Conclusion

Summary

On February 11^th 2013, the Roman Catholic Church was stunned at the announcement that Benedict XVI was resigning from the papacy, the first pope to do so since the 13^th century. His successor was, in some ways just as much a papal innovator, for Pope Francis was a Jesuit, a member of the religious order that had introduced mass evangelism into Catholicism in order to revive and restore the Catholicity of both the individual and the institutional church at a time when it was being attacked by the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. His first apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium has the same purpose:

The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. In this Exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelisation marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church's journey in years to come

This could have been used as a mission statement for the English Catholic Church of 1779 when it began to emerge from the penal times where the custodians of the faith were mainly, but not exclusively, the local gentry and their households. One hundred years later, it was taking its place as a major Christian force in England that would continue to grow during the twentieth century and which, as well as looking after their spiritual well-being, would speak out on behalf of its adherents on political issues relating to social justice and education.

Later in his exhortation, Pope Francis speaks of his dream of how this will be achieved and it is quite clear that what would drive it was the twenty-first century equivalent of the Jesuit mission that helped fuel the Counter-Reformation by reviving and restoring the Catholic faith and practice in Europe.

I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church's customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelization of today's world rather than for her self-preservation