These news items have begun to clarify my mind, just as I have been reading a short but challenging book by Scott Hahn: Evangelizing Catholics. Now I understand what the phrase means: every baptised Catholic, lay or clerical, has an apostolate, proper to their state, to spread the good news of salvation and the quickest way to achieve it: through participating in the life and mission of the Church. Hahn, who is an American and who was once a Protestant minister dedicated to bringing lapsed, unwary and ignorant Catholics into the Protestant fold, is now a well-known Catholic evangeliser, biblical scholar and academic. He has been using his gifts since his own conversion to explain why the Church\u2019s claims and teachings are true and how they are supported by scripture.<\/p>\n
In this book \u201d\u201c significantly, it is dedicated to Pope Francis \u201d\u201c he sets out to explain to his fellow Catholics why they must change their mentality and realise that they have a duty to share their faith. As he remarks, Catholics tend to think this is being \u201cProtestant\u201d\u009d \u201d\u201c something they would rather run a mile from than undertake themselves. Sometimes, he suggests, this is ignorance of their faith; unlike Protestants, many Catholics, badly catechised, have \u201cnever encountered Jesus Christ in a meaningful and personal way.\u201d\u009d Other Catholics, who do know their faith, prefer to keep their heads down, wanting to blend in with their neighbours so as not to appear weird. But, as he points out, \u201cOur faith withers if we don\u2019t share it.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Quoting St John Paul II, \u201cNo believer in Christ, no institution of the Church, can avoid this supreme duty\u201d\u009d, Hahn reminds readers that in sharing our faith, whether in our family life, at work, by our example, through the media and through friendship, we slowly start to change the culture around us \u201d\u201c a culture which we are generally ready to criticise while doing nothing constructive to alter it.<\/p>\n