Praeparatio evangelica or preambles to faith in our time

Abstract

The task of evangelization must take into consideration the circumstances of the message recipients. Currently, in the West there is a lack of a unitary cultural fibre capable of sustaining a religious attitude. Thus the crisis of faith is linked to the dissolution of certain preambles that used to serve as pillars of the Christian faith, among them: the openness of the human being to God; authentic rationality; the possibility of grasping truths; the primacy of the notions of good and evil over social consensus; the meaning of human life; and the existence of God. It is necessary to recover these preambles to faith. The new evangelization therefore requires a “praeparatio evangelii” which is mindful of these cultural circumstances.