Specialized, Ecclesial Ideography: The <New Evangelization> in the Catholic Church

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article suggests that analysis of ideographs is useful within specialized contexts. The authors analyze the emergence of the &lt;new evangelization&gt; as an ideograph in the Roman Catholic Church at international, national, and local levels – metropolitan Detroit in particular. With its remarkable plasticity and power, &lt;new evangelization&gt; rhetoric has come to galvanize the leadership of the Catholic Church even as varying or conflicting ideas are advanced under that rhetoric. The &lt;new evangelization&gt; operates as a specialized ideograph that remains primarily internal to the Catholic Church but has implications beyond it. The authors suggest a continued and extensive application for analyzing ideographs in culture.