Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 19, 2022 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The Congregation of Propaganda Fide — a Vatican department dedicated to the Church’s missionary activity — is celebrating its 400th anniversary. A three-day conference at the Vatican this week sought to examine the centuries-long history of this department, including its global impact today.
EWTN News Nightly’s Tracy Sabol recently spoke with Monsignor Camillus Johnpillai, head of the Dicastery for Evangelization — which was combined with the Congregation of Propaganda Fide earlier this year as part of a reform by Pope Francis — to learn more about the department’s history, why it was founded, and the type of work it continues to do today.
“The sacred congregation — the Propaganda Fide — means ‘a congregation or a dicastery that is meant for the propagation of the faith,’” Johnpillai explained, noting that it was founded on Jan. 6, 1622.
While there is a rich legacy behind the work of the congregation, Johnpillai explained how learning about the historical context surrounding the congregation’s founding is important to understand its purpose.
“[In] the 17th century, the Church was getting ready for a certain reform,” he explained. “After the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Church was more interested with regard to the inner renewal of the Church, as well as also to expand the Church.”
Johnpillai details how, with the Reformation in the 16th century, many became Protestants and left the Catholic Church.
Additionally, as the Reformation also followed the separation of the Churches in the East, such as the Orthodox Church, this highlighted the need for the Church to undergo both an inner renewal and expansion. This need ultimately led to the founding of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith by Pope Gregory XVI in 1622.
Finally, elaborating more on the work the congregation currently performs today, Johnpillai gave some insight into the global reach of its modern mission.
“[This] particular dicastery, earlier known as ‘Propaganda Fide,’ is charged with the looking after of the new particular churches … especially in Africa, Asia, and some territories in America and Oceania,” Johnpillai detailed. “[All] together, we have a total of 1,117 dioceses (or archdioceses) and vicariates (or prefectures) throughout the world.”
Watch the full interview below.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
“…the new particular churches…especially in Africa, Asia, and some territories in America and Oceania.” From the Council of Trent to the Synod of Trend?
But, yes, as St. John Paul II remarked during his first visit to Africa already in 1980: “how to be fully Catholic and fully African.”
Meaning today that what has merit in varied cultural contexts is to be both celebrated and conformed to the universal truth about mankind—as now articulated in the new Catechism (not the straw-man Council of Trent) and, of course, in the magisterium’s Veritatis Splendor regarding moral absolutes. How to preach, “in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2), something more than generic Christianity?
So, yes, a good time for a second wind, especially in re-evangelizing the old particular churches like defunct Germania et al.