Pope creates office to 're-evangelise' the West

Pope Benedict XVI is creating a new Vatican office to fight secularisation and “re-evangelise” the West – a tacit acknowledgement that his attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe have not succeeded and need a new boost.

Benedict announced the new office during a vespers’ service.

It confirmed reports in the Italian media of a handful of new Vatican appointments expected to be announced before the pope goes on summer holiday and the Vatican bureaucracy slows down.

Benedict said the new pontifical council would “promote a renewed evangelisation” in countries where the Church has long existed “but which are living a progressive secularisation of society and a sort of ’eclipse of the sense of God’”.