Pope Francis and the Event of Encounter

Since being elected to the Chair of St. Peter on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis has given unique shape to the meaning of the new evangelization. With his emphasis on the concept of encounter, and his stunning expression of pastoral ministry in Evangelii gaudium, the present pontiff has breathed new life into the Christian vocation to evangelize. This book brings together the voices of fifteen American Catholic scholars around the theme of Pope Francis and the Event of Encounter. Inaugurating the new series, Global Perspectives on the New Evangelization, this book incorporates a variety of approaches and questions in order to amplify the theology behind the pontificate of Pope Francis and the most recent developments in the new evangelization. Among the topics treated in the book are mercy, ecology, doctrine, culture, and the life and ministry of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The reader will be delighted with an array of perspectives that promise to give inspiration for embarking on further frontiers of the new evangelization.

""The Church's emphatic call for a new evangelization began with Pope Paul VI, has journeyed through the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now continues with Pope Francis. This commendable volume accentuates, in fifteen thoughtful and innovative essays, Pope Francis's understanding of the new evangelization as a fourfold encounter: merciful encounters, ecological encounters, doctrinal encounters, and cultural and political encounters. Thus, this book admirably provides the needed sociological, philosophical, and theological depth to sustain and foster the Church's renewed endeavor to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations and peoples.""

--Thomas G. Weinandy, Capuchin College, Washington DC, Member of the International Theological Commission

John C. Cavadini is the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the Institute for Church Life and Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the editor of several books, most recently: Mary on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council (2017) and Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI (2012).

Donald Wallenfang, OCDS, Emmanuel Mary of the Cross, is Associate Professor of Theology at Walsh University. He is the author of Dialectical Anatomy of the Eucharist: An Etude in Phenomenology (Cascade, 2017) and Human and Divine Being: A Study on the Theological Anthropology of Edith Stein (Cascade, 2017).