General Assembly of Catholic Church

Academic calls for renewal of faith

 

Dr Catherine Nongkas

A Catholic academic at Divine Word University in Madang has warned of the towering challenge that secularization is presenting in the world today.

Dr Catherine Nongkas, Dean of the Faculty of Education at Divine Word University, told delegates at the General Assembly of the Catholic Church at DWU that people were developing a mentality in which God was effectively absent wholly or partially from human life and awareness.

She warned that this secularization was not only an external threat to believers, but that it had been manifest for some time in the heart of the Church herself.

“It profoundly distorts the Christian faith from within, and consequently, the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers,” Dr Nongkas said.

Dr

She said for Catholics, this year had been declared as the Year of Faith by former Pope Benedict 16^th and encouraged the faithful to read and study the Catechism of the church to understand the teachings and to defend their faith. She also called for a new evangelization to help transport the faith in areas where it had diminished.

She encouraged participants in the General Assembly to reflect, renew their faith, rediscover, deepen, intensify and revitalize their faith and put in into action.

“If we look at all individual parishes and dioceses, we are beginning to see that the number of people coming to church on a Sunday is decreasing. Have we started to do some research to find why this is happening?”

She said even at DWU when she first joined, the number of people coming to Sunday mass was high, so high that there were two masses. She said however, this year the numbers of staff and students attending mass have declined.

Dr Catherine said the first encyclical of Pope Francis Lumen Fidei was about enlightening the faith. She said this was about illuminating human existence to help people distinguish good from evil, especially in this modern age in which belief was opposed to searching and faith was regarded as an illusion.

She reminded the delegates that Jesus’ final mandate before ascending into heaven was - “Go, teach all nations”. She said this mandate was fresh today and was the sacred duty of evangelization.

She also reminded them of the theme of the Assembly which was about the Gospel story of the woman at the well who encountered Jesus.

“Like the Samaritan woman at the well we too will be so excited with the message of Jesus that we will run off to proclaim Him and his message to the people of our time in parishes, communities, and in our society in PNG and the Solomon Islands”.

The General Assembly continues until Sunday November 10.