In the most recent sign that the pope is moving more aggressively against his faith’s twin enemies, secularism and Islam, Benedict has announced the creation of a new Vatican office to oversee Rome’s latest crusade.
“The pope yesterday announced he is to create a new Vatican office to fight secularization and ‘re-evangelize’ the West,” the Australian reports (June 30). With specific reference to Europe, Benedict declared that though Christianity had existed on the Continent for centuries, “‘the process of secularization has produced a serious crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and role of the church.’ The new pontifical council, he said, would ‘promote a renewed evangelization’ in countries where the church has long existed ‘but which are living a progressive secularization of society and a sort of eclipse of the sense of God.’”
