Published October 17, 2024
One of the primary goals of the ongoing Synod on Synodality is to discern the ways in which the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel – the Good News – might be made more efficacious. The Instrumentum laboris (Working Document) for the current meeting of the Synod acknowledges this in its concluding exhortation: “[A]s pilgrims of hope let us continue to advance along the synodal path towards those who still await the proclamation of the Good News of salvation!”
The Synod intends to advance the work of proclaiming the Gospel which has been the Church’s mission since the very beginning.
In the Gospel of Mark, for example, the first public words spoken by Jesus are these: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) At the end of the same Gospel, just before Christ’s Ascension, the parting words of Jesus to His disciples begins like this: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” (16:15)
Now, to Christian ears, this should be nothing new. When we talk about the Good News, the meaning is obvious. At least one hopes so, but these days it’s hard to be so sure.
If I were to ask you what the Good News is, what would you say?
You might answer with something as simple as “Jesus saves.” Or you might cite the Gospel of John (3:16): “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” You might quote Pope Francis: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” (Evangelii gaudium)
Pope St. Paul VI, in Evangelii nuntiandi, described the Good News this way: “As the kernel and center of His Good News, Christ proclaims salvation, this great gift of God which is liberation from everything that oppresses man but which is above all liberation from sin and the Evil One, in the joy of knowing God and being known by Him, of seeing Him, and of being given over to Him.”
Pope John Paul II went so far as to say that, “Jesus himself is the ‘Good News,’ as he declares at the very beginning of his mission in the synagogue at Nazareth.” We can, perhaps, extend things even further still. The Church doesn’t just proclaim the Gospel, insofar as she is (as Lumen Gentium has it) “in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument,” the Church herself becomes the depository of the Good News.
Here’s how Paul VI put it:
The promises of the New Alliance in Jesus Christ, the teaching of the Lord and the apostles, the Word of life, the sources of grace and of God’s loving kindness, the path of salvation – all these things have been entrusted to her. It is the content of the Gospel, and therefore of evangelization, that she preserves as a precious living heritage, not in order to keep it hidden but to communicate it.
Notice how, for Pope Paul, the “content of the Gospel” includes the “teaching of the apostles” and the “sources of grace,” presumably to include the Sacraments. The Gospel cannot be separated from, and certainly doesn’t exclude, the moral and sacramental doctrines of the Church.
Notice, too, that each of the aforementioned articulations of the Good News mentions, as an essential element, God’s offer of salvation. Beginning with Jesus’ own command to “repent and believe in the gospel,” every authentic proclamation (kerygma) of the Good News calls sinners to conversions. An essential part of the Good News is the call to repentance.
And here’s where, these days, we run into some bad news about the proclamation of the Good News. It’s hard for the “Good News” to gain traction in a world that sees it as neither “new” nor especially “good.” Or put another way, it’s difficult to proclaim the Good News of salvation to a world that doesn’t believe it needs to be saved.
John Paul II saw this clearly when he wrote:
Nowadays the call to conversion which missionaries address to non-Christians is put into question or passed over in silence. It is seen as an act of “proselytizing”; it is claimed that it is enough to help people to become more human or more faithful to their own religion, that it is enough to build communities capable of working for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity. (Redemptoris missio)
One could easily add that, in our day, it’s not only the moral conversion of non-Christians which is “put into question or passed over in silence,” but of the baptized as well. Many of us seem deeply confused about just what, exactly, we need to be saved from.
To be clear: it’s sin and its wages, which are death. “Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.’” (Matthew 26:27-28)
It’s difficult to proclaim the Good News of salvation to a world that doesn’t believe it needs saving to begin with.
When Catholics go fuzzy about sin, when we obfuscate about what leads us away from God rather than toward Him, when we try to subjectivize moral action out of some misguided notion of mercy, we’re not making things easier for ourselves or for anyone else. We’re only succeeding in diminishing the urgency and freshness of the Good News itself.
As the Synod continues to consider how to better proclaim the Gospel, it would do well to remember: If sin is not a big deal, then neither is our being saved from it. And if salvation is not a big deal, what’s so good about the Gospel?
Stephen P. White is a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. White’s work focuses on the application of Catholic social teaching to a broad spectrum of contemporary political and cultural issues. He is the author of Red, White, Blue, and Catholic (Liguori Publications, 2016).
