Gerald Kicanas of Tucson is one of the U.S. bishops at the Synod on the New Evangelization, and he spoke with Vatican Radio's Philippa Hitchen (who also had a nice chat with Rowan Williams) about the so-called "new evangelization." Kicanas' words are characteristic of him, but especially well put, and much-needed, I thought:

What Im talking about at the Synod is the importance of works of charity and justice as fundamental to the new evangelisation. When people see the good the Church is doing, experience the love the Church is presenting, this is the most people way that people encounter the Lord...There are some who begin to challenge the Churchs social teaching and doctrine, yet its endemic to all that the Church says about human life that flows from our faith and belief in God.it was quite inspiring for me to hear our Holy Father choosing to reflect on these two words, confession and charity the two go hand in hand, we have to profess our faith but we have to live our faith with courage and commitment to those who are struggling...Sadly I think for some people there is this tension between pro-life and pro-justice but for a true believer in the Lord there is no such distinctionso a pro-immigration Catholic has to be concerned about the unborn and a person who is concerned for the unborn has to concerned about people on the margins who are living less than decent lives.our Catholic social teaching is a tremendously rich heritage that we have that I hope will continue to live and maybe this Synod will be an inspiration to stir the embers of our social teaching and live it more completely.."

Let us hope.