CNS STORY: Cardinal Wuerl: Education a key to the new evangelization

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A day after Pope Benedict XVI warned visiting U.S. bishops about the threat of "radical secularism" to American moral values, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl reflected on the implications of the pope's remarks, giving special emphasis to the role of Catholic education.

"It's so important in our country right now that we not allow faith to be brushed aside," the cardinal told Catholic News Service. "And the only way that's not going to happen ... is a renewal of our own faith."

Cardinal Wuerl was in Rome for his periodic "ad limina" visit, which included meetings with the pope and Vatican officials, covering a wide range of pastoral matters. On Jan. 19, he joined bishops from Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, and the Virgin Islands to hear a speech from Pope Benedict in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.

In his speech, the pope emphasized the need for an "engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity" with the courage and critical skills to articulate the "Christian vision of man and society." He said that the education of Catholic laypeople is essential to the new evangelization, an initiative that he has made a priority of his pontificate.

Cardinal Wuerl, whose recent book, "Seek First the Kingdom," encourages Catholic laypeople to affirm their faith in various dimensions of secular life, said that Catholic schools are "one of the most tried and proven ways of passing on the faith."

Efforts to renew Catholic religious education were proving an "enormous success" at the elementary and secondary levels, he said. "Where we need to concentrate now is on the level of higher education."

Reaffirming Pope Benedict's hopeful words about a "new generation" of American Catholics working to renew the "church's presence and witness in American society," Cardinal Wuerl said that "many of the younger students and some of the faculty" at Catholic colleges and universities have shown themselves willing "to bring the Catholic perspective into the discussion at the level of academia."

That tendency is part of a broader positive trend for the church, also exemplified by a recent rise in vocations to the priesthood and religious life, he said.

But "we have a challenge ahead of us because we have two generations of under-catechized or poorly catechized faithful," the cardinal said. "What we received in the '70s and '80s simply, in too many instances, is not really what's needed to be able to address the future."

Cardinal Wuerl said he welcomed the growing influence of what Pope Benedict has called the "hermeneutic of continuity," an interpretation of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council that presents its achievements as organic developments in church history rather than a radical break with the past.

"I think that's where many of these young people feel very comfortable today," he said. "They're really connecting with this great 2,000-year tradition. That's going to be our future."

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