Pope Benedict: "We are facing a profound crisis of faith"

With the recent publication of the Archdiocese of Toronto's Pastoral Plan, I thought it opportune to call attention to a few key themes identified by the Holy Father for the re-evangelization of society. It should be noted, that the "New" evangelization refers to the re-proposal of the Faith to those Catholics who have fallen away. Donald Cardinal Wuerl has an excellent post on the New Evangelization which is well worth reading. In an address to the CDF on the need for a reinvigorated evangelization, the Holy Father regards the greatest challenges to the Church as: a crisis of faith, religious indifferentism, and ethical confusion.

The entire address can be found here. 

Faith

"As we know, in vast areas of the earth faith risks being extinguished, like a flame that is no longer fed. We are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of the religious sense that constitutes the greatest challenge to the Church today."

Religious Indifferentism

"However, we must also recognize that the risk of a false irenism and of indifferentism — totally foreign to the thinking of the Second Vatican Council — demands our vigilance. This indifferentism is caused by the increasingly widespread opinion that truth is not accessible to man; hence it is necessary to limit oneself to finding rules for a praxis that can better the world. And like this, faith becomes substituted by a moralism without deep foundations".

Ethics

"Finally, I would like to mention one last matter: the moral problem, which is a new challenge to the ecumenical process. In the dialogue we cannot ignore the great moral questions regarding human life, the family, sexuality, bioethics, freedom, justice and peace".