OPEN THE DOORS TO CHRIST
THE NEW EVANGELIZATION

"I think that the opening of the pastoral center here at the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization can be tied into this concept. This is a new beginning."

"...The naming of this place as a center for evangelization is not accidental. Our world is different than it was when we entered the 20th century. As we approach the Year 2000, we have quite a different experience of the world and the Church. The world that's around us requires a new kind of evangelization."

Archbishop Chaput, the Archbishop of Denver.
IS THE WORLD COMING TO AN END?,
Denver Catholic Register, July 23, 1997

December 17, 1997

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. presented the following speech to the Synod of Bishops for America which took place Nov. 16-Dec. 12 in Rome.

...The nature of being a "good pastor" is what I want to focus on today. We preach best, and teach best, by our personal example. Anything which enables us to do that -- as bishops -- is good. Anything which prevents us from doing that, is not. Each one of us wants to minister to God's people more fruitfully in the new millennium. But I believe this requires us to change -- as individuals and as bishops.

We need, first of all, to become simple again. By that I mean, Gospel simple. Jesus loved simplicity because it allowed Him to immerse Himself in the essential things of His Father's business. I believe we are in danger of losing that Christ-like focus as bishops. Our hemisphere has become a culture of noise, confusion and complication. We are a distracted people, both North and South, and we are now also a distracted Church. We have plans and committees and projects and staffs. All these things are important in their proper place. But at the end of the day, are we apostles . . . or are we executives? And what do our people really need: managers . . . or pastors?

...We bishops need to be much more radical in our own Christian vocation. By "radical," I mean oriented toward the root. Charles Borromeo once said to his priests, "Be sure you first preach by the way you live." The synod's instrumentum laboris is, in some ways, too gentle toward all of us. Many of the problems we face as shepherds are not programmatic or resource-driven. They are problems of faith. Too often, those of us in the Church -- and even we bishops -- simply do not believe deeply and zealously enough.

In exactly the same way, the new information revolution will fundamentally affect our language of faith and truth. These new media tools are the building blocks of a new global mentality and culture. They are a new way of knowing and expressing things, which we misunderstand at our peril. They are also creating new issues of justice -- the information "haves" and "have nots" -- which the Church urgently needs to speak to.

This is the terrain of our lives as bishops. Today, we have an opportunity to serve as witnesses of Jesus Christ in the midst of this "new reformation." That is the test of this millennial moment for all of us here. That is the fabric of the New Evangelization.

Jesus Christ alone is the way to eternal life. Let us never be ashamed of His name, or apologize for the message we preach and teach, because it is true for all persons in all times. We should shout that out, not leave it to others in sects which are not blessed with the full truth we find in our Catholic faith.

...Brothers, as bishops, our task is to share that gift with others, to preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching" (2 Tm, 4:2). As Paul told Timothy, we must "do the work of the evangelist." We are evangelizers first. That is our paramount purpose.

III. Woe to Me if I do Not Preach the Gospel

The beauty of these Gospel passages from Luke, announced at Midnight Mass and Christmas Mass at Dawn, fills me with joy and a tremendous trust in God's love for all of us. Each of us can say with Mary that, "the Mighty One has done great things for me" (Luke 1:49). I thank God every day, but on this Christmas Eve especially, that He sent His only son for me and for you, whom I treasure as my family in faith. It is easy to understand why God loves the people of northern Colorado, and the clergy and women and men Religious who serve them. I arrived here in April as a "stranger in a strange land"; but you welcomed me as a brother, encouraged me, surrounded me with generosity, humor, good counsel and support, and took me into your hearts. Now you are also in my heart, and at the center of my daily thoughts, work and prayer. What a grace it is -- unexpected; overwhelming at first; but now such a blessing for me -- that God called me to be your servant.

Brothers and sisters, the weeks I spent in Rome this fall for the Holy Father's Special Assembly for America taught me a great deal. It was a time of "good loneliness." In my eagerness to be back home in Colorado among you, I reflected often and deeply on how much good work has already been accomplished by the Church in northern Colorado, and how many outstanding people in our parishes work selflessly for the Gospel. I also thought and prayed about the very many things that remain to be done -- and how pressingly we need to do them.

But in working with my brother bishops and the Holy Father, and in walking the streets of Rome, so rich in the witness of centuries of martyrs and saints, I came again and again to the simple truth that what we are called to accomplish first and foremost is not projects or plans or programs, but the preaching of Jesus Christ, in season and out of season. If we do that well, everything else will follow, for the Church Jesus founded on the first apostles is a missionary Church. Without each of us responding to Christ's call to be evangelizers, the Church loses her identity. Where the Church ceases to be missionary, she ceases to be herself.

I return from Rome absolutely convinced that the Church must dedicate the fullness of her resources to a new evangelization (cf. Redemptoris Missio, No. 3). This means all my resources as archbishop, all the resources of the pastoral center and its staff, and the full commitment of our parishes, our schools and all the faithful. My task as bishop is not primarily to be a manager or an executive -- though sound stewardship of our resources is obviously vital -- but a pastor and a missionary. So too, the people, clergy and Religious of our local Church share the missionary task Jesus gave us all, to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). If we love Him, we must share Him with others -- compellingly, persuasively, with all our ingenuity and passion.

That is because the good news of Jesus Christ is decisive: Souls depend on it; all creation depends on it. Jesus alone, and no other, is the answer to humankind's longing for God. His Gospel must be announced, heard, received in faith and retold. It is meant for all people; in fact, evangelization is the sign of a living faith. It is never completed. And all of us -- including bishops; and perhaps sometimes especially bishops -- have an ongoing need to hear the Good News.

In Rome, many of my brother bishops voiced this same hunger to recover a radical missionary zeal within the Church. By "radical," I mean oriented toward the root, for the times in which we live leave no room for the lukewarm. Zeal cannot be delegated. But it can be shared, and when shared, it multiplies like a spreading fire. This is God's will for His Church in every time and place, and especially today on the threshold of the third Christian millennium. This is God's will for me as archbishop, and God's will for all who are baptized. Radical missionary zeal is the fruit of conversion, a gift of the Holy Spirit. Let us take to heart the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). Likewise, on the first Pentecost, Peter said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).

This passionate missionary zeal must be at the core of our life in Christ. All of our pastoral plans and activities, every budget, every hiring decision, indeed every one of our institutional structures, must be reviewed and revised in light of this primary mission of the Church. Our handbook for mission effectiveness is not modern organizational theory, valuable as that may be. Rather, it is the Word of God.

If we sincerely wish to prepare the Church for the third millennium, we should turn first to the Acts of the Apostles. That is what we must become again.

...The new millennium should be a new encounter with the person of Jesus Christ; it is He whose birth it marks.

In that light, I ask pastors of the archdiocese to open their parishes to all which the Holy Spirit desires. New ecclesial movements and charisms are works of the Holy Spirit and signs of Jubilee; it is my hope that pastors will welcome these groups and movements so that our people, families and parishes may blaze with the fire of the new evangelization.

Radical missionary zeal is radical availability to the Holy Spirit. This is the foundation of Jubilee. This is the faith and witness of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the New Advent. She is the perfect disciple, the model of every virtue. She is our guide star to the Jubilee.

As we resume our journey to the Great Jubilee, I entrust this local Church and all our plans and aspirations to her maternal intercession.

May God bless each of you and your families this Christmas season. May He fill you with the joy of the shepherds throughout the coming year. And I ask you to pray for me, your brother, as I pray daily for you.

Mile Hi Congress, 1998

Back in December, I wrote a pastoral letter called Good News of Great Joy. Those of you who read it know that this theme of mission and evangelization is really the heart of my concern as a bishop. Those of you who didn't read it, don't feel too bad. If you have trouble reading pastoral letters, I don't really enjoy writing them. In fact, I think most of the time, a good homily delivered from the heart is the best way to reach anyone with any message. But some things are important enough to spend more time thinking about and developing. Some issues really do need the breathing room of a pastoral letter -- and recovering our missionary energy, and our missionary realism, as a Church is one of them.

What do I mean by missionary realism? That's an odd term. Let me explain it this way. When I issue a pastoral letter about evangelization on Christmas Eve, it connects very comfortably with all the warm feelings of the Christmas season. And that's appropriate: Every birth is "good news of great joy." But the deeper joy of the Christian Gospel doesn't happen at Christmas. It happens on the other side of Golgotha. There's no resurrection without the crucifixion.

Over this past weekend I had the privilege of visiting Rome for the consistory where Archbishop Stafford became Cardinal Stafford. It was a wonderful moment, filled with a great deal of joy. But the red garments of a cardinal signify blood, and they're a constant reminder of the readiness the wearer must have to shed his blood for the faith. Christian Rome is literally built on the bones of martyrs -- generations of women and men who shed their blood as witnesses for Jesus Christ. In shedding it, they became the seeds of the faith we inherit today.

This is what I mean by "missionary realism." It's the readiness to put a burning heart-and-will for Christ behind our words, no matter what the price. Nothing good or holy is had without a cost, and how much would we be willing to pay? What is our faith really worth -- and are we willing to prove that with our lives? If we want to be good teachers, we must be good missionaries. And if we want to be good missionaries, we must be willing to be martyrs. And if the circumstances of our lives do not require a witness in blood, we can still give freely of ourselves in service.

How do these thoughts apply to our vocation as Catholic educators, here and now? Well, we don't have to visit Africa or Asia to do the work of missionaries. Our mission territory is right in our own backyard, throughout the United States and here in northern Colorado. We find it in the families who send their children to our religious education programs and schools. It's true that we have a tremendous Christian heritage in this country, and obviously many millions of Americans still actively practice their faith. Many also witness their faith through charitable, social and political action.

Truth

...A sense of absolute right and wrong is absent not only from many of today's children -- but much more alarmingly, from many of their parents. As we drift away from our traditional religious moorings, we become more and more relativist in our judgment, and less and less able to understand truth as something permanent and objective -- that unique thing outside ourselves which is the foundation of human character. This is why we get the spectacular nonsense of candidates running for office on a platform of high ideals . . . and then telling us that their personal moral behavior has nothing to do with their public service, once they're elected.

The Church

...Whatever her faults, the Church is the only, truly free, community in creation. Not "free" in the mixed-up language of our political culture, but really free; free in the deeper sense we find in Scripture. She is the family in which we encounter Christ, who is the way the truth and the life; the same Christ who said "no one comes to the Father except through me." She is the vessel through which God pours hope and holiness into the world. She is the silence where we can hear God calling our name. She is the path we take to answer Christ's call, "Come follow me," and also His command, "Go, make disciples of all nations." When our teaching is obedient to her teaching, it is obedient to His will. Our job as Catholic educators is to draw the souls we teach into the Church, into her freedom, into His will. If we can begin to do that, God will change the world.

III.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He also said, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." But He also said, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword" (Mt 10:34). Those are hard words for the Prince of Peace, but they make sense in the face of the three great opponents of the Gospel in every age -- the world, the flesh and the devil. We tend to frame the struggle between virtue and sin in slightly different words today, but the reality is exactly the same. The truth will set us free, but it won't make us comfortable -- and it will certainly make the enemies of Christ bitter not only toward Him, but toward us.

When I was confirmed, the bishop gave me a light slap on the cheek to remind me of the persecution that might come because of my faith. I became a soldier of Christ in a spiritual war that has gone on throughout history on every continent, in every culture and in every individual heart. I suppose expressions like "spiritual warfare" fell out of favor in the 1960s because they had a flavor of militarism or preconciliar theology. But I think it's time to reclaim the truth at the heart of those words. Spiritual warfare is real. We are soldiers of Christ, and we are engaged in a war for the soul of the world with spiritual enemies who hate the human person and all of God's creation. The cost of that war is the blood of martyrs, and the history of this century is written in it. That's what I mean by missionary realism. If you teach the truth, brothers and sisters, you are the friend of God. And if you are the friend of God, you are the enemy of those who revile Him. St. Paul says it most powerfully in Ephesians 6, 10-17:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the Gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Catholic education cannot be done by the disaffected or lukewarm. It's for people who have a fire in their heart for God; who love the Church and her teachings; who want to be a lion for the lord and not a housecat. It's for missionaries and soldiers of mercy, justice and truth. It's for souls who see their own suffering as a small price to pay, to be part of God's great work of redemption.

The "good news of great joy" is that the hardest victory is already won. Christ has opened the door to new life. Our job is to follow Him and lead others to Him. I know you have that hunger in your own hearts, or you wouldn't be here today. As we begin this season of Lent in this Year of the Holy Spirit, I ask you to pray for me -- as I will pray for you -- to have the same courage which the Apostles found at Pentecost: to preach Jesus Christ with passion and conviction, in season and out, so that others may hear and believe.

God bless each of you, and thank you for the tremendous work you do.

OUR LADY OF THE NEW ADVENT THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE FORMED

March 17, 1999

What's the new evangelization?

What do we mean by a "new evangelization"? It's a simple idea—and it's the key to understanding our vocation as Christians of the Great Jubilee. It means preaching Jesus Christ to a rapidly changing world with a new zeal, new tools and new spirit suited to the needs of our age. That's a huge task. We have many great priests, religious, deacons and laypersons doing God's work in northern Colorado. But we need more. And, in the decades ahead, we'll need them working even more closely together, supporting and complementing each other in the spirit which Vatican II intended.