic Church.
The question is how to hand on a tradition, whether that be of a church or a nation. In the Catholic Churches of the West it has long been recognised as an acute challenge. When societies were Catholic, or Catholics formed a cohesive cultural group, the ascription of young Catholics to the Catholic Church could be taken for granted. It was part of communal identity.
In Western societies today communal allegiances are weak. They are not automatically handed on but need to be chosen. Comparatively few young people born into Catholic families choose to commit to their church.
That is why preaching the gospel (evangelisation), a phrase previously used mainly of missionaries going into non-Christian societies, came to name a task for Catholics in nominally Christian societies. If people were to choose to be or stay Catholic, faith had to be commended as a personal choice.
Towards the beginning of the new millennium Pope John Paul II spoke of a new evangelisation. He emphasised the importance of a personal commitment and relationship with Christ within the Church. Out of the happiness found in that commitment would follow the desire to share faith with others. A church whose members had such a strong commitment, too, would be a vibrant body that could contribute effectively to building a better society.
Evangelical Catholicism is a more recent description of that deep personal faith in Christ, nourished by prayer and the scriptures and lived faithfully in the Catholic Church. It is an attractive personal ideal.
Many Catholics have had reservations about the boosting of New Evangelisation and its variants. It often functioned as a slogan, avoiding reflection on the reasons why the Church was unattractive to young people.
By many of its advocates, among them George Weigel, it has also been presented in sharp opposition to other forms of Catholic membership, particularly to liberal Catholicism and cultural Catholicism. These were seen as only marginally or selectively Catholic and as unable to encourage a personal commitment to Christ.
Central to some presentations of Evangelical Catholicism, too, was a strong and narrow focus on Catholic teaching on issues of life and sexuality. Commitment to the poor, to peace, to social justice and to the environment were seen as discretionary, political or as a distraction. The central political issues for Catholics were named as those of personal morality, not of social morality.
The core insight of Evangelical Catholicism is correct. Those who belong to the Catholic Church and to other religious groups, will increasingly do so, not through birth into Catholic families or Catholic schooling, but by personal choice. Their commitment will be counter cultural, and will need to rest on a personal commitment to Christ and a strong allegiance to the Catholic community.
It is also true that the future of Catholicism will not rest with Liberal Catholicism. But neither will it rest with Conservative Catholicism nor Evangelical Catholicism. Not because those who would define themselves as members of such groupings are liberal or conservative, but because they are essentially reactive.
They derive their strength and energy from opposition to the perceived weakness or wickedness of other groups and of their clerical champions. People are rarely motivated to take out a membership of a footy club simply out of hatred for a faction within it. Nor are they much of a gift to their chosen club if that is why they join it.
If it is to be more than a slogan Evangelical Catholicism must also be a radical Catholicism. Not for sociological reasons but to show that it is rooted in the following of Jesus Christ. And that implies attitudes to human life, to the use of wealth and power, to conflict, to relationships to one another and to the environment, which will be counter-cultural in any society and in any economic or political order.
These attitudes will be expressed naturally in a personal simplicity of life, in an affinity with those deprived and despised in society, and in an engagement with society based in respect and compassion. They will also be reflected in a diversity of theologies, spiritualities and political priorities among Catholics. Evangelical means good news, and good news always makes its hearers more free.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street and Australian Catholics magazine. The upcoming Winter 2013 edition of Australian Catholics will explore the theme of 'Faith in the public square'. Subscribe online here
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