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4.
Evangelization
48.
The primary mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel in such a way that a
relationship between faith and life is established in each individual and in
the socio-cultural context in which individuals live and act and communicate
with one another. Evangelization means "bringing the Good News into all
the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from
within and making it new... It is a question not only of preaching the Gospel
in ever wider geographic areas or to ever greater numbers of people, but also
of affecting and, as it were, upsetting, through the power of the Gospel,
humanity's criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines
of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life, which are in contrast
with the Word of God and the plan of salvation"(40).
49.
By its very nature, each Catholic University makes an important contribution to
the Church's work of evangelization. It is a living institutional witness
to Christ and his message, so vitally important in cultures marked by
secularism, or where Christ and his message are still virtually unknown.
Moreover, all the basic academic activities of a Catholic University are
connected with and in harmony with the evangelizing mission of the Church:
research carried out in the light of the Christian message which puts new human
discoveries at the service of individuals and society; education offered in a
faith-context that forms men and women capable of rational and critical
judgment and conscious of the transcendent dignity of the human person;
professional training that incorporates ethical values and a sense of service
to individuals and to society; the dialogue with culture that makes the faith
better understood, and the theological research that translates the faith into
contemporary language. "Precisely because it is more and more conscious of
its salvific mission in this world, the Church wants to have these centres
closely connected with it; it wants to have them present and operative in
spreading the authentic message of Christ"(41).
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