Evangelize the Culture

In a 10-month series of meetings, Pope John Paul II spoke with every active U.S. bishop and many of their retired peers. The nation’s dioceses are grouped in provinces, and the bishops in each are required to make ad limina visits to the Vatican every five years to report on the status of their dioceses. The Holy Father responds with advice for the bishops. He gave 13 ad limina addresses to U.S. bishops in 2004. In his eighth and 10th, he spoke about Catholics in the public square.


I have more than once drawn attention to the importance of the evangelization of culture. A fundamental challenge in this area is surely that of bringing about a fruitful encounter between the Gospel and the new global culture which is rapidly taking shape as a result of unprecedented growth in communications and the expansion of a world economy. I am convinced that the Church in the United States can play a critical role in meeting this challenge, since this emerging reality is, in many ways, the fruit of contemporary Western, and particularly American, experiences, attitudes and ideals. The New Evangelization calls for a clear discernment of the profound spiritual needs and aspirations of a culture which, for all its aspects of materialism and relativism, is nonetheless profoundly attracted to the primordially religious dimension of the human experience and is struggling to rediscover its spiritual roots.

For the Church in America, the evangelization of culture can thus offer a unique contribution to the Church’s mission ad gentes in our day. Through her preaching, her catechesis and her public witness, the Church in your country is challenged to develop a new kerygmatic style, one capable of appealing to the spiritual needs of contemporary men and women and of offering them a clear and convincing response grounded in the truth of the Gospel.

Catholics of all ages must be helped to appreciate more fully the distinctiveness of the Christian message, its capacity to satisfy the deepest yearnings of the human heart in every age and the beauty of its summons to a life completely centered on faith in the triune God, obedience to his revealed Word and loving configuration to Christ’s paschal mystery, in which we see disclosed the full measure of our humanity and our supernatural call to fulfillment in love (Gaudium et Spes, Joy and Hope: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, No. 22). …

At the conclusion of these reflections on our responsibility for the Church’s prophetic witness before the world, I once more express my conviction, born of faith, that God is even now preparing a great springtime for the Gospel (Redemptoris Missio, The Mission of the Redeemer: On the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate, No. 86) and that this calls all of us to “open the doors to Christ” in every aspect of our life and activity. As I suggested in the apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, ours is the wonderful, yet demanding, responsibility of reflecting Christ, the light of the world.