Evangelization in the context of "Francis Xavier"

The Dicastery for Evangelization is a department (dicastery) of the Roman Curia. It was created on 5 June 2022 through the merger of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, by the apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium.

The dicastery is described in Praedicate evangelium as "at the service of the work of evangelization so that Christ, the light of the peoples, may be known and witnessed to in word and deed and that His Mystical Body, which is the Church, may be built up. The Dicastery is responsible for the fundamental questions of evangelization in the world and for the establishment, accompaniment and support of the new particular Churches, without prejudice to the competence of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches."

Virtuous pagan is a concept in Christian theology that addressed the fate of the unlearned—the issue of nonbelievers who were never evangelized and consequently during their lifetime had no opportunity to recognize Christ, but nevertheless led virtuous lives, so that it seemed objectionable to consider them damned. Prominent examples of virtuous pagans are Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Trajan, and Virgil.

A Christian doctrinal formulation of this concept, though not universally accepted, is known as the "Anonymous Christian" in the theology of Karl Rahner, which is analogous to teachings of the gerim toshavim in Judaism and Hanifs in Islam.