Pope’s new pontifical council for secularized Christian countries

(June 29, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday announced he is establishing a new pontifical council in the Vatican for re-evangelization and find ways "to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel" in traditional Christians countries where secularism is smothering faith life. Leading an evening prayer service at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on Monday, the eve of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Benedict said there are areas of the globe that have been known as Christian for centuries, but where in the past few centuries "the process of secularization has produced a serious crisis" in people's sense of what it means to be Christian and to belong to the church. "I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of a pontifical council, with the principal task of promoting a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of faith has already resounded and where there are churches of ancient foundation present, but which are living through a progressive secularization of society and a kind of 'eclipse of the sense of God,'" he said. The challenge, he said, is to find ways to help people rediscover the value of faith. The new pontifical council dedicated to a "renewed evangelization" will be the 12th in the Vatican. Besides pontifical councils there are also nine congregations.