The New Evangelization (1975–Today)

To understand the new evangelization, one must first take the measure of the shock that made it necessary. In the decades following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), European societies of Christian tradition recorded a rapid and massive decline in religious practice. What sociologists would call the exculturation of Catholicism (its exit from the common culture) designates the passage, within a single generation, from a culture steeped in Catholicism to a culture in which Christianity becomes a minority option — foreign and even contested.

Some orders of magnitude

In France, one of the most studied laboratories of European secularization, Sunday practice collapsed abruptly: around 27% of French people still attended Mass every Sunday in the mid-1960s, compared with 4.5% at the end of the 2000s^[3]. The phenomenon is comparable, at varying rhythms, in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Quebec, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Added to this, at the same time, was the collapse of priestly and religious vocations, the massive closure of seminaries and novitiates, and a sharp decline in infant baptisms. The Council had opened a great programme of interior renewal; but its reception unfolded at the very moment when European societies were tipping over culturally. It is this simultaneity that makes analysis difficult: did the collapse of practice happen despite the Council, because of the Council, or independently of it? The debate runs through all post-conciliar theology.

The popes' diagnosis

Successive popes acknowledged the phenomenon without ambiguity. Paul VI, in Evangelii Nuntiandi, recognized: “The split between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time, just as it was also of other times. Therefore every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture, or more correctly of cultures” (no. 20)^[4]. John Paul II would later describe entire groups of baptized people who had “lost a living sense of the faith”, sometimes to the point of “no longer considering themselves members of the Church”^[5]. Benedict XVI observed regions “practically entirely de-Christianized”, where the light of faith is entrusted only to the witness of small communities^[6]. Francis, finally, in Evangelii Gaudium, called for an “outgoing” Church^[7].

The new evangelization is the magisterial response to this shared diagnosis: not nostalgia for a vanished Christendom, but the effort to re-propose Christ in a changed context.

The apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, promulgated by Paul VI on 8 December 1975, exactly ten years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, is universally recognized as the founding text of the project. It extends the Synod of Bishops of October 1974, devoted to “the evangelization of the contemporary world”, and constitutes the first great magisterial synthesis on evangelization since Ad Gentes and Lumen Gentium.

A broadened definition of evangelization

Evangelii Nuntiandi first establishes a broadened definition: evangelizing cannot be reduced to the “ad extra” mission in non-Christian territories. It is the very identity of the Church:

“To evangelize is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection.” — Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 8 December 1975, no. 14^[8]

The exhortation insists on the need to evangelize cultures, not only individuals, and identifies as the first obstacle the “split between the Gospel and culture” that characterizes contemporary European societies^[9].

The primacy of witness

A sentence from no. 41 of Evangelii Nuntiandi would become one of the most quoted of all contemporary magisterial teaching — John Paul II would take it up literally on several occasions, and it would structure the very definition of the “new evangelization”:

“Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” — Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, no. 41^[10]

This central intuition — that the credibility of the proclamation passes first through the lives of the baptized — would later give coherence to John Paul II's formula: the “novelty” of the new evangelization lies not in the content (the Gospel is identical), but in the ardour of the evangelizers, that is, in the witness of their lives.

Ground already prepared: non-practising Catholics and new means

Paul VI did not yet use the formula — it would only be fixed eight years later by John Paul II — but the conceptual ground was entirely prepared by Evangelii Nuntiandi. The exhortation describes at length the sphere of “non-practising” baptized Catholics, “completely out of touch” with their baptism without having formally renounced it (no. 56), and calls the Church to put the means of social communication at the service of the Gospel (no. 45). This is what justifies dating to 1975 the founding act of the project from which the new evangelization would emerge.

If Paul VI prepared the ground, it is Saint John Paul II who coined the formula. The penetration of the concept passed through three principal moments: Nowa Huta (1979), Port-au-Prince (1983) and the encyclical Redemptoris Missio (1990).

First mention: Nowa Huta, 9 June 1979

It was during his first pastoral journey to Poland, in his homily at Nowa Huta of 9 June 1979, that the first formulation of the expression “new evangelization” on the lips of John Paul II is attested. Nowa Huta — the “new steelworks” — was the model working-class city built by the Polish communist regime without a church, meant to become an atheist city. The workers had waged a peaceful struggle for years to obtain a church there. Before this believing people in open confrontation with an atheist state, John Paul II declared:

“A new evangelization has begun, as if it were a second proclamation, although in reality it is always the same. The cross stands firm above a changing world.” — John Paul II, homily at the Shrine of the Holy Cross of Mogila, Nowa Huta, 9 June 1979 (official French translation)^[11]

The concept was still bound to the Polish situation, but the formula was launched. Four years later, at Port-au-Prince, it would become programmatic for the universal Church.

The founding address: Port-au-Prince, 9 March 1983

On 9 March 1983, visiting Port-au-Prince (Haiti) for the opening of the XIXth General Assembly of CELAM (the Latin American Episcopal Council), John Paul II delivered an address that would be designated the official founding act of the new evangelization. He spoke to the bishops of Latin America with a view to the half-millennium of the evangelization of America (1492–1992):

“The commemoration of this half-millennium of evangelization will have its full meaning if it is a commitment on your part as bishops, together with your priests and your faithful; a commitment not to a re-evangelization, but to a new evangelization. New in its ardour, in its methods, in its expression.” — John Paul II, address to the XIXth General Assembly of CELAM, Port-au-Prince, 9 March 1983^[12]

Three points are decisive in this formulation.

First, John Paul II explicitly rejects the term “re-evangelization”. It is not a matter of redoing what was done badly, nor of starting over from zero a work that was interrupted: it is a matter of an evangelization new in its modalities, but identical in its content — the risen Christ. It is a strong theological distinction that later commentaries would constantly take up.

Secondly, the threefold novelty — ardour, methods, expression — provides an analytical framework that would structure all post-1983 pastoral practice. Ardour refers to the holiness of the evangelizers (cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi no. 41). Methods refer to pedagogy, means of communication, personalized accompaniment. Expression refers to language, culture, inculturation (speaking the faith in the language and images of each culture).

Thirdly, John Paul II addresses this charge to the bishops together with their priests and their faithful. The new evangelization is from the outset a non-clerical work: it presupposes the mobilization of the whole People of God, and notably of the laity, in line with Lumen Gentium (ch. IV) and Apostolicam Actuositatem (Vatican II, 18 November 1965).

Consolidating the doctrine: Christifideles Laici (1988)

The post-synodal exhortation Christifideles Laici (30 December 1988), extending the 1987 Synod of Bishops on the vocation of the laity, already explicitly incorporates the programme:

“Entire countries and nations where religion and the Christian life were formerly flourishing and capable of fostering a viable and working community of faith are now put to a hard test, and in some cases, are even undergoing a radical transformation, as a result of a constant spreading of an indifference to religion, of secularism and atheism.” — John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 30 December 1988, no. 34^[13]

The section is entitled “The hour has come to undertake a new evangelization”: this phenomenon, the exhortation concludes, “calls for, without delay, a new evangelization”. The formula had become a settled concept of ecclesial vocabulary.

The most structuring text of the new evangelization is the encyclical Redemptoris Missio, promulgated by John Paul II on 7 December 1990, for the 25th anniversary of the conciliar decree Ad Gentes. It proposes the clearest missionary map of all post-conciliar magisterial teaching.

Three situations, three distinct missions

No. 33 of Redemptoris Missio distinguishes three missionary situations, to which three different missions correspond:

This threefold division would become the systematic reference of all subsequent pastoral practice. It avoids two confusions: that which would have the new evangelization replace the classic missio ad gentes (John Paul II recalls that it is “the Church's primary activity, one that is essential and never-ending”, no. 31^[14]), and that which would make the new evangelization a mere synonym of ordinary pastoral care.

The text of no. 33 spells out the third situation:

“There is an intermediate situation, particularly in countries with ancient Christian roots, but sometimes also in the younger Churches, where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case what is needed is a 'new evangelization' or a 're-evangelization.'” — John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 7 December 1990, no. 33^[15]

Note that John Paul II accepts here the term “re-evangelization” — which he had set aside at Port-au-Prince — but for a different situation: not Latin America in view of its half-millennium, but the European societies of ancient Christendom where practice had collapsed. The vocabulary had stabilized.

A missionary encyclical centred on Christ

Redemptoris Missio insists — following John Paul II's Christology developed in Redemptor Hominis (1979) — on the Christocentric character of all evangelization. The new evangelization is not a marketing adjustment to secularized societies; it is the proclamation of Christ the one Saviour, in a new situation:

“At all times, and especially in our own day, a fundamental task of the Church — as I pointed out in my first encyclical, which had a programmatic character — is to direct man's gaze, to point the direction of his conscience and experience towards the mystery of Christ.” — John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, no. 4^[16]

Under Benedict XVI (2005–2013), the new evangelization passed from a programmatic formula to a permanent administrative institution within the Roman Curia, doubled with a great ecclesial event: the Synod of Bishops of October 2012.

The motu proprio Ubicumque et Semper (21 September 2010)

By the motu proprio Ubicumque et Semper, signed on 21 September 2010 and published on 12 October following, Benedict XVI created the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. It was the first time that a Roman body of full standing had been created explicitly and exclusively for this project. In it the Pope diagnoses the spiritual state of Western societies:

“I consider it appropriate to offer adequate responses so that the whole Church, allowing herself to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, may present herself to the contemporary world with a missionary impulse capable of promoting a new evangelization.” — Benedict XVI, motu proprio Ubicumque et Semper, 21 September 2010^[17]

The first president of the new council was Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, former rector of the Pontifical Lateran University and president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The council received a threefold mission: to deepen the theological meaning of the new evangelization; to promote and coordinate initiatives; and to formulate pastoral proposals for the particular Churches.

The Synod of Bishops of October 2012

The XIIIth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was held in Rome from 7 to 28 October 2012 on the theme: “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”. It gathered 262 synod fathers^[18]. For the first time, the world episcopate debated in a structured, collegial manner the programme traced out since Paul VI.

The Lineamenta (“guidelines”, first preparatory document, 2 February 2011), then the Instrumentum laboris (“working document”, 27 May 2012, which synthesizes the responses of the Churches), define the new evangelization as the mission addressed in particular to the baptized who have drifted away from the life of the Church — between the first proclamation to the unbaptized and ordinary pastoral solicitude^[19].

The synod fathers concluded on the twofold dimension of the new evangelization: interior (the permanent conversion of the Church herself) and exterior (the witness borne to the secularized world). The post-synodal exhortation that was to conclude the work would not be signed by Benedict XVI: he had renounced the Petrine ministry on 11 February 2013. It was his successor Francis who would write it — and it would be called Evangelii Gaudium.

The Year of Faith (October 2012 – November 2013)

In parallel with the Synod, Benedict XVI opened on 11 October 2012 — a date marking the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church — a Year of Faith, promulgated by the motu proprio Porta Fidei (11 October 2011). The year, ending on the solemnity of Christ the King (24 November 2013) already celebrated by Francis, aimed at “a new evangelization to rediscover the joy of believing and recover the enthusiasm for communicating the faith”^[20].

With Francis, elected on 13 March 2013, the new evangelization is no longer merely one programme among others: it becomes the key to his entire pontificate.

Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013)

The apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, promulgated on 24 November 2013 at the close of the Year of Faith, is presented by Francis himself as the “programmatic charter” of his pontificate. It takes up, extends and radicalizes the intuitions of Evangelii Nuntiandi and Redemptoris Missio:

“We have recalled that the new evangelization summons everyone and is carried out fundamentally in three areas. First, we mention the area of ordinary pastoral ministry [...]. In this area we must also include the faithful who preserve a deep and sincere Catholic faith [...]. Second, we recall the area of 'baptized persons who do not live the demands of Baptism' [...]. Finally, we remark that evangelization is essentially connected with the proclamation of the Gospel to those who do not know Jesus Christ or who have always rejected him.” — Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 24 November 2013, no. 14^[21]

Francis thus takes up the threefold division of Redemptoris Missio while adapting it to a slightly different vocabulary — no longer missio ad gentes, ordinary pastoral care, new evangelization, but: ordinary pastoral care, new evangelization of estranged baptized Catholics, proclamation to the unbaptized. The centre of the programme remains the same: going out to the baptized who have lost the living sense of the faith.

The “outgoing” Church

The key image of Evangelii Gaudium — repeated throughout the text — is that of an “outgoing Church”:

“Let us go forth, then, let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ. I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” — Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, no. 49^[22]

The expression crystallizes the whole spirit of the new evangelization: not waiting for the faithful within structures inherited from a Christendom that no longer exists, but going out to meet them, accepting risk, going forth physically and spiritually. It is the missionary option as the structuring paradigm of all ecclesial action.

Praedicate Evangelium and the new Dicastery (2022)

On 19 March 2022, by the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, Francis reformed the Roman Curia. Article 53 merges two bodies — the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (formerly Propaganda Fide, founded in 1622 by Gregory XV) and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization (created in 2010 by Benedict XVI) — into one single Dicastery for Evangelization^[23].

The new dicastery is unique in that it is presided over directly by the Pope, a first in the Roman Curia: it has two pro-prefects, one charged with “fundamental questions regarding evangelization in the world” (heir of the Pontifical Council), the other with “first evangelization and the new particular Churches” (heir of Propaganda Fide). The first pro-prefect of the “fundamental questions” section was Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella. Under the pontificate of Leo XIV (elected on 8 May 2025), who retains the presidency of the dicastery, continuity is assured: Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle remain pro-prefects of the two sections^[24].

The symbolism is clear: since Praedicate Evangelium, evangelization is the first and structuring function of the Roman Church, rather than one activity among others falling to a specialized dicastery. It is the institutional culmination of the trajectory opened by Evangelii Nuntiandi in 1975 and of the conciliar reflection on the missionary Church.

The Port-au-Prince formula — “new in its ardour, in its methods, in its expression” — provides the most used framework for analysing the concrete content of the programme.

New in ardour: holiness as the first means

Ardour designates the interior conversion of the evangelizer. It is the direct resumption of no. 41 of Evangelii Nuntiandi on the primacy of witness. Without saints, no new evangelization. John Paul II would constantly recall it, going so far as to proclaim 482 saints by canonization and 1,341 blesseds by beatification during his pontificate — more than all his predecessors combined^[25] — which expresses the conviction that holiness is not an exception but the common path proposed to all (cf. Lumen Gentium no. 40, the universal call to holiness).

The Instrumentum laboris (“working document”) of the 2012 Synod says it in the official French text: “the ultimate secret of the new evangelization is the response to the call to holiness of every Christian. Only he [who] has allowed himself and allows himself to be evangelized can evangelize”^[26].

New in methods: pedagogy, accompaniment, digital

Methods designate the pedagogy of the proclamation. The new evangelization has generated, in practice:

• kerygmatic courses (centred on the first proclamation of Christ: his death and resurrection) for adults (Alpha, the Zacchaeus course, Disciples Today, Parish Evangelization Cells, schools of evangelization such as Saint Andrew's in Brussels or Mary Queen of Apostles in Paray-le-Monial);
• a rediscovery of the adult catechumenate restored by the ritual Ordo Initiationis Christianae Adultorum (1972);
• the massive use of digital means: websites, podcasts, social networks, mobile applications, online retreats, catechetical videos;
• a renewed attention to personalized accompaniment, to the art of encounter, to the human quality of dialogue, against the idea of an anonymous mass pastoral care.

New in expression: language and inculturation

Expression designates language, culture and symbolic mediations. Evangelizing a world that no longer knows what “grace”, “sin”, “redemption”, “sacrament” mean requires a considerable work of reformulation without betrayal. How to speak the faith to contemporaries who have received no catechetical formation, whose cultural references are no longer biblical, and whose spiritual imagination is saturated with competing spiritualities? This is the challenge of modern inculturation (rooting the Gospel in each culture without betraying it), the direct heir of Ad Gentes (Vatican II, no. 22) and Evangelii Nuntiandi (no. 20).

The new movements and ecclesial communities

The post-conciliar blossoming of new movements and ecclesial communities — Communion and Liberation (Italy, 1954), the Neocatechumenal Way (Spain, 1964), the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (United States and Belgium, 1967), the Emmanuel Community (France, 1972), the Beatitudes Community (France, 1973), Chemin Neuf (France, 1973), Sant'Egidio (Italy, 1968), Fondacio (France, 1974), the Missionary Family of Our Lady, the Family of Saint Joseph, Verbum Dei, etc. — provided the new evangelization with its principal reservoir of missionary vitality. John Paul II supported them with remarkable constancy, seeing in them a “providence for our time”^[27]. Benedict XVI and Francis confirmed and nuanced this line.

These movements share a few common traits: a strong first proclamation of Christ centred on his person, a structuring community dimension, an important place left to the laity, and a mission turned towards milieus distant from parish practice.

The World Youth Days

The World Youth Days, launched by John Paul II in 1985 and celebrated in Rome (1985, 2000), Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Częstochowa (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), Toronto (2002), Cologne (2005), Sydney (2008), Madrid (2011), Rio de Janeiro (2013), Kraków (2016), Panama (2019) and Lisbon (2023), are the privileged instrument for the missionary mobilization of a new generation. The Manila WYD of 1995 gathered around 5 million young people, one of the largest human gatherings in recorded history^[28]. The WYDs have produced, in the dioceses, entire generations of evangelizers durably committed.

Schools of evangelization and the formation of the laity

The schools of evangelization — pioneered by the Saint Andrew International School of Evangelization created in 1980 by the Biblical Courses of Mexico around José H. Prado Flores — have for forty years formed lay people in the explicit proclamation of the heart of the faith (the “kerygma”). The network spread through Latin America, then Europe (Saint Andrew's Brussels, Mary Queen of Apostles Paray, Christ the Living One Paris, etc.). Their pedagogy is centred on the personal proclamation of the risen Christ, prayer for the sick and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The role of digital media

The internet has profoundly transformed the methods of the new evangelization. Pope Francis underlined this in 2014:

“The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people. (...) The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.” — Pope Francis, message for the 48th World Day of Social Communications, 24 January 2014^[29]

The development of Catholic channels (Magnificat, Aleteia, CathoBel, KTO, EWTN), podcasts, evangelization networks via WhatsApp and Telegram, prayer applications (Hozana, Click to Pray, Hallow) and apologetics networks (Pints with Aquinas, Word on Fire, etc.) concretely extends the magisterial programme.

The new evangelization has not commanded unanimity. Four main families of criticisms have been formulated, none of which is disqualifying in itself but which deserve to be treated honestly.

Theological criticism: novelty or continuity?

Certain theologians — notably in the restorationist current — have reproached John Paul II's formula for its ambiguity: if the Gospel is identical, in what sense is it really “new”? The distinction between novelty of content and novelty of modalities holds, but it requires careful work so as not to imply that the old pastoral methods are disqualified wholesale. John Paul II and Benedict XVI specified on several occasions that novelty does not call into question dogmatic, sacramental and liturgical continuity^[30]. The new evangelization is an intensification of the mission, not a rupture with Tradition. The same hermeneutic settles the question posed above — collapse despite the Council, because of it, or independently of it: in the magisterial reading, the Council is neither the cause of the collapse nor a powerless witness, but the instrument by which the Church, becoming aware of being wholly missionary, engaged her response — from Evangelii Nuntiandi to the new evangelization.

Practical criticism: fragile results

On the empirical side, after forty years of magisterial teaching on the new evangelization, the statistical indicators of practice in Europe and North America continue to decline: falling baptisms, falling religious marriages, priestly and religious vocations in free fall, parish closures. The new evangelization has not halted the secularization of Western societies — although significant pockets of local vitality exist. Defenders of the programme retort that without the new evangelization, the situation would be worse; and that a spiritual work cannot be measured by figures alone. They add that forty years of effort have borne hidden fruits — adult conversions, prayer communities, the real sacramental life of minorities — which could become the seed of a later springtime.

Sociological criticism: heavy secularization

Sociologists — Yves Lambert, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Charles Taylor, Olivier Bobineau, Jérôme Fourquet — emphasize that the forces of secularization at work in Western societies (urbanization, mobility, disaffiliation from structures of transmission, individualization of belief, contestation of clerical mediations) are of such structural magnitude that no ecclesial strategy can, by itself, reverse them in the short term^[31]. The new evangelization, in this reading, would not be wrong in itself — but it would remain on the limited scale of a pastoral strategy facing a civilizational phenomenon.

Internal criticism: tension between proclamation and welcome

A final tension, more discreet, runs through the actors themselves: between a new evangelization insisting on the explicit proclamation of the heart of the faith — the Saint Andrew model, the Emmanuel Community, the Renewal — and another insisting on patient welcome and listening without immediate proclamation — the Sant'Egidio model, certain currents of Communion and Liberation. Both versions claim continuity with Evangelii Nuntiandi. Pope Francis attempted to hold both together in Evangelii Gaudium; diocesan practices reflect a diversity of sensibilities that will probably remain lasting.

From Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) to Praedicate Evangelium (2022), half a century of magisterial teaching held a remarkably coherent editorial line: recognizing the collapse of Western Christendom, refusing both resignation and false nostalgia, and directing the whole Church towards mission. The new evangelization is one of the most continuous guiding concepts of contemporary Catholicism — carried successively by Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, and continued under Leo XIV, without doctrinal discontinuity, despite differences of personal sensibility.

The fruits remain uneven. The Western Church has not recovered numerically; but it has mobilized itself interiorly. An entire generation of missionary lay people, new movements, schools of evangelization, new communities, priests formed in a pedagogy centred on the first proclamation of Christ, digital evangelizers, has arisen in the wake of John Paul II and his successors. The spiritual destiny of this effort will depend less on institutions and programmes than on that mysterious reality which Paul VI designated as the deepest element: the holiness of the evangelizers, and docility to the Holy Spirit, of whom Evangelii Nuntiandi says that He “is the principal agent of evangelization” (no. 75^[32]).

• Le concile Vatican II (1962-1965) — la matrice ecclésiologique de la nouvelle évangélisation
• L'évangélisation des Indiens d'Amérique (XVIe siècle) — la première grande évangélisation, dont le demi-millénaire (1492-1992) est le déclencheur direct du discours de Port-au-Prince
• La charité de l'Église catholique — le volet diaconal indissociable de la mission
• Athéisme et zététique — l'un des principaux interlocuteurs de la nouvelle évangélisation dans le monde sécularisé

Essential magisterial sources

• Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, apostolic exhortation, 8 December 1975 — full text on vatican.va
• John Paul II, address to the XIXth General Assembly of CELAM, Port-au-Prince, 9 March 1983 — vatican.va
• John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, post-synodal apostolic exhortation, 30 December 1988 — vatican.va
• John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, encyclical, 7 December 1990 — vatican.va
• Benedict XVI, motu proprio Ubicumque et Semper, 21 September 2010 — vatican.va
• Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, apostolic exhortation, 24 November 2013 — vatican.va
• Pope Francis, apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium (reform of the Curia), 19 March 2022 — vatican.va