Ubicumque et semper

Setting up a new Pontifical Council is not something that happens often in the Vatican, given the conservative nature of the institution.

Yet Pope Benedict XVI has just released the motu proprio document entitled Ubicumque et semper (‘Everywhere and always’) that establishes the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.

One of the reasons why this recent move deserves careful consideration is that it is going to be a long-term initiative. The central concern that gives name to the Council is also of great significance, especially for evangelicals who like to think that they ‘own’ everything that is related to evangelism-evangelisation. Here is a Vatican office devoted to fostering the new evangelisation of the West. Another feature that would ring some evangelical bells is a long quote from Evangelii nutiandi, a 1975 Vatican document on mission that many observers have seen as the Roman Catholic counterpart of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant. So mission to the Western world is right at the heart of the Vatican agenda.