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The Catechism & the New Evangelization: Catechizing with Boldness

One of the words particularly beloved of Pope Francis, is the Greek parrhēsia.[i] It is also a significant word for all who hand on the faith of the Church: parents, priests and religious, catechists in parishes, and teachers in schools. We could go so far as to say that it sums up for us how we should learn to catechize for the new evangelization.

Every page of the Catechism’s text is characterized by this quality of parrhēsia. The Catechism explains that the word means “straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness, the certainty of being loved,”[ii] reminding us that we can speak with “straightforward simplicity” precisely because of our filial trust in the Lord; we can speak with “humble boldness” because of the certainty we have of his love for us.

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Dr. Petroc Willey BD, STL PhD, PhD (Lateran) studied theology at King's College, London and Maynooth in Ireland and philosophy at Liverpool University in England and the Lateran University in Rome. From 1985-1992, he was Lecturer in Christian Ethics at Plater College, Oxford. From 1992 until October 2013 he worked at Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, where he was Dean of Graduate Research overseeing a doctoral program in Catholic Studies at the Maryvale Institute, offered in collaboration with Liverpool Hope University. He was appointed by Benedict XVI as a Consultor for the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization and is currently a Consultor for the Dicastery for Evangelization. He is a professor at Franciscan University for the Office of Catechetics. His publications include Become What You Are: The Call and Gift of Marriage (with Katherine Willey), and The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Craft of Catechesis (co-authored with Professor Barbara Morgan and Fr. Pierre de Cointet, and with an introduction by Cardinal Schonborn), and has articles in collections of essays and in journals such as The International Journal for Catechesis and Evangelization, New Blackfriars, Faith, The Nazareth Journal, The Catholic Canadian Review. He was the Host of the EWTN series Handing on the Faith (2007).

This article is from The Catechetical Review (Online Edition ISSN 2379-6324) and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of The Catechetical Review by contacting [email protected]

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