Later Documents
Since the time of the Council, there have been concerns of the part of Church authorities that the missional spirit of the Church has been fading away because of the acceptance of anonymous Christianity, a teaching of Karl Rahner that all human beings have an implicit knowledge of Jesus Christ. As a result, several Church documents have been written in order to encourage more evangelism.
Evangelii Nuntiandi is an apostolic exhortation issued on 8 December 1975 by Pope Paul VI following the work of the synod on the theme (of 7 September 1974 to 26 October 1980) . It deals with evangelism, and affirms the role of every Christian (and not only ordained priests) in spreading the Catholic religion.
Redemptoris Missio, subtitled On the permanent validity of the Church's missionary mandate, is a papal encyclical by Pope John Paul II published on December 7, 1990 devoted to the subject of "the urgency of missionary activity" and in which he wished "to invite the Church to renew her missionary commitment
In 2007, the Holy See reaffirmed the duty of Catholics to evangelize members of other religions, and this was largely interpreted as a clarification of Lumen Gentium, against the statements of liberals and others claiming that Christian proselytism had become historically and politically outmoded.
Read more about this topic: Ad Gentes
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—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)