Conference speakers discuss challenges to modern evangelizing

Published: 2006-04-03

PLYMOUTH, Mich. (CNS) -- Speakers at a three-day conference on evangelization urged participants to remember that Christianity is open to all and that their mission is to spread God's word to others. The March 24-26 conference, "The New Evangelization: Overcoming the Obstacles," drew nearly 400 people of all ages from 20 states and three countries to the Retreat Center at St. John's in Plymouth. Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of the magazine First Things and a New York archdiocesan priest, said the Gospel can be alien in today's culture and urged participants not to consider the rest of the world as the enemy, but to let them know of God's love. Two cardinals who were scheduled to speak, Cardinals Avery Dulles and Francis E. George of Chicago, sent video presentations of their talks since they were attending a consistory in Rome. Cardinal George said faith can transform culture. "Both culture and faith tell us how to behave and what to believe," he said. "Both give us norms for acting and for thinking and for loving, bringing people, therefore, to know, love and accept Christ in the church."

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