President of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania, New Zealand Archbishop John Dew’s call to train lay evangelisers is one of the highlighted outcomes of the Synod of Bishops held in Rome.
Among three of the highlighted recommendations, members of the Synod of Bishops recommended the Vatican develop guidelines for training evangelisers.
Early in the Synod, Archbishop Dew called the formation of evangelisers a key component of the new evangelisation.
“The formation and ongoing formation of all involved in the evangelising mission of the Church must be our first priority,” he told the synod on Monday November 8.
As well as focussing on the training of evangelisers, members of the Synod of Bishops recommended the Vatican establish a commission to monitor religious freedom, and ensure there is a church in every diocese where confession is always available.
The Synod of Bishops on new evangelisation, approved 58 propositions to give to the pope as recommendations to use in a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, and it went some way to acknowledging the difficult context of evangelisation, particularly in the first world.
“The proclamation of the good news in different contexts of the world – marked by the process of globalization and secularism – places different challenges before the church: at times in outright religious persecution, at other times in a widespread indifference, interference, restriction or harassment.”
Archbishop Dew was named by Pope Benedict XVI to serve as one of the papally-appointed Synod Fathers for the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.
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