Tuesday Tech Talk:The New Evangelization

Today the USSCB announced the release of a new document by the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis entitled Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization. In addition to this statement explaining the role of every Catholic to witness to the world, the CEC has also launched a new online resource to aimed at helping Catholics rediscover the faith. It's intended for those who may have left the Church or those who are only marginally Catholic.

The new site includes brief descriptions of the Four Pillars of Catholic Faith. The site also utilizes videos to help teach. My only complaint is that (like other videos on the USCCB website) you cannot embed them into other sites. You can only share a link.

This is a good starting point for helping family and friends who want to come back to the Church but may be intimidated by change or are afraid to ask questions. It's not a bad place for "practicing" Catholics to brush up on what the Church teaches.

Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, At the Beginning of the Third Millennium outlines the role we all have in evangelizing:

It is necessary therefore to rediscover the full practical significance of Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, dedicated to the "universal call to holiness". The Council Fathers laid such stress on this point, not just to embellish ecclesiology with a kind of spiritual veneer, but to make the call to holiness an intrinsic and essential aspect of their teaching on the Church. The rediscovery of the Church as "mystery", or as a people "gathered together by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit",15 was bound to bring with it a rediscovery of the Church's "holiness", understood in the basic sense of belonging to him who is in essence the Holy One, the "thrice Holy" (cf. Is 6:3). To profess the Church as holy means to point to her as the Bride of Christ, for whom he gave himself precisely in order to make her holy (cf. Eph 5:25-26). This as it were objective gift of holiness is offered to all the baptized. 

But the gift in turn becomes a task, which must shape the whole of Christian life: "This is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Th 4:3). It is a duty which concerns not only certain Christians: "All the Christian faithful, of whatever state or rank, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity".16

I recommend you also check our Carl Olson's Evangelization 101