Leo Cushley attends international Vatican conference on Evangelism
The city of Edinburgh was represented at a recent international gathering of bishops from all over the world at the Vatican, where Pope Francis was hosting a Dicastery on Evangelization.
What is this Dicastery, you may wonder? According to the Vatican’s website, its job is to look into“fundamental questions regarding evangelization in the world and for the establishment, assistance and support of new Particular Churches…” It is the formal body charged with the organization of the Vatican worldwide missionary outreach.
Leo Cushley, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, flew across to attend the plenary meeting. It was addressed by Pope Francis, who gave a short talk on the state of evangelism and faith in the modern world. He started out with a word of warning and encouraging, by talking about how:
“the secularism of past decades has created enormous difficulties: from the loss of a sense of belonging to the Christian community, to indifference regarding faith and its content. They are serious problems, which many brothers and sisters must confront every day, but one must not loseheart. “
This fact can be seen in Scotland as a whole – just 13% of Scotland’s population identify as Catholic, and only around one in seven Catholics are at Mass on a given Sunday, according to the Church’s own statistics. Leo Cushley himself has previously highlighted the need to reach out to young people as a pressing priority, a concern shared by Catholic leaders across the globe. Back in 2018, Archbishop Cushley had attended the Vatican Synod on Youth, looking into how the Church can better reach youngsters where they are. Read more here:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-10/synod-youth-2018-interview-scotland- archbishop-cushley.html
The next main theme of the Pope’s message was to emphasize mercy as the call to the culture. He alluded to the Church being like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, or the Good Shepherd in John 10, going out looking for the strays. Evangelism carried out “in the ointment and style of mercy” gets a better hearing from its hearers, he said.
You can read the Pope’s full comments on the Vatican website here:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/03/15/240315a.html
