See, Judge, Act: an instrument of the new evangelisation

By Devett O’Brien

Former YCS member and President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace this morning addressed the Synod, taking up Blessed John Paul II’s description of the Catholic Social Teaching as “an instrument of evangelization.”
Cardinal Turkson, from Ghana, highlighted the Pontifical Council for Justice & Peace as a fruit of the Second Vatican Council and recalled the teaching of Popes Paul VI and Benedict XVI saying:
“Evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man’s concrete life, both personal and social’. […] Testimony to Christ’s charity, through works of justice, peace and development, is part and parcel of evangelization, because Jesus Christ, who loves us, is concerned with the whole person.”


This presentation followed a wave of interventions by the Latin American bishops who have brought with them a strong focus on the reality of poverty in their continent and the outcome document from the last meeting of Latin American Bishop in Aparecida (available at www.celam.org/aparecida.php )

The See, Judge, Act method was directly endorsed yesterday by Mons. OSSANDÓN BULJEVIC Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago de Chile as a tool for new evangelization.

Cardinal Turkson returned to this theme by focusing on the statement of Pope John XXIII in Mater et Magistra that “it is not enough merely to formulate a social doctrine. It must be translated into reality”.

Of course the answer proposed by John XXIII to this question is the See, Judge, Act methodology (Mater et Magistra 236). With over 3.5 million IYCS members reaching out every year in evangelical action to approximately 40 million students and young people around the world it is clear that this See, Judge, Act method is a vibrant and relevant tool of the New Evangelization.The exciting point for these members and the millions more involved in sister movements such as IYCW, ICYCW, MIJARC, and IMCS is that Bishops are recognizing the important impact of your action and bringing it to the highest levels of the Church.

Cardinal Turkshons’s full address can be found at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_25_xiii-ordinaria-2012/02_inglese/b14_02.html#-_H._Em._Rev._Card._Peter_Kodwo_Appiah_TURKSON,_President_of_the_Pontifical_Council_for_ice_and_Peace_(VATICAN_CITY)_