Secretariat for Evangelization & Catechesis

The Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis includes the following offices:

American Indian Catholic Outreach
Catholic Schools
Children's Evangelization and Discipleship
Christian Leadership Development
Hispanic Ministry and Cultural Diversity
Marriage and Family Life Ministry
Parish Leadership Engagement
Youth, Young Adult and Campus Evangelization and Discipleship

The Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis exists to serve the Catholic Church’s primary mission of preparing her members to be missionary disciples. The work with which we have been entrusted is a share in the mission and vocation of our local Shepherd, Archbishop Paul Coakley, principle teacher of the faith in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. The privilege and solemn mission with which we are entrusted is commensurate with the Great Commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19)

What unites us in our various ministries is the conviction that “Eternal Life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:1) (2) We are driven by the desire to know Christ, and to make him known.

All that we do is oriented toward the Church’s principle mission of evangelization (3). Catechesis is a distinct “moment” of evangelization—the defining aim of which is “to put people not only in touch, but in communion, in intimacy with Jesus Christ: only He can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity.” (4) As missionary disciples, we seek to entrust our whole life to Jesus, and to let our lives be defined by our intimacy with him.

Our work is directed at the formation of leaders from a multitude of cultural backgrounds, in whom faith and life are integrated, and who are capable of forming others in this intimacy with Christ. (2 Timothy 2:2) Formed in this way, they will help to create a culture of missionary discipleship in the various institutions from which the Church’s mission is carried out: parishes, schools, movements, social outreaches, individual families and marriages. Overflowing from our personal and shared intimacy with Christ, we aim to form disciples who grasp the dignity of the human person, and who can help to make the world a place of personal, social, and spiritual flourishing for the human person. In short, we aim to love and to be loved by God, and in his love to transform the world.

2 Catechism of the Catholic Church, Prologue.

3 Evangelization in the Modern World, p.14.

4 Catechesis in Our Times, p.5, 18.