EVANGELIZING WITH PROGRAMS OF APPROPRIATE CHRISTIAN FORMATION

VATICAN CITY, MAR 25, 2001 (VIS) - "The Church has the mission of announcing and sharing the great treasure of the 'Gospel of mercy' with all men. Here is the source of joy which permeates this Sunday's liturgy, called precisely 'Laetare Sunday'," the Pope said this morning during the Eucharistic celebration in the Roman parish of St. Dominic.

The Holy Father recalled that in the almost 27 years since its foundation, the parish "has made noteworthy efforts to offer a proper welcome to the many families who live here. It is now necessary to achieve a determined step forward, favoring evangelization in every way, through appropriate programs of Christian formation."

"The challenge before you is demanding," the Pope went on. A program of faith formation is necessary "which involves those who approach the sacraments of Christian initiation and which continues through adolescence and youth, affecting as well their fiances and families. ... An ever more active presence of the laity in organisms of pastoral participation is also to be encouraged."

John Paul II told the parishioners that in their area it is necessary to confront "the challenge of sects. I must tell you to exert yourselves so that the Gospel may be announced to your children and all persons of good will, as the Church has been doing for two thousand years. Offer the truth of the Christian faith with clarity, accompanying it always with a language of love and fraternity, understandable to all."

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