 Pope Francis just released today his first apostolic exhortation, titled Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel).
The Pope has written Evangelii Gaudium in response to the October 2012 Synod on the New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith, in which he encourages and challenges Catholics to action rather than to simply define Church doctrine.
Interestingly, the very first apostolic exhortation was published in 1975 by Pope Paul VI after the 1974 synod on evangelization. Titled Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World), the document aimed to define evangelization and explore how to carry it out in today’s increasingly secular world. Although the document bore Pope Paul VI’s signature, large chunks were written by a young Polish bishop, Karol Wojtyla, who would later become Pope John Paul II.
As we all know, that same Pope John Paul would instigate the New Evangelization, a springtime of faith and the topic of the 2012 synod to which Pope Francis devotes his exhortation. It’s beautiful to see this harmony among popes and how this new exhortation fits neatly into the teaching history of the Church.
Peter Thoai, O.P.
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“The Church is a mother… a good mother can recognize everything that God is bringing about in her children, she listens to their concerns and learns from them.”
Pope Francis