Jesus Creed
.- The way we evangelize should grab the world by the shoulders and shake it out of its apathy, Bishop Robert Barron told a crowd of Catholic leaders Tuesday.
Evangelization is especially urgent as the ‘nones’ – the number of the population who do not identify with a religion, continues to grow, he said.
Bishop Barron, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and well-known evangelizer for Word on Fire, addressed the crowd of Catholic bishops and leaders gathered at the Catholic Convocation in Orlando, Florida through a live video feed on July 4, the last day of the gathering.
“We do have a fight on our hands, but the great saints of our church have always loved a good fight, and we should too.”
In a talk entitled “Equipping Evangelizers”, the bishop with more than 15 years of evangelizing experience said that there are three main challenges and three main opportunities that Catholic evangelists face today.
1. The first challenge: Scientism
2. The second challenge: The culture of “meh”
3. The third challenge: The culture of self-determination
The Bishop then presented three opportunities for evangelization based on the three transcendentals: truth, goodness and beauty.
1. The first opportunity: An intelligent truth
“I hate dumbed-down Catholicism,” Bishop Barron emphatically told the audience.
2. The second opportunity: The goodness of radical Christians
When the Christian life is embraced fully and radically, it’s goodness stands out to the world, Bishop Barron said.
3. The third opportunity: Authentic beauty
Perhaps the best opportunity from which to start evangelization is with the authentic, objective beauty of the faith, Bishop Barron said. …
“Just show people the beauty of Catholicism – show them Cathedrals, show them the Sistine Chapel, show them Mother Teresa’s sisters at work. Don’t tell them what to think and how to behave, show the beauty of Catholicism, and that has an evangelical power,” he said.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than the dying and rising of Jesus Christ,” he said, and the apostles in the New Testament communicate this with a “grab-you-by-the-shoulders” urgency. …
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