Pope: Evangelization Includes Care for Poor and Earth

The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development organized the conference Nov. 24, the anniversary of publication of the exhortation, which was widely described as outlining Francis' vision for his pontificate. In his message to the conference, the pope said the proclamation of the Gospel today — like it was for the church of the first centuries — "requires of us a prophetic counter-cultural resistance to pagan, hedonistic individualism," resistance "to a system that kills, excludes and destroys human dignity, resistance to a mentality that isolates, alienates and limits one's inner life to one's own interests, distances us from our neighbor and alienates us from God."