The bishop responsible for evangelisation in England and Wales has questioned the Pope’s decision to create a New Evangelisation council.
Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme, appeared to say that the Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation, which focuses on re-evangelising Europe, is superfluous.
He also said he was not convinced by the notion that secularisation lies at the heart of the Church’s decline in Europe.
He said: “I think the Church has a problem in its own proclamation of the Gospel and you wonder why you’d set up this office for evangelisation anyway, because the whole mission of the Church is evangelisation, the proclamation of the Gospel. I don’t think we’re doing that terribly well.”
Bishop Conry said that the Church had become “simply irrelevant” for many people.
