By Michael Motes

Evangelization will become the number one priority in the archdiocese when Pentecost Sunday, June 3, marks the beginning of “Outreach ‘79-’80,” a year long program aimed at sharing the Catholic Faith with alienated and unchurched persons throughout the entirety of North Georgia.

Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan has said that the program will “place special emphasis on outreach to those people, who for whatever reasons, do not shape life’s choices with faith in Jesus Christ.” The archbishop says, “There are tens of thousands of such people in our own archdiocese,” including the “many baptized Catholics who are no longer active in their faith.” The archbishop will launch the year of evangelization at a special Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King on Pentecost Sunday at 11 a.m.

Father Richard A. Kieran, Archdiocesan Secretary for Education, is serving as Chairman of the Archdiocesan Committee on Evangelization (ACE) and has compiled an in-depth planning guide for the mammoth project.

In explaining the need for parish renewal, Father Kieran cited the 1971 GENERAL CATECHETICAL DIRECTORY, which states, “Great numbers are drifting little by little into religious indifferentism, or are continuing in danger of keeping the faith without the dynamisn that is necessary, a faith without effective influence on their actual lives.”

“A tragic consequence of this crisis of our faith,” Father Kieran says, “is that our parishes have ceased to be effective in building up the Kingdom of God in the world. Very few of our people take seriously the mandate of the Second Vatican Council: ‘On all Christians therefore is laid the splendid burden of working to make the divine message of salvation known to and accepted by all men throughout the world.”

“But,” Father Kieran adds, “it would be wrong to suggest that spiritual renewal is not already underway. In the years since the Second Vatican Council, spiritual renewal has taken hold in the Church. In most parishes, there are Catholics who have come to a new awareness of their relationship to God. They have a profound spiritual awakening -- a change of mind and heart. Jesus Christ has become their personal Savior and Lord. They have a new interest in prayer in various forms; they are hungry for the Word of God; they look for an experience of genuine Christian community, and they are willing to witness by word and service.”

Much of current renewal, according to Father Kieran, remains in groups such as the Cursillo Movement and Charismatic Renewal but now “the time has come to integrate the renewal experience into the life of every parish.”

In order to accomplish this, each parish in the archdiocese is represented on the evangelization committee by “outreach coordinators” who will work on their local levels. In stressing the importance of the lay coordinators, Archbishop Donnellan urged all pastors to “work closely in organizing an effort to invite inactive Catholics and those without a church relationship to explore the rich heritage the Catholic Church offers.”

In September the outreach coordinators will meet with all Deaneries, parish staff members and resource persons to discuss “Outreach” progress. This will be followed in October by an archdiocesan Convocation of parish staffs and lay coordinators, during which each parish will present its plans and representative plans from each deanery will be evaluated in detail.

Among the suggestions that have come from the evangelization committee in preparation for “Outreach” have been the need for each parish to evaluate its individual “spiritual condition,” scheduling of week-long Parish Renewal programs and the establishment of home visitation groups.

At a clergy conference held last month to discuss the program, these specific goals for “Outreach” were established:

-- Having each parish develop and implement a special outreach to alienated Catholics and churchless persons, using the resources of the parish, particularly the talents of the laity.

-- Developing in the members of the parish a new awareness of their responsibility to share their faith.

-- Enabling the laity to become directly involved in making Christ’s message of salvation known and accepted by their alienated Catholic brothers and sisters and by the churchless.

On Pentecost Sunday, parish lay coordinators will be commissioned and what Archbishop Donnellan refers to as “the Christ given mission of sharing our faith” will begin.