Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Risen Christ,

During my ministry, I have faced pastoral challenges which affect us in a variety ways in our mission as evangelizers and catechists of the People of God. One of them is the rising number of fundamentalist groups that are affecting our Catholic population in the world. Unfortunately, each Catholic family has members that are not Catholic, thus causing sad divisions. Each day Catholics leave to join the ranks of the fundamentalist evangelicals, Jehovah´s Witnesses, Mormons, Pentecostals, Christians, etc.

We can adopt either one of two attitudes against this phenomenon:

People who adopt the first attitude, which many do, often say: “There is nothing I can do about it. We must leave them alone. There will always be divisions. I am not interested. I and my crowd” This attitude is called "indifference".

The other attitude is the one many priests and bishops have adopted in their parishes and dioceses when they become aware of this pastoral challenge. With a great apostolic zeal for their flock, aiming that not one single sheep the Lord has entrusted to them be lost, they are making the Catholic people aware so they can be strong in their faith and know how to respond on what they believe and proclaim (defending the faith). To accomplish this, we, priests and bishops, must know our people, pray, and walk in the faith with them. As good shepherds, we need to know how to take care of the flock that has been entrusted to us and realize how much our families are suffering because of divisions.

I am convinced that these books, DVDs and CDs, will help us to face this challenge in our families, parishes and dioceses.

They will help us to affirm the great treasure that we have in our Catholic Church, and provide a biblical foundation for us to face and respond when our faith is questioned; not to fight, but to know how to have a dialogue.

Let us not leave for tomorrow what needs to be done today. Benedict XVI reminds us in his messages of this idea, "It is time to evangelize"; the today of Christianity is lived if we, laypeople, priests and bishops, live the TODAY of evangelization. Let us make our parishes and dioceses places where a New Evangelization is lived.

Martin Zavala