Monday 28 November 2011
Papal Document on New Evangelisation Imminent
Following recent posts on the Movementisation of the Church, Benedict XVI's focus on New Evangelisation - and thus the new evangelisers in the form of the New Movements - continues apace with the announcement of a forthcoming papal document on the subject. Over the past month, the Pontiff has been meeting with the American bishops on their ad limina visits to Rome. Last week he pointed out to an episcopal group that 'one of the aims of my pastoral visit to the US [in 2008] was to encourage the Church in America to recognise, in the light of dramatic changes in the religious and social spheres, the urgency of the New Evangelistion.' He took the opportunity to inform them that 'with the aim of furthering this goal, I'm planning to present some thoughts in the next few months which I believe you will find useful in the discernment of what you are called to do in your role of guiding the Church in the future that Christ is unfolding for us.'
Monday 14 November 2011
Rebooting Vatican II - The Movementisation of the Church (Part 2)
October 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Benedict has recently announced two closely-linked events to celebrate that date. On 17th October 2011, he issued a motu proprio entitled Porta Fidei - the doorway to faith - announcing that 11 October 2012 will be the start of a Year of Faith for the whole of the Catholic Church, echoing a similar event launched by Paul VI in 1967 to mark the end of the Council. The second event is the Synod on 'The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith' to be organised by the newly formed Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation.
As I reported in my last post, given the key role both Benedict and his predecessor have given to the Movements in the New Evangelisation, one of the aims of the Synod will be to encourage the reception of the charisms of the Movements by the Church as a whole. Addressing an international meeting of bishops in Rome in 2008, Pope Benedict extolled the New Movements as 'a gift of the Lord, a valuable resource for enriching the entire Christian Community with their charisms.' Just as they were for his predecessor John Paul II, for the Pontiff, they are the embodiment of the New Evangelisation with their 'vigorous missionary impetus, motivated by the desire to communicate to all the precious experience of the encounter with Christ, felt and lived as the only adequate response to the human heart's profound thirst for truth and happiness.'
The New Evangelisation is also to be a basic theme of the Year of Faith which, according to the Pope's motu proprio, is to have a strong missionary impetus: 'Today too there is a need for stronger ecclesial commitment to new evangelisation in order to discover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating the faith.' He calls for the kind of public demonstration at which the Movements excel: 'All ecclesial bodies old and new are to find a way, during this year, to make a public demonstration of the Credo.' Gargantuan events such as the World Youth Day and the Holy Father's Meeting with Families, inspired and animated by the Movements, have become landmarks of the New Evangelisation. No other organisations in the Church can compete at this level: the Year of Faith will offer them opportunities for such high-profile events on a global scale, compressed within a relatively short time-frame. They will grab the headlines and dwarf the efforts of more traditional Catholic groups such as religious orders and parishes.
But what has this got to do with the Second Vatican Council? Vatican II was an epoch-making event in the history of Catholicism. No matter how much of an embarrassment its liberal tone might be to the Vatican's present incumbents, they could hardly afford to ignore this anniversary. But Pope Benedict, who has been outspoken in his criticism of the Council's reforms and its negative influence, has gone one better. With the Synod and the Year of Faith, he is rebooting the Council and making the celebrations into the launching pad for the project closest to his heart - spreading the 'Movement effect' to the whole Church.
Pope Ratzinger is certainly well acquainted with what the Council was all about. He attended as a peritus or expert theological adviser to Cardinal Frings of Cologne. At that time, he was part of the liberal majority. Since then, due to a number of personal and historical factors, his career and views have followed the classic trajectory of the neo-conservative - from forward-looking liberal to backward-looking traditionalist. But he has managed to salvage one positive element from the car-crash of the Council. By some strange alchemy, in Benedict's mind, the New Movements and the Second Vatican Council have become inextricably linked. 'The Ecclesial Movements and New Communities are one of the most important innovations inspired by the Holy Spirit in the Church for the implementation of the Second Vatican Council,' he told the bishops in 2008. 'They spread in the wake of the Council sessions especially in the years that immediately followed it, in a period full of exciting promises but also marked by difficult trials. Paul VI and John Paul II were able to welcome and discern, to encourage and promote the unexpected explosion of the new lay realities which in various and surprising forms have restored vitality, faith and hope to the whole Church.'
In fact this is a re-writing of history because none of the New Movements was actually inspired by the Council. Of the largest and most influential of these organisations, Focolare began in the forties, CL had its roots in the fifties with the Gioventu Studentesca movement of CL founder Don Giussani, and the Neocatechumenate was started in Madrid in the early Sixties while the Council was still in mid-session. Opus Dei, which denies being a movement but which strongly resembles those organisations, actually began in Spain as far back as the twenties and reflects the Catholicism of that era. What all these Movements have in common is their proud boast that they are precursors of Vatican II, that in some way they foresaw it. Unlike the traditional religious orders, therefore, that recognised the need for radical self-examination and reform in the spirit of the Council, the New Movements complacently decided that had no need to change in the Post-Conciliar period.
In reality Benedict's principal concern is to stem the tide of secularisation in the countries of Europe which have been traditionally Christian. On many occasions he has declared that the rot set in with the Enlightenment - two centuries ago. This world-view has more in common with that of the First Vatican Council rather than the Second. The Council of Pio Nono was called to supply 'an adequate remedy to the disorders, intellectual and moral, of Christendom', which sounds very much like what Benedict is seeking today. The orientation of the Second Vatican Council of Pope John XXIII on the contrary explicitly set out not to condemn but to find common ground with, and look for the good in, the modern world - of which Pope John saw a great deal such as the desire for peace, equality and tolerance, and such values as freedom of speech and conscience. To suggest that the conservative New Movements which, together with Benedict XVI, view the modern world, and Europe in particular, as a moral wasteland, are the first fruits of Second Vatican Council is to stand the true meaning of that historic event on its head.
'How is it possible,' Benedict XVI pointed out to the bishops in his 2008 speech, 'not to realize...that [the] newness [of the Movements] is still waiting to be properly understood in the light of God's plan and of the Church's mission in the context of our time? The important task [is to promote] a more mature communion of all the ecclesial elements, so that all the charisms, with respect for their specificity, may freely and fully contribute to the edification of the one Body of Christ.' This is Pope Benedict's goal. The not-so-hidden agenda of the Synod on 'The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith' and the Year of Faith to be held in its wake, therefore, is a nothing other than a more sweeping Movementisation of the Church?
Friday 11 November 2011
Ad Hominem attacks - the weapon of weakness
For anyone who keeps up with comments on the focolare.net website, the leading website for ex-members of the Focolare Movement, it is striking that hardly any former member dares reveal their identity. For me this is a devastating indictment against Focolare - revealing the powerful culture of fear it has instilled in members and which endures long after they have left the organisation.
Fear of what? Physical reprisals? Unlikely. Attempts to silence them by threats or persuasion? Possibly.
I believe, however, that the roots of this fear reach far deeper - it is a nameless, irrational horror cultivated in members of the fate awaiting those who fall away. I remember how, when ex-members - especially those who had been in authority - left the movement, they would be spoken of in hushed tones as lost. They were the rotten apples, in foundress Chiara Lubich's words, that would infect the barrel. Lurid tales were told of how low they had sunk. The ultimate success of oppression is when the victims internalise it - self-hating gays, women who submit to laws that subjugate them, those who are downtrodden by caste or class systems and connive with their oppressors. This is evident in those who leave the movement and secretly retain the belief fed to them in their years inside that all outside it are somehow lacking and those who leave are evil or even damned.
But there is a more concrete weapon that Focolare and other similar Catholic movements employs against ex-members who go public with their criticisms, as I learned when The Pope's Armada was published. It is that form of character assassination know as the ad hominem argument, when the character of the messenger is attacked rather than the message. Apart from being fallacious, this is the argument of weakness - the last resort of those who know they are unable to counter criticism.
In my case, the first sign of what was to come occurred even before The Pope's Armada was published. The British weekly newspaper The Catholic Herald ran a front page story announcing that a critical book on the New Catholic Movements was about to be published in the United Kingdom and I was its author. Immediately, my mother received a phonecall from an English focolarina who I had encountered both socially and professionally long after leaving the movement (we both worked in the media) and who knew that I was gay and had met my partner. Anyone who knows the internal workings of Focolare would realise that this would be done with the backing of the highest authority. She quizzed my mother about the contents of the book - fruitlessly, as my mother knew nothing at that time - and then repeatedly asked her, 'Is Gordon still with *****?' As at that time I had not yet come out to my mother (she was still recovering from years of serious depression), this caused her great distress. At best this was pointless mischief-making, at worst a kind of blackmail - as if signaling what the movement was prepared to do to blacken my name. It must have come as a shock when they read the book and found that I was totally open about being gay. I had anticipated such attacks and decided that the best weapon was complete openness for my story to make sense and indeed my sexuality was central to the account of my mistreatment at the hands of the movement. I had rightly decided that the best way to counter such an organisation - which thrives on secrecy - was to go public, withholding none of the salient facts.
Interestingly, a Vatican Cardinal, when asked if he would allow me to interview him for an article I was writing, told me that he had been 'very disappointed' in The Pope's Armada. My criticisms, he opined, should have been limited to the private sphere, within the confines of the Catholic Church. Such advice now sounds hollow, even sinister after all the paedophile coverups of recent years. But it illustrates the mind-set of Rome - don't hang out your dirty linen in public. There is another reason why the Cardinal's remark was disingenuous: the Vatican deliberately ignores the evidence of ex-members of organisations. Some years ago I interviewed the postulator of the cause of Saint Jose Maria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. The postulator was a priest member of Opus Dei (one of the changes Pope John Paul II had made to speed up the canonisation process was not to have an independent postulator and also to abolish the Devil's Advocate, whose task was to do his best to oppose the candidate's canonisation). This priest told me he had been 'very frightened' (his words) that ex-members might come forward with evidence against Escriva. He breathed a sigh of relief when the Cardinal who presided over the Congregation for Canonisations informed him that they had a policy of ignoring the evidence of ex-members.
The reaction of Focolare to the publication of The Pope's Armada lacked the refinement of the Vatican. They forbade members of the movement from reading it, backing up the ban with unrestrained ad hominem attacks, designed to undermine my credibility. They were told that I was a homosexual, had been to see a psychiatrist and was divorced. The majority of the population, at least in western society, would probably respond, 'So what?' For the sheltered members of the Focolare Movement, however,these accusations would be deeply shocking. The irony, however, was that all these points were mentioned by me in the book. Indeed, I had been sent to see a psychiatrist by my superiors in the movement in the hope that they could change my sexual orientation and marriage had also been their suggested solution - so they were to some extent implicated in my divorce as well! Subsequently, these accusations have been elaborated into libelous allegations such as one that I read in a comment on focolare.net that I had 'abandoned' my wife and 'three' children ( I have two, as far as I am aware, and still enjoy a close and rewarding relationship with them). Of course, none of these accusations have any bearing on the truth or otherwise of The Pope's Armada.
Such attacks were aided and abetted by traditionalist Catholic journalists. When The Pope's Armada was first published in the UK, it had the misfortune of being reviewed in two quality daily newspapers by prominent Catholic writers well to the right of the Catholic spectrum. One, a novelist and traditionalist Catholic, compared me to ex-nuns and monks in the 19th century who wrote salacious, largely fictional, accounts of their supposed experiences in Catholic religious orders. These accounts were probably the work of militantly anti-Catholic Protestants. The implications was that my book was also a work of fiction written with a similar purpose. I don't think any self-respecting journalist would attempt a trick like this today, but at that time the New Movements were largely unknown, even among Catholics. Nevertheless, this was just a more subtle, seemingly erudite, version of an ad hominem attack and equally weak as it did nothing to counter the facts revealed in the book. Obviously these rather over-zealous right-wing Catholics were anxious to defend Pope John Paul II - who had been such a keen supporter of the movements - and avert scandal.
Most critical reviews of exposes written by ex-members of Catholic Movements (eg Opus Dei) employ the same argument: ex-members are not to be believed because they are just settling old scores This was dramatically disproved in the case of Vows of Silence which exposed the crimes of Father Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ - indeed it opened a can of worms and the truth turned out to be much worse. I believe this is the case with the New Movements. They are so impenetrable, only ex-members have had access to the evidence. The Pope's Armada also opened a can of worms and since I wrote the book I have heard many more stories, all much worse than anything that appeared in the original British edition of the book. It is important that these stories should be told in full and without fear. I can understand that for many ex-members the thought that their most intimate secrets, confided to groups or individuals while they were members, might be made public would be a source of concern. But I am convinced that the best weapon of those who have suffered at the hands of the Movements and experienced their worst aspects is total openness - ultimately far stronger than their weak, cowardly and, above all, deeply un-Christian ad hominen attacks.
Fear of what? Physical reprisals? Unlikely. Attempts to silence them by threats or persuasion? Possibly.
I believe, however, that the roots of this fear reach far deeper - it is a nameless, irrational horror cultivated in members of the fate awaiting those who fall away. I remember how, when ex-members - especially those who had been in authority - left the movement, they would be spoken of in hushed tones as lost. They were the rotten apples, in foundress Chiara Lubich's words, that would infect the barrel. Lurid tales were told of how low they had sunk. The ultimate success of oppression is when the victims internalise it - self-hating gays, women who submit to laws that subjugate them, those who are downtrodden by caste or class systems and connive with their oppressors. This is evident in those who leave the movement and secretly retain the belief fed to them in their years inside that all outside it are somehow lacking and those who leave are evil or even damned.
But there is a more concrete weapon that Focolare and other similar Catholic movements employs against ex-members who go public with their criticisms, as I learned when The Pope's Armada was published. It is that form of character assassination know as the ad hominem argument, when the character of the messenger is attacked rather than the message. Apart from being fallacious, this is the argument of weakness - the last resort of those who know they are unable to counter criticism.
In my case, the first sign of what was to come occurred even before The Pope's Armada was published. The British weekly newspaper The Catholic Herald ran a front page story announcing that a critical book on the New Catholic Movements was about to be published in the United Kingdom and I was its author. Immediately, my mother received a phonecall from an English focolarina who I had encountered both socially and professionally long after leaving the movement (we both worked in the media) and who knew that I was gay and had met my partner. Anyone who knows the internal workings of Focolare would realise that this would be done with the backing of the highest authority. She quizzed my mother about the contents of the book - fruitlessly, as my mother knew nothing at that time - and then repeatedly asked her, 'Is Gordon still with *****?' As at that time I had not yet come out to my mother (she was still recovering from years of serious depression), this caused her great distress. At best this was pointless mischief-making, at worst a kind of blackmail - as if signaling what the movement was prepared to do to blacken my name. It must have come as a shock when they read the book and found that I was totally open about being gay. I had anticipated such attacks and decided that the best weapon was complete openness for my story to make sense and indeed my sexuality was central to the account of my mistreatment at the hands of the movement. I had rightly decided that the best way to counter such an organisation - which thrives on secrecy - was to go public, withholding none of the salient facts.
Interestingly, a Vatican Cardinal, when asked if he would allow me to interview him for an article I was writing, told me that he had been 'very disappointed' in The Pope's Armada. My criticisms, he opined, should have been limited to the private sphere, within the confines of the Catholic Church. Such advice now sounds hollow, even sinister after all the paedophile coverups of recent years. But it illustrates the mind-set of Rome - don't hang out your dirty linen in public. There is another reason why the Cardinal's remark was disingenuous: the Vatican deliberately ignores the evidence of ex-members of organisations. Some years ago I interviewed the postulator of the cause of Saint Jose Maria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. The postulator was a priest member of Opus Dei (one of the changes Pope John Paul II had made to speed up the canonisation process was not to have an independent postulator and also to abolish the Devil's Advocate, whose task was to do his best to oppose the candidate's canonisation). This priest told me he had been 'very frightened' (his words) that ex-members might come forward with evidence against Escriva. He breathed a sigh of relief when the Cardinal who presided over the Congregation for Canonisations informed him that they had a policy of ignoring the evidence of ex-members.
The reaction of Focolare to the publication of The Pope's Armada lacked the refinement of the Vatican. They forbade members of the movement from reading it, backing up the ban with unrestrained ad hominem attacks, designed to undermine my credibility. They were told that I was a homosexual, had been to see a psychiatrist and was divorced. The majority of the population, at least in western society, would probably respond, 'So what?' For the sheltered members of the Focolare Movement, however,these accusations would be deeply shocking. The irony, however, was that all these points were mentioned by me in the book. Indeed, I had been sent to see a psychiatrist by my superiors in the movement in the hope that they could change my sexual orientation and marriage had also been their suggested solution - so they were to some extent implicated in my divorce as well! Subsequently, these accusations have been elaborated into libelous allegations such as one that I read in a comment on focolare.net that I had 'abandoned' my wife and 'three' children ( I have two, as far as I am aware, and still enjoy a close and rewarding relationship with them). Of course, none of these accusations have any bearing on the truth or otherwise of The Pope's Armada.
Such attacks were aided and abetted by traditionalist Catholic journalists. When The Pope's Armada was first published in the UK, it had the misfortune of being reviewed in two quality daily newspapers by prominent Catholic writers well to the right of the Catholic spectrum. One, a novelist and traditionalist Catholic, compared me to ex-nuns and monks in the 19th century who wrote salacious, largely fictional, accounts of their supposed experiences in Catholic religious orders. These accounts were probably the work of militantly anti-Catholic Protestants. The implications was that my book was also a work of fiction written with a similar purpose. I don't think any self-respecting journalist would attempt a trick like this today, but at that time the New Movements were largely unknown, even among Catholics. Nevertheless, this was just a more subtle, seemingly erudite, version of an ad hominem attack and equally weak as it did nothing to counter the facts revealed in the book. Obviously these rather over-zealous right-wing Catholics were anxious to defend Pope John Paul II - who had been such a keen supporter of the movements - and avert scandal.
Most critical reviews of exposes written by ex-members of Catholic Movements (eg Opus Dei) employ the same argument: ex-members are not to be believed because they are just settling old scores This was dramatically disproved in the case of Vows of Silence which exposed the crimes of Father Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ - indeed it opened a can of worms and the truth turned out to be much worse. I believe this is the case with the New Movements. They are so impenetrable, only ex-members have had access to the evidence. The Pope's Armada also opened a can of worms and since I wrote the book I have heard many more stories, all much worse than anything that appeared in the original British edition of the book. It is important that these stories should be told in full and without fear. I can understand that for many ex-members the thought that their most intimate secrets, confided to groups or individuals while they were members, might be made public would be a source of concern. But I am convinced that the best weapon of those who have suffered at the hands of the Movements and experienced their worst aspects is total openness - ultimately far stronger than their weak, cowardly and, above all, deeply un-Christian ad hominen attacks.
Wednesday 2 November 2011
'A Giant Awakens - The Movementisation of the Church (Part 1)
In a previous post on the foundation of The Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation last year (July 2010), I pointed out that, for the first time, the Vatican was providing an official, tailor-made, centralised structure for the New Catholic Movements. Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI had taken every opportunity to express their enthusiasm for the New Movements - particularly at their vast Pentecost meetings with members of the Movements in 1998 and 2006. The Movements had also been favoured in a less visible but more significant way with many appointments of members to official Vatican bodies such as the Pontifical Councils, Academies and Vatican Congregations. The new structure, however, will mean that the power of the New Movements can be harnessed more effectively than ever to Vatican-led projects so that the New Movements and the official Church become virtually synonymous. As I predicted over fifteen years ago in The Pope's Armada, the New Movements permit the Vatican to act at grass-roots level on a global scale. They provide access to every aspect of civil society through the action of lay men, women and children, who do not necessarily disclose their allegiance to the Vatican.
Given that Cardinal Ratzinger had been a vocal supporter of the Movements as John Paul II's theologian-in-chief, even to the extent of hailing them as the only good thing to come out of the Second Vatican Council, it was always on the cards that consolidating their position within the structure of the Church would be the keynote of his reign as Benedict XVI. Unlike John Paul's 'charismatic' and rather piecemeal approach to his various enthusiasms, Benedict's moves have been slower and more considered, but likely to have more impact in the long run (and of course a traditionalist like Benedict is well aware that the Church thinks and acts 'in centuries'). With his latest pronouncements, it can be said that the Movementisation of the Catholic Church is underway, confirming what the Pontiff once suggested - also while still a Cardinal - that today belonging to a Movement is the most effective way - not to say the only way - to be a Catholic.
On 17th and 18th October, the new Council held a meeting in Rome which brought together members of 33 episcopal conferences with 400 representatives of New Movements and ecclesial communities. Numbers were swelled by 10,000 younger members of the Movements. The Pope met briefly with the delegates on the first afternoon of the event and the next day for mass, hailing them as the 'new evangelisers'. The President of the Council, Archbishop Fischiella, briefed the gathering on the new organisation's aim of countering secularistion both inside and outside the Church - even among the clergy! - via an explicit proclamation of the gospel. In his speech on 17th October, Benedict reiterated his desire that the primary field of mission should be the traditionally Christian countries - i.e. 'de-Christianised' Europe.
Leaders of the Movements - including Kiko Arguello, founder of the Neocatechumenate, Father Julian Carron, leader of Communion and Liberation, Adriano Roccucci of San Egidio, and Salvatore Martinez of Renewal in the Spirit - had a high profile at the event, addressing the delegates and greeting the Council's initiative enthusiastically. A report on the conservative website Zenit, bullishly entitled its report on the meeting, 'A Giant is Awakening - New Evangelisation Flows Out of Rome'.
The establishment of the new Council has been followed by an even more significant papal pronouncement - that next years Synod of Bishops will have as its subject 'New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith'. Speaking of the aims of the Synod on the first anniversary of the new Council last July, its President, Archbishop Fisichella, said 'We must try to give a unity to all this...listening to all these ecclesial realities - old and new - that, in these last years, have rolled up their sleeves and really implemented these methodologies of new evangelisation with great results.'
It is above all the effectiveness of the methods of the New Movements that has endeared them to Rome. The Vatican has already learned a few lessons from these organisations and imitated their methods with spectacular success. The vast World Youth Days and the Meeting of the Holy Father with Families were inspired by Focolare's Genfests and Familyfests respectively, both of which John Paul II experienced first hand, and have been hailed as quintessential examples of the new evangelisation. More recently, Benedict XVI cited Focolare's business venture, the Economy of Communion as an example to be followed in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate. He has also recently called for dialogue with non-believers, another concept borrowed from Focolare. The first practical initiative of the new Council will be the Metropolis Mission, which will target 11 major European cities during Lent 2012. This draws directly on the experience of the New Movements which have shown themselves particularly effective in urban settings. As Archbishop Fisichella has emphasised, the 'new evangelisation cannot be carried out...without new evangelisers' - ie the Movements.
This is stage one of Rome's plans for mobilising the Movements as its front line in the battle against secularisation. In my next post, I will outline stage two - even more sweeping, involving the entire Chruch.
Given that Cardinal Ratzinger had been a vocal supporter of the Movements as John Paul II's theologian-in-chief, even to the extent of hailing them as the only good thing to come out of the Second Vatican Council, it was always on the cards that consolidating their position within the structure of the Church would be the keynote of his reign as Benedict XVI. Unlike John Paul's 'charismatic' and rather piecemeal approach to his various enthusiasms, Benedict's moves have been slower and more considered, but likely to have more impact in the long run (and of course a traditionalist like Benedict is well aware that the Church thinks and acts 'in centuries'). With his latest pronouncements, it can be said that the Movementisation of the Catholic Church is underway, confirming what the Pontiff once suggested - also while still a Cardinal - that today belonging to a Movement is the most effective way - not to say the only way - to be a Catholic.
On 17th and 18th October, the new Council held a meeting in Rome which brought together members of 33 episcopal conferences with 400 representatives of New Movements and ecclesial communities. Numbers were swelled by 10,000 younger members of the Movements. The Pope met briefly with the delegates on the first afternoon of the event and the next day for mass, hailing them as the 'new evangelisers'. The President of the Council, Archbishop Fischiella, briefed the gathering on the new organisation's aim of countering secularistion both inside and outside the Church - even among the clergy! - via an explicit proclamation of the gospel. In his speech on 17th October, Benedict reiterated his desire that the primary field of mission should be the traditionally Christian countries - i.e. 'de-Christianised' Europe.
Leaders of the Movements - including Kiko Arguello, founder of the Neocatechumenate, Father Julian Carron, leader of Communion and Liberation, Adriano Roccucci of San Egidio, and Salvatore Martinez of Renewal in the Spirit - had a high profile at the event, addressing the delegates and greeting the Council's initiative enthusiastically. A report on the conservative website Zenit, bullishly entitled its report on the meeting, 'A Giant is Awakening - New Evangelisation Flows Out of Rome'.
The establishment of the new Council has been followed by an even more significant papal pronouncement - that next years Synod of Bishops will have as its subject 'New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith'. Speaking of the aims of the Synod on the first anniversary of the new Council last July, its President, Archbishop Fisichella, said 'We must try to give a unity to all this...listening to all these ecclesial realities - old and new - that, in these last years, have rolled up their sleeves and really implemented these methodologies of new evangelisation with great results.'
It is above all the effectiveness of the methods of the New Movements that has endeared them to Rome. The Vatican has already learned a few lessons from these organisations and imitated their methods with spectacular success. The vast World Youth Days and the Meeting of the Holy Father with Families were inspired by Focolare's Genfests and Familyfests respectively, both of which John Paul II experienced first hand, and have been hailed as quintessential examples of the new evangelisation. More recently, Benedict XVI cited Focolare's business venture, the Economy of Communion as an example to be followed in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate. He has also recently called for dialogue with non-believers, another concept borrowed from Focolare. The first practical initiative of the new Council will be the Metropolis Mission, which will target 11 major European cities during Lent 2012. This draws directly on the experience of the New Movements which have shown themselves particularly effective in urban settings. As Archbishop Fisichella has emphasised, the 'new evangelisation cannot be carried out...without new evangelisers' - ie the Movements.
This is stage one of Rome's plans for mobilising the Movements as its front line in the battle against secularisation. In my next post, I will outline stage two - even more sweeping, involving the entire Chruch.
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