By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — While there was “an explosion of usage of the term ‘evangelize’” in Vatican II documents, a prominent Catholic apologist told a Zoom meeting that people may ask, hasn’t that always been the Church’s mission?
The answer is that the modern world is increasingly becoming more secular, intentionally, said Scott Hahn, Ph.D., a theologian at Ohio’s Franciscan University of Steubenville, who said the message of St. John Paul II was, “We need to re-evangelize the de-Christianized.”
Hahn, who holds the Fr. Michael Scanlan, T.O.R., chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at the school, spoke from Steubenville on November 7 to the Zoom meeting conducted by the Institute of Catholic Theology, an evangelization program based at St. Thomas the Apostle Church here.
He began by saying St. John Paul II is “a figure of continuity between Vatican II and Vatican I,” the latter mostly occurring in 1870, although some people want to “weaponize” Vatican II against the nineteenth-century council. “There is so much continuity” between the two, although definite differences, he said, such as the 1960s’ council’s importance given to lay evangelization.
St. John Paul could see on the faces of people in his native Poland the ravages of domination by the secularist Nazi and Communist movements, Hahn said.
“Modern people listen more willingly” to witnesses than teachers, he said — meaning they’re more influenced by seeing how Christianity actually has affected others’ lives than “proof texts” pointed to in the Bible.
“What we can do is simply this, enjoy being Catholic,” which works more effectively with others than showing the proof texts, Hahn said.
Catholics don’t use the coffee break at work to preach a homily, but to share in the joys of everyday life, which conveys its own message and might lead to someone opening up with questions about dealing with their own lives, he said, adding that friendship can be the medium by which “the new evangelization gains traction.”
He said later during the presentation, “You don’t just catechize, you personalize.”
Hahn said he converted to the Catholic Church 34 years ago, but goes through conversion every day. He had been a Presbyterian pastor who was impressed with the Catholic Church’s consistency in holding to the historic opposition to artificial contraception.
Earlier in his talk, he said it won’t ever be easy for people to take up their crosses. “I need to wake up spiritually,” not only physically, every day, so he starts with prayer. “Conversion for every one of us needs to be ongoing….We’re not out just to reach them, we are them.”
The coronavirus pandemic has given people an opportunity to see how much they’d taken for granted, he said, mentioning that his daughter said how much she missed receiving the Eucharist when it wasn’t allowed to be available.
But something far deadlier than COVID-19 is sin, especially mortal sin, he said.
The fact that unbelievers don’t believe is less remarkable than the fact that Catholics do believe, worshipping Someone born in a manger, crucified but risen from the dead, and now present on a paten, Hahn said.
“We need to cultivate Eucharistic amazement.
“. . . The joy of the Lord is our strength in the new evangelization as well,” he said.
Responding to an audience question about adequately being able to address a study group that has many recent converts, Hahn said God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies those He calls. “Every Bible study doesn’t have to sizzle.” A person in effect can be just a beggar, “telling other beggars where he found the Bread of Life. . . . “I suspect the devil knows the Bible far better than I do, but he’s still the devil,” Hahn said.
The Lord chose tax collectors and fishermen to be his apostles, not those whom society would regard as the most qualified for that mission, he said.
Eric Westby, Ph.D., director of the Institute of Catholic Theology, said that listening to Hahn took him back to 25 years ago, when he studied in the classroom under Hahn, whose stream of knowledge being expounded was like “a fire hose.”
Hahn’s talk dealt with being properly in tune with the times, but he was more than a half-hour late in logging on for the Zoom session due to a misunderstanding about time zones.
Most of Arizona remains on Mountain Standard Time all year, with the effect that it’s two hours behind the East Coast in the winter and three hours behind during Daylight Saving Time in the summer. Just a few days before Hahn’s talk, the nation came off Daylight Saving Time.
Westby explained to the Zoom audience that Hahn in Steubenville had his talk marked down for 12:30 p.m. Eastern time when it should have been 11:30 a.m.
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