We are aware that no missionary activity can be realistically undertaken without the enthusiastic support of priests, who are the first and most valued collaborators of the Order of Bishops. Priests may use them in whatever manner they find most helpful for them.
It is not intended that any replies should be sent to this Congregation. The questionnaires at the end of each section are intended as an aid to discerning everyday reality in the light of the teaching contained in the aforementioned documents. These documents are fundamental for an authentic response to the demands of our time and for an effective mission of evangelization. This document reiterates the teachings of the Council, and of the Popes and it refers to the other documents already mentioned by the Holy Father. With a convinced universal application of these documents, what is expressed by the now familiar term «new evangelization» can be more easily translated into effective reality».īearing in mind actual circumstances, this document is designed to lead individual priests as well as presbyterates to an examination of conscience, remembering that, in concrete terms, love means fidelity. Here, providentially, we retrace the paths laid out in Tertio Millennio Adveniente, in the Directories for Priests and Permanent Deacons, in the Instruction on the collaboration of the lay faithful with the pastoral ministry of priests and in the fruits of this Plenaria.
«The prospective of New Evangelization reaches a high point in commitment to the Great Jubilee. The entire Church prepares to enter the third millennium since the Incarnation of the Word in a spirit of penance, and, by the continued Apostolic solicitude of the Successor of Peter, is stimulated to an ever more lively recollection of the will of her divine Founder.Īt its Plenary Assembly of 13-15 October 1998, the Congregation for the Clergy, in a spirit of intimate communion with that objective, decided to entrust the enclosed circular letter to every Ordinary, for transmission to their priests.