Pope Benedict has announced the Year of Faith in the hope that it will encourage a “new evangelisation” .
The Year of Faith will begin on October 11, 2012, the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council ” up to “24 November 2013, Solemnity of Christ the King. ”
The year will provide the occasion to “reinforce our faith” in God and “to announce him with joy to mankind”, Benedict said.
The pontiff recalled the just concluded conference on the New Evangelization, and explained that “already the Blessed John Paul II had clearly indicated to the Church it was an urgent and exciting challenge. He, in the wake of Vatican II was the one who started its implementation – Pope Paul VI – was in fact, both a staunch supporter of the mission ad gentes, to the peoples and territories where the Gospel had not yet taken root, and a herald of the new evangelization. ”
New evangelization and mission ad gentes go together, “They are – he said – aspects of the mission of the Church, and therefore it is significant to consider them together in this month of October, characterized by the celebration of World Mission, next Sunday.”
The pontiff noted that an Apostolic Letter will be published in the coming days to explain more about the Year of Faith.
He added: “The Servant of God Paul VI proclaimed a similar ‘Year of Faith’ in 1967, during the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and in a time of great cultural upheaval. I think that, after half a century since the opening of the Council, linked to the happy memory of Blessed John XXIII, it is appropriate to recall the beauty and the centrality of faith, the need to strengthen and deepen it on a personal and community level, and to do so not in a celebratory perspective, but rather a missionary one, the mission ad gentes and new evangelization. ”
Full Article: Spero News