{"id":1964,"date":"2012-10-31T16:16:53","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T20:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/thecc\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2012-10-31T16:16:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T20:16:53","slug":"new-evangelization-vs-vatican-ii-rhetoric-a-response-to-new-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/2012\/10\/31\/new-evangelization-vs-vatican-ii-rhetoric-a-response-to-new-research\/","title":{"rendered":"New Evangelization vs. Vatican II Rhetoric: A Response to New Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Mike McCallion, Benjamin Bennet-Carpenter, and David Maines for their relevant research on the New Evangelization<\/a> (NE).\u00a0 The NE is a topic of special interest to me, having received much of my faith formation and education in the Archdiocese of Denver, an archdiocese that closely aligns itself with the NE mission.\u00a0 This close alignment of missions is tangible throughout the diocese, most explicitly by the renaming of the center which houses the Archdiocese of Denver\u2019s two seminaries and the majority of its offices to The John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization<\/a> after the visit of the Pope John Paul II to Denver for World Youth Day in 1993.\u00a0 The diocese\u2019s website describes this center as being \u201con the frontlines of the Church\u2019s modern \u2018crusade\u2019 for the \u2018New Evangelization.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Denver, I interacted with several influential NE organizations, both formally, as an employee of one, and informally, through various archdiocesan events.\u00a0 These organizations include the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS)<\/a> and the Augustine Institute<\/a>, both founded and based in the archdiocese, as well as active communities representing many of the lay ecclesial movements which McCallion et al. describe as key NE agents, including the Neo-Catechumenal Way, Opus Dei, and Communion and Liberation.\u00a0 To a large extent, my experience of the NE in Denver resonates with McCallion et al\u2019s description that the \u201cNE is a thoroughgoing effort to reconstitute the primary social dynamics both inside and outside the Catholic Church within global society.\u201d\u00a0 Yet when the authors present the conflicting rhetorics of NE and Vatican II ministry professionals in the Archdiocese of Detroit, much of my experience of NE professionals\u2019 rhetoric differs.<\/p>\n

McCallion et al. suggest that \u201cboth types of professionals are about renewing the Catholic Church, its members, and newcomers but from quite different perspectives: on the one hand, communal (the \u201cVatican II Catholic\u201d) and, on the other hand, individualistic (the \u201cNE Catholic\u201d).\u00a0 To be sure, I second the observation that NE Catholics see a critical link between sustainable evangelization and the individual\u2019s experience of relationship with Jesus.\u00a0 But when McCallion et al. identify such \u201cdistinctly evangelical Catholic rhetoric\u201d as \u201ca rhetoric that contrasts sharply with what is ordinarily thought of as traditional or cultural Catholicism,\u201d insofar as it evinces similarities with contemporary Evangelical Protestant rhetoric, the authors seem to refer to the more recent Catholicism-communality, Protestantism-individualism stereotype in the American context.\u00a0 Yet rhetoric emphasizing one\u2019s \u201cpersonal encounter with Christ\u201d could be as much associated with (and many NE Catholics see their emphasis on such terms and concepts as) a retrieval of a longstanding and \u201ctraditional\u201d emphasis on prayer and spirituality captured in Deus Caritas Est<\/em><\/a>: <\/em>“One doesn’t begin to be a Christian because of an ethical decision or a great idea, but rather because of an encounter with an event, with a Person, who gives new horizons to life, and with that, a decisive orientation.\u201d\u00a0 As I will note more later on, NE Catholics might add \u201cbecause of an ethical decision or a great idea or a particular parish community<\/em>\u201d to the reasons one doesn\u2019t \u201cbegin to be a Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to questioning what McCallion et al. describe as \u201ctraditional\u201d Catholicism, I found an essential set of phrases missing in their characterization of NE rhetoric.\u00a0 The authors emphasize that the rhetoric of contemporary NE Catholics is primarily \u201cevangelistic, intra-community, focused, personalistic, and retains sectarian overtones that highlight an individual\u2019s relationship with \u201cJesus\u201d rather than participation in society as \u201cthe People of God\u201d\u201d (295).\u00a0 Yet just as often as I have detected personalistic rhetoric among NE professionals, I have heard them contextualize their ministry, the project of evangelization and their own faith commitments within \u201cthe Church.\u201d \u00a0In my experience, NE Catholics\u2019 reference to \u201cthe Church\u201d is, in fact, even more ubiquitous than the use of personalistic language.<\/p>\n

Is this term synonymous with Vatican II Catholics term \u201cthe People of God?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 In my experience, Vatican II Catholics use the term more often to describe smaller communities, such as the individual parish or diocese, rather than Catholics throughout the world under the guidance of the Pope and bishops, which NE use of the term \u201cthe Church\u201d often denotes.\u00a0 Nonetheless, much NE rhetoric evokes a sense of participation in the \u201clife of the universal Church\u201d and \u201cfidelity to the Magisterium\u201d in my experience.<\/p>\n

In sum, NE rhetoric is probably as peppered with discussion of \u201cthe Church\u201d as Vatican II rhetoric is to references to \u201cthe People of God.\u201d\u00a0 While in most cases, \u201cthe Church\u201d prioritizes a global denotation while \u201cthe People of God\u201d emphasizes one\u2019s local community, in some cases, these terms refer to the same reality, as they do in the mission statement of FOCUS<\/a>: \u201cto know Christ Jesus, and to fulfill His great commission by first living and then\u2028 communicating the fullness of life within the family of God,<\/em> the Church<\/em>.\u201d1\u00a0<\/sup>Here we see the reiteration of \u201cfamily of God\u201d and \u201cthe Church\u201d as synonymous referents. \u00a0Moreover, in addition to the sense of unity with the Church leadership emphasized in NE use of \u201cthe Church,\u201d the term also references the extensive social network of the NE organizations which McCallion et al. describe.\u00a0 In this sense, \u201dthe Church\u201d reinforces the NE commitment to the wider Catholic community or \u201cthe People of God\u201d throughout the world. \u00a0This commitment is evidenced not only in NE rhetoric, but in the increasingly international influence of the lay organizations which promote it and in the NE support of practices such as the visitation of Catholic pilgrimage sites, international gatherings such as World Youth Day<\/a>, and participation in worldwide leitmotifs such as the Year of Faith<\/a>.\u00a0 Support of such events highlights the NE emphasis on the collaboration and community in \u201cthe Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, in my experience, much of the tension between NE and Vatican II Catholics actually turns on precisely the reverse characterization of that described by McCallion et al.: Whereas NE Catholics prioritize community and conformity to \u201cthe Church\u2019s\u201d official teaching and norms of worship, Vatican II Catholics hold up individual \u201cfreedom of conscience,\u201d Catholic social teaching\u2019s emphasis on the dignity and rights of the person, and parish variability in establishing norms of worship.\u00a0 Some NE Catholics express concern that the Vatican II emphasis on the parish as \u201cthe People of God\u201d and progressive interpretations of liturgical renewal after Vatican II loses sight of \u201ctraditional\u201d and catholic dimensions of \u201cthe Church.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Another example of the NE self-association with communalism, rather than individualism, is the NE Catholics’ critique that Vatican II Catholics\u2019 alternative views on issues such as homosexuality and women priesthood place the primacy of individual opinion over the teachings of \u201cthe Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, McCallion et al. suggest that Vatican II Catholics\u2019 rhetoric placed more emphasis on the sacraments and communal aspects of parish life than NE Catholics.\u00a0 The authors note one Vatican II Catholic\u2019s frustrated questioning, \u201cWhat happened to the Mass?,\u201d when listening to an NE presentation.\u00a0 My experience of NE Catholics has been that \u201cthe Eucharist\u201d and \u201cthe Mass\u201d are seen as critical to promoting the\u00a0aforementioned\u00a0universality of \u201cthe Church.\u201d\u00a0 Rather than personal relationship w\/ Christ vs. the Mass, perhaps the distinction here, much like \u201cthe People of God\u201d versus \u201cthe Church\u201d distinction, is in the two types\u2019 differing understandings of what is most central about<\/em> the Mass.\u00a0 On this point, McCallion et al.\u2019s individual vs. communal characterization bears much weight.\u00a0 For many NE Catholics, the celebration of the Eucharist hinges on partaking of the body and blood, or \u201cTrue Presence,\u201d of Christ, which then nourishes the individual for service of \u201cthe Church\u201d and \u201cthe world.\u201d\u00a0 For Vatican II Catholics, the essential core of the Mass is its gathering together of the \u201cCommunity of Believers\u201d around a common Eucharistic Table, and perhaps only secondarily the partaking of the \u201cTrue Presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

This research on NE vs. Vatican II rhetoric is both insightful and pertinent to a plethora of ongoing discussions of the contemporary Catholic landscape.\u00a0 I look forward to hearing from Mike and his colleagues.<\/p>\n

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1<\/sup>Interestingly, Curtis Martin, president of FOCUS, is one of only two Americans recently appointed to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, with the other being Ralph Martin, the director of NE graduate programs at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, one of the three Archdiocese of Detroit sites where McCallion et al. gathered field data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Mike McCallion, Benjamin Bennet-Carpenter, and David Maines for their relevant research on the New Evangelization (NE).\u00a0 The NE is a topic of special interest to me, having received much of my faith formation and education in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":858,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/858"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1987,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions\/1987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/thecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}