Online conference to examine ‘proclamation of the kingdom’

Denver Newsroom, Aug 13, 2022 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

“The Proclamation of the Kingdom” is an online conference being held later this month to discuss evangelization and the great commission to teach and baptize all nations.

The Aug. 20 conference is being presented by the Dialogos Institute, which studies the heritage of the Fathers of the Church in the context of both Latin and Byzantine Thomism.

Presentations will be given by Eduard Habsburg, Roy Schoeman, Derya Little, and Joshua Charles.

“There is a crisis in the zeal of the faithful to preach the Gospel,” Alan Fimister, director of the Dialogos Institute, told CNA. “The necessity of faith in Christ is questioned, as if a mere natural virtue could save us, and the duty to evangelise certain groups is either limited or denied altogether. The need to proclaim the kingdom not only to man as an individual but to man as a citizen and as the member of a family is ignored. Yet the mission to proclaim the kingdom to all nations is constitutive of the Catholic Church and is tied to the end of history and the destiny of the human race.”

He pointed to the statement in Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, that “at the end of time [the Church] will gloriously achieve completion, when, as is read in the Fathers, all the just, from Adam and ‘from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,’ will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church.”

“The Proclamation of the Kingdom,” Fimister said, “seeks to bear witness to these truths in a time of confusion.”

Habsburg, Hungary’s ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, will open the conference speaking on Blessed Karl of Austria and the universality of Christendom.

Schoeman, author of “Salvation is from the Jews” and a convert from Judaism, will discuss the evangelization of the Jews, anti-semitism, and the coming of the Messiah.

Little, who was raised a Muslim in Turkey and authored “From Islam to Christ,” will present about the mission to Islam.

She will discuss both past missions to Muslim territories, she told CNA, and “where the Catholic Church is as far as Muslim missions are concerned now.”

St. Francis of Assisi will be a particular focus for Little. It is often thought “that he just went on a mission of peace to visit the sultan, whereas he went there with the intention of converting Muslims, completely prepared to be a martyr,” she explained.

Little will also discuss personal experiences, the contemporary situation in Muslim countries, and misunderstandings of passages in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, particularly in Nostra aetate, its declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions.

Despite persecution in Middle Eastern countries, “we should be able to find a way to fill fulfill the Great Commission,” she reflected.

Charles, a former speechwriter for Mike Pence and a convert, will speak on “The Mystery of the Restrainer and the Great Apostasy.”

Registration for the conference includes access to the live presentations, chat in the virtual classroom one can submit questions, and on-demand access to recordings of the talks.