The new evangelization in Latin American perspective

The new focus on local issues does not derive simply from pastoral changes, but also stems from activists' exhaustion and the desire to attend to long-postponed personal concerns.(23) Even activists who remain committed to changes in both church and society may not be able to continue pressing for reforms indefinitely, especially in the absence of structural moral support from church leaders. Whatever the causes, however, local and personal foci for activism are undoubtedly more amenable to ecclesial control than participation in broader social movements, which very often took the faithful beyond the church's purview. Dramatic examples included the thousands of Catholic activists in El Salvador and Nicaragua who became radicalized during the 1970s and participated in revolutionary organizations. Similarly, many Brazilian CEB members joined the Workers' Party.

While the new evangelization preserves the faith-life link of Latin American progressive Catholicism, it generates a new interpretation that defuses the more radical implications of the see-judge-act method and the pedagogy of consciousness-raising. In the new evangelization, Catholicism is linked to life not through the development of a critical attitude that empowers ordinary (especially poor) people, but through sacramental, ritual, and moral mediations, which also enhance the power of the clergy. Believers are encouraged to improve their lives through cultural and spiritual growth rather than social change. A prime example of this is the charismatic renewal movement, whose members ascend through increased ritual attendance and spiritual development. Social issues are of little or no concern, even in the Salvadoran church, with its tradition of activism.

The new evangelization, thus, gives rise to a "culturalist" reading of the key liberationist concept of praxis. Post-Medellin progressive Catholics interpreted praxis through Marxist historicist lenses (often drawing on the work of Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci) as a religiously inspired social empowerment closely connected with the politico-utopian notion of the reign of God. In contrast, John Paul II, while acknowledging the creativity of the human sell sees this praxis as mainly cultural and religious, as the capacity of individuals to transcend existential despair and alienation. Praxis is the means through which humanity can build a Christian culture of love.(24)

The emphasis on culture in the new evangelization translates into a call for "inculturation," defined as the "call to bring the power of the Gospel into the very heart of culture and cultures." To fulfill this call, evangelization

will seek to know these cultures and their essential components; it will learn their most significant expressions; it will respect their particular values and riches. In this manner it will be able to offer these cultures the knowledge of the hidden mystery [of Incarnation] and help them bring forth from their own living tradition original expressions of Christian life, celebration and thought.(25)