Pope Francis goes on to stress the importance of communicating the Gospel and the joy of faith to today’s men and women, insisting that it is a proclamation of “a witness abounding with gratuitous love” that should take shape in “in a personal and ecclesial lifestyle that can rekindle a desire for the Lord, instil hope and radiate trust and credibility.” Secularization, continued the Pope, “demands that we reflect on the changes in society that have influenced the way in which people think about and organize their lives” – not the diminished social relevance of the Church.Ĭonsequently, “secularization represents a challenge for our pastoral imagination,” and “an occasion for restructuring the spiritual life in new forms and for new ways of existing.” Thus, a discerning view “motivates us to develop a new passion for evangelization, to look for new languages and forms of expression, to change certain pastoral priorities and to focus on the essentials.” Communicating the joy of the faith Vespers at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec Secularization: a challenge for our pastoral imagination Paul VI also distinguished between secularization and secularism which generates subtle and diverse “new forms of atheism,” including consumer society, pleasure set up as a supreme value, a desire for power and domination, and discrimination of all kinds.Īs Church and as shepherds of God’s People and pastoral workers, therefore, the Pope says it is up to us to “make these distinctions” and “make this discernment”, adding that if we yield to the negative view, we risk sending the wrong message – as though the criticism of secularization masks “the nostalgia for a sacralized world, a bygone society in which the Church and her ministers had greater power and social relevance.” ![]() To refine our discernment of the secularized world, the Holy Father recommends drawing inspiration from Paul VI who saw secularization as “the effort, in itself just and legitimate and in no way incompatible with faith or religion” to discover the laws governing reality and human life implanted by the Creator. Vespers at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec Secularization and secularism This is no naïve view, but a view that discerns reality,” Pope Francis insists. We are called “to have a view similar to that of God, who discerns what is good and persistently seeks it, sees it and nurtures it. The Pope warns against this, as it is “not Christian” and “not the way of God.” He notes that God detests worldliness and has a positive view of the world, blesses our life and makes himself incarnate in historical situations to “give growth to the seed of the Kingdom in those places where darkness seems to triumph.” The first view – the negative – is “often born of a faith that feels under attack and thinks of it as a kind of “armour”, defending us against the world,” the Pope said, adding that this view complains that “the world is evil, sin reigns” and risks clothing itself in a “crusading spirit.” Vespers at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de QuébecĬonsidering the ambient culture, Pope Francis cautions against falling “prey to pessimism or resentment, passing immediately to negative judgments or a vain nostalgia.” He, rather elaborates two possible views of the world: the “negative view” and the “discerning view.” Negative v.
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