New Evangelization, The Sequel!

Saint John Paul II couldn't have predicted this next wave of a faster, more fragile world more desperately in need of the Truth than ever.

John Paul II first used the phrase “new evangelization” publicly during his address to the Latin American bishops in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979 talking about the need for a new way of presenting the Gospel to cultures affected by rapid secularization. Then in 1990 we received the major magisterial document that elevated the call to a new evangelization to a battle cry for the whole Church. In that encyclical he explained why the new evangelization was needed and identifies that the ones who need it most are baptized Catholics who have drifted away from the faith.

When St. John Paul II talked about the “new evangelization,” he wasn’t asking the Church to preach a new Gospel. He was urging us to bring the same Gospel, the same truth, the same Christ, to a world that had changed. New ardor, new methods, new expressions…but the same message.

Follow me on X | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Discord

I think we’ve entered a second wave of that call.

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the average Catholic couldn’t imagine a world shaped by TikTok-speed attention spans, YouTube videos, algorithms, and short-form video as a dominant language, or as a forming agent of the cultural and individual intellect. Nobody foresaw the new ways and means of publishing text-posts (Substack, Medium) beyond mere blogging, or the explosion of digital micro-publishing. And nobody predicted the way human attention would shrink to ten seconds at a time. We’re trying to evangelize people who have become fast-moving targets—hard to catch, hard to draw in, and almost impossible to hold for long. This, in spite of having more tools through which to evangelize and catechize them.

Add to that a cultural hypersensitivity that affects even practicing Catholics. People are quick to take offense, even when nothing challenging or offensive is being said. Their understanding is rooted in their perception, which is often governed by feelings rather than reason.

And layered on top of it all is cancel culture and a social hostility that discourages anyone who tries to speak the Gospel with clarity, no matter how gently they try to do it. Even Catholics have learned these bully tactics, imported from the paganize secular order. Mob rule, submission by force, shock-manipulation (“What?!? I’m SO upset! I’m SO offended!) intended to shame or intimidate the truth-teller has replaced torches, pitch forks and clubs in our modern time.

In many ways, we’re living through a level of resistance to the Gospel the Church hasn’t seen in several hundreds of years. And yet this is precisely the moment John Paul II was preparing us for. This is the field he was pointing to. The tools have changed. The audience has changed. The obstacles have grown and multiplied. But the mission is the same. And we have to boldly go where no evangelizer has gone before—into the deep darkness of the Diocese of the Twilight Zone.

So pray for evangelizers, great and small: the short-form bloggers, the voices on social media, the podcasters, the video storytellers, the parish workers, the hidden faithful. Pray for everyone responding to that call to “go out and evangelize all peoples” using the modern tools at our disposal.

It’s a time of struggle and strife for the Church—the institutions and her people, and all those responding to John Paul II’s call to the new evangelization (or the new-New Evangelization). But it’s also a time of great grace, and an opportunity for glory that only happens every few hundred years in our history. The next chapter of the new evangelization has already begun. Let’s be bold and faithful in writing it.

This post right here will help you, with five tips for staying fired up in the Catholic Faith. DOn’t forget to follow me on socials ( X | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Discord)

Ave Maria, Virgo Fidelis!