Your Excellency, what prompted Pope Benedict to institute your Dicastery?

Msgr. Fisichella: Before Pope Benedict became the successor of Peter, he wrote a book about the big crisis in Europe. The analysis done in that book by then Cardinal Ratzinger was a factor that led to the institution of a new Pontifical Council. The expression “new evangelization” comes from John Paul II. A few months after being elected Pope, he went back to Kraków and he saw a cross in the tower of Nowa Huta. Prophetically, he said, “From this cross which is the sign of the evangelization of our country, we need to have a new evangelization.” For 27 years, John Paul II spoke on new evangelization in all his speeches and homilies.

In continuity with this teaching, Benedict XVI, said “This is the time for the Church to organize a new evangelization.” For this reason, in the official document Ubicumque
et semper, with which he founded the Dicastery, it is specified that the new evangelization is for the whole Church, but with special concern for the countries of ancient Christian tradition. Of course, this means all the western countries that were Catholic for centuries and are now living a very big crisis of faith under secularism.

Please explain to us the difference between the first and the new evangelization and if both are still effective.

Msgr. Fisichella: In the Letter to the Hebrews we read: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Well, evangelization announces Jesus Christ, who is always the same. There is not an old and a new evangelization. There is a new moment for evangelization. There should be a new method of evangelization. There should be, as John Paul II said several times, a new enthusiasm for evangelization. What we need today is to have a new mentality of evangelizing, because we can lose it. We no longer have the mentality and the culture, as Christians, of sharing the joy of our encounter with Christ.
In his homily at the end of the Synod on new evangelization, in 2012, Pope Benedict explained three levels of evangelization. First of all, evangelization of believers, of all those who belong to the community, all those who celebrate the Holy Eucharist every Sunday, because this approach is meant to change mentalities. As Christians, we are called to evangelize.

There is a second level. Evangelization is directed to all those who are baptized but live
in indifference, who do not care anymore about their faith, and also to people who are not baptized but are living in a Christian culture and tradition. They also need to know this culture and receive an explicit announcement of the Gospel.
And the third level is the evangelization of those who have never known Jesus Christ.
So there is one moment of evangelization, but distinct with regard to the destination of the Gospel.

In your experience, what challenges do you meet in carrying out the new evangelization in our present society, and how does the Church respond to these?

Msgr. Fisichella: The challenges are very profound because first of all, there is the new culture, very often tempted to put the religious understanding of life between parentheses, to restrict the faith to the private sphere. It sees to it that faith does not engage people in changing the world, so it is just a private affair, which cannot, should not and must not touch society and the lives of people.

Another challenge, especially in the countries of old Christian tradition, is the illiteracy of faith. Our Christians probably grow in professional understanding, but they no longer know the a, b, c, the beginning, and the simple context and contents of our faith. We can see a profound division between life and faith, so it seems that faith has nothing to do with life. And this is the destruction itself of faith, because faith, by its nature, belongs to life, faith means to change lives in order to understand how to live as a disciple of Christ.

What would you tell someone who says, “I want to do something for new evangelization, what can I do?”

Msgr. Fisichella: I would say: Before doing something, please be someone. We always have the temptation to do something. This is not the true approach in new evangelization. It is not first of all to do something, but to understand, to be a missionary disciple of Christ. So it is a question of identity. As soon as we discover again our identity as disciples of Christ, then we can do something: have a coherent style of life.
I am convinced that the main challenge that we have today, as Church, is to have a coherent style of life, as disciples of Christ. We cannot speak in one way and live in another. We cannot preach and not live what we preach. We cannot have a style of life which is not coherent and credible. For this reason, style of life means to be convinced of what you are, by the grace of the Lord, which means a new creature, who lives in faith, in love, and witness of hope.

Especially in some areas of the world today, before speaking of faith we should be able to speak of hope. And the new language that we should have today on faith should be a language of hope.

What could be the instruments to help people renew their commitment as Christians?

Msgr. Fisichella: Christian life cannot be individual. Christian life is a life in community. And for this reason, first of all, we need to discover once again the community and life in common. You know, it is not strange that in the New Testament, we have just one word, in Greek, to express two different concepts: koinonia.

Koinonia means community and communion at the same time. And this is probably the challenge in the New Testament, because we are called to do both: to be a community which lives in communion. And where there is a life of communion, there is a community. And this is so important because it comes from the center and heart of our faith. It comes from the Trinity itself.

The Trinity is a community of persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who live communion, that means full love for each other. And when I say full love, I mean that one person gives everything to the other. The Father does not take something for himself, no! Just at the moment in which He gives himself totally, completely, there is the generation of the Son. And at the moment on the cross, in which the Son gives himself completely, totally, he can give the Spirit.

This is very meaningful, because in the Gospel of St. Luke, when the evangelist described the death of Jesus, he did not say he died, but rather that he gave the spirit. In that moment, the Holy Spirit is given to the community, to the world, because Jesus, in this moment, totally gives his love.

Would you say the new ecclesial movements and maybe the parishes which are communities would be a help for new evangelization?

Msgr. Fisichella: Absolutely. Even if I am alone, even if I go to evangelize individually, my act of evangelization, my mission is never individual. It
is always communitarian. This is because faith introduces me into a community, and faith is given to me by a community which is the Church. So communitarian life belongs to the nature of every Christian.

Would Your Excellency like to leave a message for our readers?

Msgr. Fisichella: Do not be afraid to share your experience of having encountered Jesus Christ. Do not keep this encounter just for yourself. Only by sharing can you reach
the fulfillment of the joy of your experience. And once you have shared, go back to the community, like the Apostles, because the community needs your support and to know your experience of evangelization. In this way, the community grows by supporting you and you by supporting the community.

Interview by Nilda Castro