ADDRESSES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES

Here is a translation of the words said by the Holy Father after watching a presentation of Charles Peguy's three-act drama «Mystère de la Charité de Jeanne d’Arc» (Mystery of Joan of Arc's Charity) at the courtyard of the Apostolic Residence in Castel Gandolfo yesterday, 81/19/06. The Holy Father spoke in French:
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Dear friends,

At the end of this remearkable performance of «Mystère de la Charité de Jeanne d’Arc» that you have offered me tonight, I wish to thank very warmly Mgr. Bernard Barsi, Archbishop of Monaco, and the Archdiocese of Monaco, who are responsible for this happy initiative, for which I am most appreciative.

I also greet His Excellency, the ambassador of the Principality of Monaco to the Holy See, and other personalities present tonight.

Charles Peguy's work, which has been performed for us by three talented actresses, leads us to a discovery of the soul of Joan of Arc and the root of her vocation.

Through a profound reflection on themes which are always precent in contemporary thought, we are introduced to the heart of the Christian mystery.

In this text of great richness, Peguy is able to depict powerfully the passionate cry that Joan raised to God, abjuring Him to put an end to all the misery and the suffering she saw around her, thus expressing man's uneasiness in this world and his search for happiness.

This remarkable performance of the drama also shows us that Joan's pitiful cry, which betrayed her sorrow and her dismay, also showed above all her ardent and lucid faith, marked by hope and courage.

Peguy makes us see in his "Mystere..." the Passion of Christ, that which definitively gives a sense to the prayer of that young girl whose strenght of spirit can only move us.

The performance for us tonight seems to me particularly opportune. In the international conext we have today, with the dramatic events in the Middle East, in the face of suffering provoked by violence in many places of the world, the message conveyed by Charles Peguy in this work serves as very productive food for thought.

May God listen to the prayer of the Saint of Domremy and ours, and give our world the peace to which it aspires!

I would like to express my thanks to the director who has highlighted with great mastery the essential elements of Peguy's masterwork. And I heartily congratulate the artists who have given us performances of great quality, placing not only their talents as actors, but their own interior beings, in the service of the text, making us fully share the feelings of the personages that they re-lived for us.

Likewise, I extend my appreciation to the technicians and all other persons who took part in realizing this presentation, which we will keep as a beautiful memory.

As we end this beautiful evening, may St. Joan of Arc help us enter ever more profoundly into the mystery of Christ to find in Him the way of life and of happiness!

On all of you, I heartily invoke an abundance of the Lord's blessings.

Although this thread is intended for the Pope's homilies, discourses and messages, I am making an exception to post a translation of the homily delivered by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, icnoming Vatican Secretary of State, on 8/29/06, at the Feast of the Madonna della Guardia (Our Lady of Protection), patroness of Genoa and all Liguria.

MARIAN AND PETRINE CHARISM
IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST


On this solemnity when we commemorate the apparition of Our Lady to Benedetto Pareto, I wish to address myself to the sense of Mary's message and request to a peasant 516 years ago.

Mary asked for "reconstruction" - and initially, a church of bricks was built, an edifice for worship. However, every Christian community is always in need of reconstructing the relationship between each individual with God, and of all men and women among each other.

That is the wondrous adventure of the Church, a community of believers - that is, children of God who believe in Him, hope in hIm, and love Him. From their love for Him one can appreciate the quality and solidity of how they are constructed.

And for the Church to reconstruct means to grow in our love of God, which is love for our brothers with whom God identifies and in whom He welcomes us. It is also ecclesial love that builds the Church as its best bonding element.

Therefore it is my pleasure today to point out some illuminating passages from the interventions delivered by our Holy Father to illustrate the Marian principle of the Church, so we may better understand the role of Mary in the story of salvation and of the Church; as well as the Petrine principle, incarnated by the apostles and their successors, who are the guarantors and promoters of a genuine proclamation of the Gospel.

1) Petrine and Marian principles [1]

"Love for the Church is translated into love for Mary, and love for Mary, into love for the Church. (PAUL VI, Marialis Cultus, 30).

"The Marian element secretly governs the Church, as woman secretly rules from the domestic hearth," Hans Urs Von Balthasar wrote in 1972 (Punti Fermi, Ed. Rusconi]

Two years later, Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation on Mary, adopted the thought of the famed Swiss theologian: "The mature knowledge of Mary's mission has been transformed into joyous veneration of her and into an adoring respect for the wise designs of God, who has given His family, the Church, as in every domestic hearth, the figure of a woman who, secretly and in a spirit of service, watches over the Church and kindly protects it along its way towards the celestial home, until the glorious day when the Lord arrives."

Recently, our Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, during the Solemnity of the Annunciation, stressed the Marian principle of the Church, observing that "it was particularly brought forward by my beloved predecessor John Paul II, consistent with his motto, Totus tuus. Through his spiritual formulation and his tireless ministry, he made clear to everybody the presence of Mary as Mother and Queen of the Church."

2)The two dimensions converge in charity

In his address to the new Cardinals, the Pope spoke of the relationship between the Petrine principle and the Marian, saying that "the two dimensions of the Church - Marian and Petrine - converge in what constitutes the fulfillment of both, namely in the supreme value of charity, the 'greatesst charism of all', the 'best way of life', as the apostle Paul wrote."

And now, prompted by the pastoral intentions of the Pope, who wished to orient his Papacy by inviting everyone, in his first encyclical Deus caritas est, to build the Church on charity, as a communion of love, let us consider the Marian principle which impels, guides and helps us - in a most powerful way - to build the church as a community of love.

The Church is invited to contemplate the maternal heart and face of Mary, and to place ourselves wisely under her tutelage.

"The first act Mary carried out after receiving the message of the Angel," said the Pope, "was to proceed 'in haste' to the house of her cousin Elizabeth to lend her services to her...Whoever loves forgets self and places herself in the service of her neighbor. And that should be the image and the model of the Church!"

In the homily delivered by the Holy Father at St. Peter's on December 8 last year, in a Mass which also celebrated the 40th anniversary of the closing of Vatican-II, he pointed out that "the Petrine aspect of the Church is included in its Marian aspect: In Mary, the Immaculate, we have a model of the Church that is not deformed. From her we should learn to become ourselves 'ecclesial souls' - as the Fathers of the Church expressed it - so that even we, according to the words of St. Paul, may present ourselves 'immaculate' in the eyes of the Lord, just as He has always wanted us to be from the beginning. [cfr Col 1,21; Eph 1,4]".

So also, the Holy Father prayed to God to make him be the "gentle and firm Shepherd of His Church, possessed and guided by the spirit of Mary, who is gentle and strong, zealous and prudent, humble and courageous, pure and fruitful."

The Petrine principle, linked to the apostolic succession, of which Peter was the head and representative, has been masterfully illustrated by the Holy Father in his Wednesday catecheses, which are heard and followed throughout the world.

3) The Bishop, successor to the Apostles (2)

Perhaps it is useful to explain briefly what the word bishop means. 'Vescovo' is the Italian form of the Greek word 'episcopos'. This word means one who has oversight, but one who looks with the heart.

Thus, St. Peter himself, in his first Letter, calls the Lord Jesus "pastor and bishop, guardian of your souls" (2,25). According to this image of the Lord, who was the first bishop, guardian and shepherd of souls, the successors to the Apostles were therefore called bishops - 'episcopoi' to whom the function of 'episkope' is entrusted.

And so, the succession in episcopal function is presented as a coninuity of the apostolic ministry, a guarantee of conserving apostolic tradition, which was entrusted to us by the Lord.

The link between the college of bishops and the original community of Apostles must be understood above all as a historic continuity. As we saw, to the original Twelve, were eventually added, first Matthias, then Paul, then Barnabas, and others, until the formation in the second and third generations, of the bishops' ministry.

Therefore, continuity is expressed in this historical chain. The continuity of the succession guarantees the permanence within the ecclesial community, of the Apostolic College gathered by Christ around Him.

But this continuity, which we first see in the historic continuity of ministries, should be understood also in the spiritual sense, because the apostolic succession in the ministry is considered as the privileged place of action and of transmission of the Holy Spirit.

A clear echo of this conviction we find, for example, in the following text by Irinaeus of Lyons (second half of the second century): "The tradition of the Apostles, manifest around the world, is seen in every Church by all those who wish to see the truth, and we can enumerate the bishops installed by the Apostles in the Churches, as well as their successors up to our time...(The Apostles) in fact wished that everything would be absolutely perfect and irreproachable with all those whom they leave behind as successors, transmitting to them directly their mission of teaching. If they had been correctly understood, the successors would profit greatly, but if they failed, they would have caused great damage." (Adversus haereses, III, 3,1: PG 7,848).

4) The "peculiar principality" of the Church in Rome

Later, Irinaeus, indicating the chain of apostolic succession, as a guarantee of permanence within the Church of the Word of the Lord, focuses on that Church which is "supreme and most old and known to all," which was "founded and constituted in Rome b tye most glorious apostles Peter and Paul," highlighting the tradition of the faith, which through it (the Church of Rome), has come down to us from the Apostles through their successors the bishops.

In this way, for Irinaeus as for the universal Church, the episcopal succession of the Church of Rome becomes the sign, the criterion, and the guarantee of the uninterrupted transmission of apostolic faith: "To this Church, for its peculiar principality (propter potiorem principalitatem), it is necessary that every Church - that is, all the faithful wherever they are - must conform, because in it, the tradition of the Apostles has always been conserved..." (Adversus haereses, III, 3, 2: PG 7,848).

The apostolic succession - verified on the basis of communion with that of the Church of Rome - is therefore the criterion for the permanency of single churches within the tradition of the common apostolic faith, which has been able through this channel to reach us from the source.

"In this order and with this succession, the tradition of the Church from the time of the Apostles, as well as the preaching of truth, has come down to us. This is the most complete proof that the vitalizing faith of the Apostles is one and the same that has been conserved and transmitted in truth." (ib., III, 3, 3: PG 7,851).

5)Apostolicity
According to testimonies from the ancient Church, the apostolicity of the ecclesial communion consists in fidelity to the teaching and to the practices of the Apostles, through whom thehistorical and spiritual link of the Church with Christ is assured.

The apostolic succession of the episcopal ministry is the way that guarantees the faithful trtansmission of apostolic testimony. That which the Apostles represented in the relationship between the Lord Jesus and the early Church is analogously represented by the ministerial succession in the relations between the early Church and the Church today.

It is not a simple material concatenation: rather it is the historical instrument that the Spirit uses to render clearly the presence of the Lord Jesus, head of His people, through Whom many are ordained into the ministry by the laying of hands and the prayers of bishops.

A Genoan priest gave me a reconstruction of what we may call my 'episcopal genealogy.' Therefore, going back through the Bishops who ordained me sacramentally, I discovered that my 'ancestors' include Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti) and Pope Benedict XIV (Propero Lorenzo Lambertini).
I was particulary pleased about the latter, because my graduation thesis in Canon Law was about Papa Lambertini.

Through the apostolic succession, it is Christ Himself that we encounter: in the words of the Apostles and their successors, it is He who speaks to us; through their hands, it is He who
administers the Sacraments; in their look is His look which envelops us and makes us feel loved and welcomed in the heart of God.

Today,as at the beginning, Christ Himself is the true Shepherd and Guardian of our souls, whom we follow with great confidence, gatitude and joy.

To Him let us entrust, through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Apostles and Queen of Genoa, my successor to the Chair of St. Cyrus whom I will be announcing officially at the end of this Holy Eucharist.

[1] CF. ALBERTO RUM, Il rapporto tra l'elemento petrino e l'elemento mariano, in Madre di Dio 7/2006.
[2] Cf. BENEDETTO XVI, Catechesi per l'udienza generale, 10 maggio 2006.

Tarcisio Card. Bertone
Archbishop of Genoa

On Thursday, August 31, the Holy Father met with the priests of the Diocese of Albano, where Castel Gandolfo is located, at the Swiss Hall of the Papal summer residence.

After a greeting delivered by Mons. Marcello Semeraro, Bishop of Albano, the Pope responded to questions presented by 5 of the priests present.

As usual, the Pope's spontaneous answers are breathtaking in their expansiveness, his capacity for driving home his points in a way that is at once simple and profound, the consistency of his messages with everything he has said and written before, and on this particular occasion, his familiarity with and appreciation of basic pastoral work - the Pope as parish priest to the world.

Following is a translation of the Italian transcript released by the Vatican today:

Fr. Giuseppe Zane, 83, Vicar of Omni:
Our Bishop has indicated to you, although briefly, the situation in our Diocese of Albano. We priests are fully involved in the Church, experiencing all its problems and complexities.

Young and old, we all feel in adequate, first of all, because we are few compared to the many needs of our parishioners and we have different provenances. We suffer from the scarcity of priestly vocations.

Because of these, we find ourselves discouraged at times, when we simply try to plug holes here and there, often reduced to nothing more than first aid without a further plan of action.

Seeing how much there needs to be done, we are therefore tempted into doing rather than being, and this inevitably reflects on our spiritual life, our conversation with God, praying and the exercise of love for our brothers, especially those who are remote.

Holy Father, what can you tell us in this regard? I am much older...but can our younger brothers have hope?

The Pope:
Dear brothers, I would like first of all to address you with words of welcome and of gratitude. Thanks to Cardinal Sodano for his presence today which is an expression of his love and concern for this suburban Church.

And I thank Your Excellency [Bishop Semeraro] for your words. You have been able to present in brief the situation of this diocese to an extent that I was not previously aware of.

I knew that it was the largest of the suburban dioceses around Rome, but I did not know that it now comprises more than 50,000 inhabitants. So I see a diocese that is full of challenges and problems, but certainly, also of joy in the faith.

I see that you have all the problems of the day - immigration, tourism, marginalization, agnosticism - but also a firm faith.

I do not presume to be an 'oracle' who can respond adequately to all the questions raised. The words of St. Gregory the Great which you cited, Excellency, and which is known to us all - - 'infirmitatem suam' - apply to the Pope as well. Even the Pope, day after day, must realize and acknowledge 'infirmitatem suam', his weaknesses, his limits.. He must recognize that only with the cooperation of all, through dialog, through common cooperation in the faith as 'co-workers for the truth', can we all together perform our service, each doing his part.

In this sense, my answers will not be exhaustive but fragmentary. In any case, let us all accept the fact that only together can we make up the 'mosaic' of pastoral work that can respond to our challenges.

You, Cardinal Sodano, have said that our dear brother, Father Zane, may seem a bit pessimistic. But I must say that each of us has these moments when we could be discouraged in the face of the magnitude of what we need to do compared to the limits of what we can actually do. Again, the Pope also has this problem.

What should the Church do in this time of so many problems, so many challenges, but also so many joys, for the universal Church? So many things take place every day and I am not up capable of responding to all of it. But I do my part, I do what I can. I try to determine the priorities. And I am happy that I have the help of so many good co-workers.

I can say here and now: I see every day the great work that the Secretariat of State does under your wise guidance. It is only with this network of collaboration, where I put my humble capacities into a greater totality, that am I able to - and can dare - to move ahead.

Naturally, for a parish priest who is alone, I see that you, Father Zane, indeed have so many concerns. And that, as you put it, one can only plug away, apply some first aid, but always aware that so much more needs to be done.

I would say that the first requirement for all of us is to let the Lord take care of the part we cannot do. Today we heard in the Gospel the parable of the faithful servant (Mt 24.42-51). This servant, the Lord tells us, gives food to others at the appropriate time. He does not do everything all at once, because he is wise and prudent and knows how to distribute what is necessary at different times. He does so humbly, confident of his master's trust.

So also we must do what we can to be wise and prudent and to have trust in the goodness of our Master, of the Lord, because ultimately, it is He who guides His Church. We assert ourselves with the small gifts we have and do what we can, above all, those duties that are always necessary: the Sacraments, announcing the Gospel, showing our charity and love.

As for the interior life that you referred to, it is necessary to our service as priests. The time which we reserve for prayer is not time taken away form our pastoral responsibilities but it is pastoral 'work' in itself to be able to pray for others.

In the Common for Pastors, we read that the Good Shepherd is characterized by 'multum oravit pro fratribus,' praying a lot for our brothers. This is what a pastor must be, a man of prayer who goes before the Lord to pray for others, doing so, as well, in place of others wh do not know how to pray or who do not wish to pray or who do not find the time to pray. What could be better evidence that a dialog with God is pastoral work!

I would say therefore that the Church allows us, almost imposes on us - but always like a good mother - to have free time for God, through the two practices that make up part of our duties: celebrating Holy Mass and reciting our breviary. But more than just reciting it, to perform it as an act of listening to the words which the Lord offers us in the Liturgy of the Hours.

We must internalize these words, be attentive to what the Lord is telling us with His words; then consider the comments made by the Fathers of the Church or even by the Vatican Council, in the second reading of the Office; and then pray with the great invocation that the Psalms constitute, and through which we become part of the prayers of all time. The people of the Old Alliance pray with us as we pray with them. We pray with the Lord, who is the true subject of the Psalms. We pray with the Church through the ages.

I would say that the time we dedicate to the Liturgy of the Hours is precious time. The Church gives us this opportunity, this space in our daily life to spend with God, a life which is also a life for others.

Thus, it seems to me important to see that these two realities - the Holy Mass celebrated as a real dialog wth God and the Liturgy of the Hours - are zones of freedom, of interior life, that the Church gives us and which constitute a source of internal riches for us.

In these practices, we not only encounter the Church through the ages but the Lord Himself who speaks to us and awaits our response. Let us learn to pray in unison with the prayers of all time, through which we can also encounter the faithful of all time. Let us think of the Psalms, of the words of the Prophets, the words of our Lord and His apostles, the comments of the Church Fathers. Today, for instance, we had that marvelous comment by St. Columban on Christ as the spring from which we drink the 'living water.'

In praying, we also encounter the sufferings today of the people of God. Our prayers inevitably make us think of our daily life and can guide us in dealing with our people today.

Prayer illumines us in these encounters, because we do not bring to others only our own small measure of intelligence and our love of God, but we learn, through the word of God, to bring God Himself to others. This is what our people expect of us - that we bring them the 'living water' which St. Columban speaks of today.

People thirst - and seek to satisfy this thirst by different diversions. But they understand quite well that these diversions are not the 'living water' which they thirst for. The Lord is the source of 'living water.'

But He says, in Chapter 7 of the Gospel of John, that whoever believes becomes a source himself because he has drunk of Christ. This 'living water' then gushes from us, a spring for others to drink at. So we seek to drink of Christ in prayer, in celebrating Holy Mass, in reading: Let us drink from the Source so that the 'living water' may well up in us.

Because we can respond better to the spiritual thirst of our people today if we have the 'living water' within us, the divine reality, the reality of the Lord Jesus incarnate. This way, we can respond better to our people's needs.

That answers the question of what we can do. We will always do what is possible for our people - we will return to this point in subsequent questions - and we must live with the Lord in order to satisfy the people's thirst.

Your second question was - do we have hope for this diocese, for this fraction of the people of God who constitute the Diocese of Albano, do we have hope for the Church? And I reply without hesitation, Yes! Of course, we have hope. The Church is alive!

We have two thousand years of Church history - despite so many sufferings, even so many failings. Let us think of the Church in Asia Minor, the great and flowering Church of North Africa, which both disappeared with the Muslim invasions.

And so, it is true that parts of the Church can really disappear, as St. John said in the Apocalypse, or as the Lord said through John: "If I do not see you again, I will come to you and I remove your lampstand from its place."(2,5) On the other hand, however, we see how the Church has risen up again with new youth, with new freshness, after each crisis.

In the century of the Reformation, the Catholic Church appeared to be truly almost done in. The new current which affirmed that the Church of Rome is over and done with seemed to be triumphant. But we saw how with the great saints, like Ignatius of Loyola or Teresa of Avila, Carlo Borromeo and others, the Church rose again. It found in the Council of Trent a new actualization and revitalization of its doctrine - and it revived with great vitality.

Let us consider the so-called age of enlightenment, during which Voltaire said, "Finally this old Church is done for - long live humanity!" But what happened instead? The Church renewed itself again. The 19th century became the century of great saints, of a new vitality for so many religious congregations, and the faith proved itself stronger than all the currents of thought that have come and gone.

Likewise in the past century, Hitler said: "Providence has called on me, a Catholic, to put an end to Catholicism. Only a Catholic can destroy Catholicism." He was sure he had all the means to put an end to Catholicism.

In the same manner, that great tide of Marxism was sure it could achieve the 'scientific revision' of the world and open the doors to the future: the Church, it proclaimed, is at the end, it is dead! But the Church is even stronger, in accordance with the words of Christ. It is the life of Christ which is victorious in His Church.

Even in difficult times, when there is a lack of vocations, the Word of God remains eternal. And whoever, as the Lord Himself said, builds his life on this 'rock' of God's Word, builds well.

And so, we can be confident. We are seeing, even in our day, new initiatives for the faith. We see how, in Africa, despite all the problems there, the Church has a fresh impetus of vocations that is most encouraging. With all the uncertainties of the historical panorama today, we see - and more than that, we believe - that the words of the Lord are our spirit and our life, they are words of eternal life.

St. Peter said, as we heard in last Sunday's Gospel (Jn 6,69) "You have the words of eternal life; we have believed and recognized that you are the son of God."

Seeing the vitality of the Church today, through all its sufferings, we too can say: we have believed and recognized that You give us the words of eternal life and therefore, a hope that will never fail.

The integrated ministry

Mons. Gianni Macella, parish priest of Albano:
In recent years, according to the Italian Bishops' conference plan for the decade 2000-2010, we have been working to achieve a so-called integrated ministry.

There are so many difficulties. It is worth pointing out at the very least that many of us in the priesthood are still wedded to a pastoral practice that is far from missionary but which appeared to have consolidated around the context of a Christianity that is taken for granted.

On the other hand, most of the faithful appear to look on the parish as a supermarket for sacred services.

Therefore, Holiness, I wish to ask you: Is an integrated ministry simply a question of strategy, or is there a more profound reason why we must continue to practice it?

The Pope:
I must confess that I had to learn of this phrase 'integrated ministry' from your question, but nevertheless I understand the content: namely, that we should seek to integrate into a single pastoral way both the different pastoral workers that we have today as well as the different aspects of pastoral work.

I would therefore first distinguish the aspects of pastoral work from its objects, and then seek to integrate them into one pastoral way.

You have made us understand, by your question, that there is the level of parochial work we might call 'classic' for the faithful who have remained - or perhaps are even growing in numbers - to give life to our parishes. This means classic pastoral work which is always important.

Usually, I distinguish between continuous evangelization - because faith lives on, the parish lives on - and new evangelization, which seeks to be missionary, to go beyond the confines of those who are already 'faithful' and live in the parish, or who make use of parish services even if they may have a 'diminished' faith.

In the parish, I would say that we have three fundamental tasks which arise from the nature of the Church and of the priestly ministry. The first is the sacramental service. I would say that Baptism, preparing for it and the task of giving continuity to obligations taken on at Baptism, already brings us in contact even with those who do not fully believe. It is not a task so much to preserve Christianity, but a challenging encounter with people who probably go to Church rarely.

And so, the task of preparing for Baptism - opening up the souls of the parents, relatives and godparents to the reality of Baptism - already can and should be a missionary commitment that goes beyond the confines of those who are already 'faithful.'

In preparing our parishioners for Baptism, we must make them understand that this Sacrament means being introduced into the family of God, that God exists and cares for us, that He cared enough to have taken on our flesh and to have instituted the Church which is His Body, in which He is able to be incarnated, we might say, in our society.

Baptism gives us new life in the sense that beyond our biological life, we need the gift of a sense of life which is stronger than death. The gift of biological life can be justified only if we can add to it a sense of stabllity, of a future which, despite crises which will come - and which we cannot know beforehand - will give value to our life, make life worth living, make us value the very fact that we were created.

Therefore I think that in preparing for this Sacrament or talking to parents who have doubts about Baptism, we have a missionary situation. We are transmitting the Christian message. We interpret for them the reality that begins with Baptism.

I am not sufficiently familiar with the Italian rite. In the classic rite, inherited from the early Church, Baptism begins with the question: "What do you ask of the Church of God?" Today, at least in the German rite, the answer is simply "Baptism." This does not state adequately what it is that one desires. In the ancient rite, one answered: "Faith," that is, a relationship with God. To get to know God.

"And why," the question goes on, "do you ask for faith?"
Answer: "Because I wish for eternal life." That is, we want a life that is secure even in future crises, a life that has meaning, that justifies being a man.

In any case, I think that this dialog should take place with the parents before Baptism. Which is to say that the gift of the Sacrament is not simply a 'thing,' nor a 'thingification,' as the French put it. It is missionary work.

Then there is Confirmation, to be prepared for, at that age when individuals start to make decisions for themselves, even with regard to matters of faith. Certainly, we should not transform Confirmation into a kind of 'pelagianism', almost as if one becomes Catholic all by himself, rather, that confirmation in our faith is is our response to the gift of faith.

Then there is the Eucharist, which is Christ's permanent presence in the daily celebration of the Holy Mass. And it is most important, as I said earlier, for the priest, for his life as a priest, because it is the real presence of the Lord.

Matrimony, too, presents itself as a great missionary occasion, because today, thank God, many who do not usually go to church still want to be married in church. It is an occasion to bring young people face to face with the reality of a Christian marriage, of a sacramental marriage, that is also a great responsibility.

We see the importance of this question of responsible marriage in the annulment processes but mostly in the problem of divorced persons who remarry and wish to take Communion and who do not understand why that is not possible. Probably they did not understand, at the moment they first said "Yes, I do" before the Lord, what their "yes" really meant. It is entering into Christ's trust, therefore into the Sacrament which is the Church and the sacrament of matrimony.

Therefore preparing your parishioners for marriage is an occasion of great importance, of missionary significance, an occasion to announce once more in the sacrament of matrimony the sacrament of Christ Himself, to make the couple understand that they are vowing faithfulness, and if they understand this, then they will see the problem with remarried divorced Catholics [wanting Communion].

This then is the first aspect - our classic task of administering the Sacraments, which allows us to meet
even our parishioners who normally do not go to Church, and therefore provides us the opportunity for making truly missionary messages, for an integrated ministry.

The second aspect is announcing the Gospel, with its two essential elements: the homily and catechesis. In the Bishops' Synod last year, they spoke a lot about the homily, showing how difficult it is today to find a bridge between the words of the New Testament, written 2000 years ago, and our present.

I must tell you that the historical-critical mode of exegesis is often not enough to help us prepare our homilies. I experience it myself in trying to prepare homilies that actualize the word of God; or to put it better - since the word of God is an actuality by itself - to make people see and feel this actuality.

Historical-critical exegesis tells us a lot about the past, of the moment when the words were first said, of their significance at the time they were said, but such explanations do not always help us understand that the words of Jesus, of the Apostles and of the Old Testament, are spirit and life, with which the Lord speaks to us even today.

I think we should 'defy' the theologians - as the Synod has - by going ahead and helping parish priests better prepare their homilies, to make people sense the presence of the Word: the Lord speaks to us today, not only in the past.

I have been reading in recent days the draft for the post-
Synodal Apostolic Exhortation. I have seen with satisfaction that this 'defiance' is kept in the models prepared for homilies. Ultimately, the parish priest must prepare his homily in his context, speaking to his parish. But he may need some help to understand and make others understand the actual 'present-ness' of the Word of God, which is never a Word of the past, but always a Word for today.

Finally, the third sector: caritas, the diakonia. We are always responsible for the suffering, the sick, the marginalized, the poor. From what you have told me of your diocese, I see that there are many who need our diakonia , and this too is always a missionary occasion.

Thus it seems to me that the 'classical' parish ministry transcends itself in all three sectors to become a missionary ministry.

Now let me go on to the second aspect of parish ministry, which concerns both the workers as well as the work they do. The parish priest obviously cannot do everything! That is impossible. He cannot be a 'solo player' who does everything, but he needs other pastoral workers. Today, I think, whether through the new movements or through Catholic Action or through the new communities, we have workers who should be collaborators with the parish in an integrated ministry.

It is important for this integrated ministry that other pastoral workers should not only be 'activated' but should be integrated into the work of the parish. The parish priest must not only "do" but also "delegate."

Those who work with him must learn to truly integrate themselves in the common tasks of the parish as well as in the auto-transcendence of the parish itself in a double sense: first, that the parishes collaborate within the diocese, because the Bishop is their common pastor and can help coordinate their tasks; and second, in that they are really working for all men, and should seek to bring the Christian message even to agnostics and to persons who are in search.

And this is the third level about which we have spoken earlier rather diffusely. The occasions I have indicated give us the chance to meet and to say missionary words to those who rarely go to church, and those who have little or no faith.

Above all, these new pastoral workers and Catholic lay professionals should be able to bring the word of God even into those circles which are usually inaccessible to the parish priest.

Coordinated by our Bishops, let us seek to integrate these different sectors of pastoral work, to activate the different pastoral workers in the common task: on the one hand, to strengthen the faith of believers who constitute a great treasure, and on the other hand, to bring the message of the faith to all those who are seeking with a sincere heart a satisfactory answer to their existential questions.


D. Vittorio Petruzzi, Parish Vicar of Aprilia:
Holiness, for the pastoral year that is about to begin, our Diocese has been called upon by the Bishop to pay particular attention to the liturgy both on the theological level as well as that of the way we celebrate it.

Even the residential weeks in which we are taking part next month will have as central theme for reflection how to "project and realize the message of the liturgical year in the sacraments as well as in sacramentals.

We as priests are called on to achieve a liturgy that is "serious, simple and beautiful," to use a beautiful formulation in the document "Communicating the gospel in a life-changing way" by the Italian bishops conference.

Holy Father, could you help us to understand how all this can be translated into ars celebrandi?


The Pope:

Ars celebrandi! Even in this, I would say there are many dimensions. The first is that celebration (of the liturgy) is prayer, a dialog with God - God with us, and we in God.

Therefore, the first requirement for a good celebration is that the priest enters truly into this dialog. Announcing the Word, he must feel himself in colloquy with God. He is both a listener of the Word as well as a proclaimer of the Word, in the sense that he makes himself an instrument of the Lord and seeks to understand the word of God which he must then convey to his people.

He is in a dialog with God, because the texts of the Holy Mass are not theatrical lines or some such - they are prayers, thanks to which, together with the congregation, I as priest talk to God. Therefore to enter into this colloquy is important.

St. Benedict, in his Rule, tells his monks, speaking of the recitation of Psalms: "Mens concordet voci." The voice, words, precede our thinking. Normally, it isn't that way: first, one thinks and then thought becomes words. But here, the words come first. Sacred Liturgy gives us the words: we should enter into these words and find agreement with the reality that precedes thought.

Beyond that, we must also learn to understand the structure of Liturgy and why it is so articulated. The liturgy has evolved in two millennia, and even after the reforms [of Vatican II], it has not become something that is merely elaborated by some liturgists. It is always a continuation of a permanent growth in adoration and in announcing the Gospel.

Therefore, it is very important, so that we may harmonize best with it, to understand it as a structure that has grown over time and to enter with our mens (mind)into the vox (voice) of the Church.

To the degree that we have internalized this structure, understood it, assimilated the words of Liturgy, we can enter that inner consonance and in that way, not only do we speak to God as individuals but become part of the "we" of the Church that prays.

This way, we also transform our "I" into the "we' of the Church,
enriching and amplifying this "I", praying with the Church, with the words of the Church, and being truly in colloquy with God.

So that's the first condition: we ourselves should internalize the structure, the words of Liturgy, the Word of God. This way, our celebration truly becomes a celebrating 'with' the Church; our hearts open up and we are not doing anything except being with the Church in colloquy with God.

I think our congregation senses if we are really in colloquy with God or with them, if we can draw everyone into our common prayer, draw everyone to communion with the children of God; or if we are merely going through the external motions.

The fundamental element of the genuine ars celebrandi is this consonance, this agreement between what we say with our lips and what we think in our heart.

The Sursum corda [Lift up your hearts], which is a very old part of the Liturgy, would have been - before the Preface, before the Liturgy itself - the 'way' for us to talk and to think. We should raise our hearts to the Lord, not simply as a ritual response, but as an expression of what is happening in our hearts, which is lifted upwards and draws others with it.

In other words, ars celebrandi does not invite participation in some kind of theater, of spectacle, but to an interiorness which can be felt, and becomes evident and acceptable to the faithful in attendance. Only if they see that it is not an exterior art, not spectator art - we are not showmen! - but the expression of the direction our hearts take, which will attract their hearts as well, only then will Liturgy become beautiful, because it becomes a communion of everyone present with the Lord.

Naturally, this fundamental condition expressed in St. Benedict's words 'Mens concordet voci - and may the heart be truly elevated towards the Lord - must be associated with exterior signs. We should learn to pronounce the words properly. A few times, when I was still a professor in my native land, young students would read Sacred Scripture as though the words were written by a poet whom they could not understand.

And to learn to say the words well and properly, one must have understood the text first in all its present impact. So it must be with the Preface and with the Eucharistic Prayer. It is difficult for the faithful to follow a text as long as our Eucharistic Prayer. And this has given birth to new 'inventions.'

But with Eucharistic Prayers, 'always new' does not respond to the problem. It is a moment that invites everyone to being silent before God in prayer. Therefore only if the Eucharistic prayer is pronounced well, with its required moments of silence, if it is pronounced with interiority but with the art of speech, then it is a good prayer.

So, the Eucharistic prayer requires particular attention so it may be recited in a way that involves everyone. We should find the occasion, in our catecheses, in homilies, to explain the Eucharistic Prayer to the faithful so they can follow its great moments: the narration and the words at the institution of the Eucharist, the prayer for the living and the dead, the thanks to the Lord, the epiclesis, in order to truly involve the community in this prayer.

There should be an adequate preparation. The altar boys should know exactly what to do, the readers should know how to read well. The choir, the songs, must be well prepared; the altar must be properly decorated. All this - even if they have to do with down-to-earth practical details - are part of ars celebrandi.

But, in conclusion, the fundamental element is the art of entering into communion with the Lord which is what we prepare for others during our whole life as priests.


D. Angelo Pennazza, parish priest of Pavona:
Holiness, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read that "Holy Orders and Mstrimony are intended for the salvation of others...they confer a particular mission on fht Church and serve to edify the people of God" (n. 1534).

This appears to us fundamental not only for our pastoral actions but also for our very way of being priests. What can we priests do to translate into pastoral practice this proposition and - according to what you yourself stressed earlier - how do we communicate best the beauty of Matrimony so that it is appreciated by the men and women of our time? And what can the sacramental grace of married persons bring to our lives as priests?

THE POPE:
Two big questions!

The first is: How do we communicate to people today the beauty of Matrimony? We see how many young people put off getting married in Church because they are afraid of something definite [definitivita]. They even put off getting married civilly.

Today, young people - and even those not so young - consider finality [my best approximation for the sense of the Italian word definitivita] as a curb on their freedom. And their first desire is for freedom. They are afraid that they will not succeed in marriage. They see so many failed marriages. They are afraid that this formality, which is what they consider marriage to be, could be an exterior weight that can even extinguish love.

We should make them understand that matrimony is not just a juridical link nor a burden. That on the contrary, its profoundness and its beauty lie precisely in its finality. Only with this sense of finality can love mature in all its beauty. But how to communicate this? I think that is a problem we all have.

For me, in Valencia - and Eminence, you can confirm this - it was an important moment not only when I could speak of this, but when so many families came before me with their children - one family was almost a parish in itself, with so many children!

The presence, the testimony of these families was truly more powerful than any words. They presented above all the richness of their experiences as families - how a family can truly be a cultural treasure, an opportunity to educate one another, a possibility for the coexistence of the many varied cultural expressions today, of giving oneself to each other, of helping one another, especially in suffering.

And so their testimonies about the crises they have undergone were very important. One couple almost decided to divorce. But they explained how they learned to live through their crisis, the ordeal of realizing the changes each one had gone through, and of accepting each other once again.

It is in overcoming such moments of crisis, of the desire to break apart, that a new dimension of love can grow; a door opens to a new dimension of life which is only possible after one has gone through a crisis together.

This seems to me very important. Couples reach a crisis when they realize how diferent their temperaments are, how difficult it can be to tolerate each other every day, and to have to do this for the rest of your life! And so they decide: Well, we better separate.

But we have understood from the testimony of those who have lived through such a crisis, who have managed to endure that moment when it seemed one could not take any more of a difficult situation, that truly, new doors open and there is a new beauty to love.

Beauty that comes only from pure harmony is not true beauty. Something is missing. True beauty requires contrast. Light and dark complement each other. The grape in order to mature does not only need sun, it also needs a bit of rain; it needs night as well as day.

We ourselves, who are priests, old or young, should learn the need for suffering, for crises, so that we may learn to endure and transcend them. In that way, life becomes richer. I find a symbolic value in that our Lord carries His stigmata for eternity. They are expressions of the atrocities of suffering and death that have now become the seals of Christ's victory, of the beauty of His triumph and His love for us.

We should learn to accept, whether we are priests or married persons, the need to endure the crisis of change, of the other, the crisis of when it seems one can no longer stay together or proceed as before.

Married couples should learn together how to move ahead, if only for the love of their children, and in so doing, to get to know each other anew, love each other anew with a love that is much more profound and much more genuine. Thus love truly matures, through a long course, beset with suffering.

I think we priests can learn from married couples, from their suffering and sacrifice. Often we think that only celibacy is sacrifice. But in getting to learn the sacrifices of married persons - think of raising children, the problems that arise from that, the fears, the suffering, the ailments, rebelliousness, or just think of the first years of having children, with sleepless nights attending to crying babies - there is much we can learn from their sacrifices, and our own sacrifices.

Together with them we can learn how beautiful it is to mature in suffering and to work for the sake of others. Don Pennazza, you have cited the Vatican Council which affirmed that Matrimony is a sacrament to save others - above all, this means, to save the other, the spouse, husband or wife, but also the children and ultimately, the community. Even we priests are able to mature in our encounters with our married parishioners.

And so, I think we should be involved with families. Family feasts are very important. Celebrations should be an occasion for families to be together. At feasts we see the beauty of families. And public testimonies - even if perhaps these have become too much of a vogue - can really be helpful on occasion; the proclamation (of positive experiences) can be of help to everyone.

In conclusion, I find it very important that in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he says that the marriage of God with mankind through the incarnation of our Lord takes place on the Cross, which gives birth to the new humanity which is the Church.

Christian matrimony is born out of this divine marriage. It is, as St. Paul says, the sacramental concretization of what happens in this great Mystery. And so we must always learn anew the link between the Cross and the Resurrection, between the Cross and redemption, to better appreciate this Sacrament.

Let us pray to the Lord that He may help us proclaim this Mystery well, to live this Mystery, to learn from married couples how they live their sacrament, to help us live with our Cross until we too experience the joy of Resurrection.


D. Gualtiero Isacchi, in charge of the diocesan service for youth ministry:
The youth are at the center of greater attention from our diocese, as in all the Church throughout Italy. The World Youth Days have brought many of them to a discovery of faith. So many have responded and are enthusiastic. But generally our parishes are not equipped to take them in properly. The parishes and our pastoral workers are not sufficiently prepared to dialog with them. Priests who are already committed to so many other tasks do not have the time to listen to them properly. One pays them attention when they become a problem or when we need their attendance to liven up a celebration or a feast.

How can it be possible for a priest today to show a preferential attitude for the youth in an already overcrowded pastoral agenda? How can we serve young people on the basis of their values instead of 'using' them for our own purposes?

THE POPE:
I wish first of all to underscore what you just said. On occasions like World Youth Day or the recent Pentecost Vigil, we see a desire among the youth, a search, we might even say, for God. They want to see if there is a God and if so, what is He telling us. And so there exists an availability, an openness to God, even despite the many difficulties today. And not just availability but enthusiasm.

So we must do what we can to keep this flame alive, a flame that burns brightly on occasions like World Youth Day. What must we do? That is a question we all share.

I think that in this matter precisely is where we must exercise an integrated ministry because not every parish priest really has the time to occupy himself enough with young people. So we need a ministry that transcends the limits of the parish and even the limits of the priest's work. A ministry that of necessity must involve many workers.

It seems to me that, under the coordination of the Bishop, a way should be found, on the one hand, to integrate the youth into the parish, so that they can be the ferment for parochial life; and on the other hand, to find extra-parochial persons who can work with them. Both should go together.

It must be suggested to our youth that they can integrate themselves into the life of the diocese, not only in parish work but in other contexts which ultimately point them back to their parishes. One must favor all initiatives in this direction.

I think that the concept and experience of volunteer work is very important. Young people should not be left merely to indulging their diversions, but they should be given tasks in which they see that they are needed, in which they have a sense of doing something good for others.

If they feel this impulse to do something good for humanity, for someone, for a group, then they will have a reason to involve themselves and will even find their own positive way of
getting involved, their own expression of the Christian ethic.

It is very important that they find tasks that need their involvement, that enable them to render positive service inspired by Christ's love, so that they themselves will look for the sources they can draw on to find the strength and the commitment for these services.

Another worthwhile experience for them are prayer groups, in which they learn to listen to the Word of God, to learn the Word of God precisely in their situation as young people, and to enter into contact with God.

This means they should learn to take part in the common forms of prayer, the Liturgy, which initially may seem quite inaccessible to them. It would be useful to have classes in liturgy, which they can attend.

This way they will learn that the Word of God seeks us out and speaks to us today even after so long a time [since Christ lived on earth], that we bring the fruits of the earth and our work to the Lord and we find them transformed into gifts of God, that we speak like children to our Father and in turn, we receive the gift of Himself. We receive the mission of going forth into the world with the gift of His Presence.

At the same time, it is useful to have special occasions during which the young people can present themselves in performance. I heard that recently here in Albano, there was a theatrical presentation on the life of St. Francis.

To be involved in something like this means to enter into the person of St. Francis, into his time, and therefore, to widen one's own personality. This is just an example, and perhaps rather singular. It could be an occasion to educate oneself further, to appreciate the context of Christian tradition, to reawaken the thirst to know better what sources this saint drew from.

He was not just an environmentalist or a pacifist. He was above all a convert. I read with great pleasure that the Bishop of Assisi, Mons. Sorrentino, precisely in order to counteract the popular misuse of the figure of St. Francis, wished to declare the seventh centenary of Francis's conversion as a "Year of Conversion" to underscore what was the true challenge in the saint's life.

Perhaps we could all excite young people a little by making them understand what conversion means, using the example of St. Francis to show that conversion is a way to amplify life.

Francis at first was some sort of playboy who later felt that his way of life was unsatisfactory. He heard the voice of the Lord telling him, "Rebuild my house." Gradually, he would learn what it meant to "build the House of the Lord."

At the moment, I do not have answers that are very concrete because, thanks be to God, I find myself at a point where our young people are already united. But we should make use of all the possibilities offered to us by movements, associations, volunteer action, other activities to occupy the youth. We should also present the young people to our parishioners so that they see what they are and what they do. And we need a vocational ministry. All of this must be coordinated by the Bishop.

We will find pastoral workers among the youth themselves if we engage their genuine cooperation. This way, we can open the way to 'conversion,' show them the joy of knowing that God exists and cares about us, that we have access to God, and that we can help each other in 'rebuilding His House.'

In the end, it seems to me, this is our mission, at times difficult, but in the end, something very beautiful - that of constructing the House of God in the world today.

I thank you for your attention and I beg your pardon for the fragmentedness of my answers. We must work together so that the "House of God" may grow in our time, and that many young people will find the path of service to the Lord.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/09/2006 2.37]

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's words to the faithful after venerating the image of the Holy Face in Manoppello yesterday, 9/1/06:

Honored brothers in the episcopate,
dear brothers and sisters!

I wish first of all to thank the Lord for our meeting today - a simple and familiar meeting - in a place where we can meditate on the mystery of divine love by contemplating an icon of the Holy Face.

My thanks go to all present for your cordial welcome and for the effort and discretion you have shown towards this private pilgrimage of mine.

I greet and thank in particular your Archbishop who has spoken for all of you. I thank you for the gifts you offered me and which I appreciate greatly, above all as 'indications', in Mons. Forte's words - indications indeed of the communion that links this beloved land of Abruzzo to the Successor of Peter.

I direct a special greeting to you - priests, religious and seminarians who have gathered here today. As I am not able to meet the entire diocesan community, I am glad that you are representing them, you who are already dedicated to the priestly ministry and the consecrated life or on your way to priesthood. You are persons I consider to be lovers of Christ, atrracted to Him and committed to making your life a continuous search for His Holy Face.

And I send my most grateful thoughts to the community of the Capuchin fathers who are our hosts today, and who for centuries have been custodians of the sanctuary, which is the goal of so many pilgrims.

A while ago, while I was in prayer, I thought of the first two Apostles who, recruited by John the Baptist, followed Jesus by the river Jordan - as we read at the beginning of the Gospel of John (cfr Jn 1,35-37).

The evangelist narrates that Jesus turned to them and asked them, "What are you looking for?" They replied, "Rabbi, where do you live?" He answered: "Come and you will see." (cfr Jn 1,38-39).

That same day, those two who followed Him had an unforgettable experience which led them to say: "We have found the Messiah!" (Jn 1,41). Him whom just a few hours earlier they had considered simply a 'rabbi' had acquired for them a definite identity - He was the Christ who had been awaited for centuries.

Actually, what a long road those disciples still had ahead of them! They could not even imagine how deep the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth could be, how much His Face could be unfathomable and inscrutable.

So much so that after having lived with Him for three years, Phillip, one of the two, was addressed by Him at the Last Supper in these words: "I have been with you for quite some time and still you do not know me, Philip?" followed by those words that express the novelty of the revelation of Jesus: "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father" (Jn 14.9).

Only after His Passion, when they met him as the Risen One, when the Spirit had illumined their minds and hearts, did the Apostles understand the significance of the words of Jesus, and they recognized Him as the Son of God, the Messiah promised for the redemption of the world. Then, they became His tireless messengers, courageous witnesses to His martyrdom.

"Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." Yes, dear brothers and sisters, to "see God", we must know Christ and allow ourselves to be shaped by His Spirit which guides the faithful "to the whole truth" (cfr Jn 16,13).

Whoever encounters Jesus, whoever allows himself to be attracted to Him and is willing to follow Him even up to sacrificing one's life, will experience personally, as He did on the Cross, that only the seed that falls to earth and dies can bear 'much fruit" (cfr Jn 12,24).

This is the way of Christ, the way of total love which triumphs over death: whoever follows this way and "renounces his life in this world conserves it for eternal life." (Jn 12,25). That means, he already lives in God while on this earth, attracted and transformed by the radiance of His Face.

This is the experience of those true friends of God, the saints, who recognized and loved in their brothers, especially the poorest and the neediest, the face of that God so long contemplated with love at prayer. They are for us encouraging examples to imitate; they assure us that if we follow faithfully the way of Christ, the way of love, even we - as the Psalmist sings - shall have our fill of the presence of God (cfr Ps 16[17],15).

"Jesu..quam bonus te quaerentibus!" - How good You are, Jesus, for those who look for You! - That is what you sung just now in the hymn 'Jesu, dulcis memoria', that has been attributed to St. Bernard. It is a hymn that acquires a singular eloquence in this sanctuary dedicated to the Holy Face, and which recalls to us Psalm 23[24]: "Behold the generation that seeks You, that seeks Your Face, God of Jacob" (v 6).

But what is "the generation" that seeks the face of God, which generation is worthy to "climb the mountain of the Lord." of "being in His holy place"? The psalmist explains: they are those who have "pure hands and innocent hearts", those who do not lie, who do not bear witness to harm their neighbor (cfr v 3-4).

Therefore, in order to enter into communion with Christ and to contemplate His Face, to recognize the face of the Lord in our brothers, in the events of our daily life, we need "pure hands and innocent hearts."

Innocent hands, lives illuminated by the truth of love which triumphs over indifference, doubt, lies and selfishness. And pure hearts, as well, hearts enraptured by divine beauty, as the young Therese of Lisieux says in her prayer to the Holy Face, hearts which are imprinted with the Face of Christ.

Dear priests, if the Holiness of His Face remains imprinted in you who are pastors of His flock, then do not fear - He will 'infect' and transform even the faithful entrusted to your care.

And you seminarians who are preparing to be responsible guides of Christians, do not allow yourselves to be attracted by other than Jesus and the desire to serve His Church.

I wish to tell you the same thing, dear religious (members of the consecrated life), so that your activities may always be a visible reflection of divine goodness and mercy.

"I seek Your Face, o Lord!" To seek the Face of Christ should be the desire of all Christians. We are now the generation that seeks the face of the "God of Jacob." If we persevere in our search, we will find Him, Jesus, at the end of our earthly pilgrimage - our eternal joy, our reward and glory for always:
"Sis Jesu nostrum gaudium, / qui es futurus praemium: / sit nostra in te gloria, / per cuncta semper saecula".

This is the certainty that has inspired the saints of your region, among whom I am pleased to cite in particular Gabriele of the Sorrowful Mother and Camillo de Lellis, to whom we address a reverent memory and our prayers.

But let us now address a thought of special devotion to the Queen fof All Saints, the Virgin Mary, whom you venerate in so many sanctuaries and chapels found all over the valleys and mountains of Abruzzo.

May Our Lady, in whose face more than in any other creature, we can see the lineaments of the incarnated Face, watch over families and parishes, cities and nations the world over.

May the Mother of the Creator help us to respect nature, the great gift of God that we can admire here by looking at the stupendous mountains that surround us!

However, this gift is ever more exposed to serious risks of environmental degradation amd must be defended and looked after. We are faced with an emergency which, as your Archbishop noted earlier, is opportunely brought to attention in the day of reflection and prayer for the protection of creation which is celebrated today by the Church in Italy.

Dear brothers and sisters, as I thank you once again for your presence, I invoke the blessing of God on all of you and those dear to you with the ancient Biblical words: "May the Lord bless and protect you. May the Lord make His Face shine on you and be propitious to you. May the Lord turn His Face towards you and grant you peace.(cfr Num 6, 24-26). Amen!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/09/2006 2.52]

MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER ON THE OCCASION OF THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INTER-RELIGIOUS MEETING ON PRAYER FOR PEACE

The following is a translation of the message by Benedict XVI to Mons. Domenico Sorrentino, Bishop of Assisi-Novera Umbra-Gualdo Todino for the meeting taking place in Assisi September 4-5 to commemorate the first Inter-Religious Prayer for Peace called by Pope John Paul II in 1986.



This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Inter-Religious Meeting on Prayer for Peace convoked by my venerated predecessor John Paul II on October 27, 1986, in the city of Assisi.

As we know, he invited to that meeting not only Christians of various confessions, but also representatives of other religions. The initiative resonated loudly with the public. It constituted a vibrant message for peace and was an event destined to leave its mark on the history of our time.

The recollection of what happened then continues to elicit initiatives for reflection and commitment. Some have been planned in Assisi itself for this 20th anniversary. I am thinking of the celebration organized in cooperation with this Diocese, by the Community of Sant'Egidio, along the lines of similar encounters that they have been sponsoring every year.

In the days of the anniversary itself there will be a conference under the auspices of the Theological Institute of Assisi, and the Churches of your region will come together in the Eucharist to be concelebrated by the Bishops of Umbria in the Basilica of St. Francis.

Finally, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog will sponsor an encounter for dialog, prayer and formation for peace for young Catholics as well as youth of other religions.

These initiatives, each with its own specific design, are evidence of the value of John Paul II's intuition, and demonstrate their actual relevance in the light of events that have taken place in the past twenty years and the direction in which humanity is headed these days.

The most significant event in that time period was without doubt the collapse of the Communist regimes of eastern Europe. This effectively put an end to the Cold War which had generated a division of the world into opposing spheres of influence, giving rise to terrifying weapons arsenals and armies ready for total war.

The end of the Cold War was a moment that inspired a general hope for peace, which caused many to dream of a different world, in which relations among peoples would develop without the shadow of a threat of war, and the process of globalization would take place in peaceful cooperation among peoples and cultures in the framework of shared international rights, inspired by respect for the exigencies of truth, of justice and of solidarity.

Unfortunately, this dream of peace did not come about. Instead, the third millenium opened with scenarios of terrorism and violence which show no signs of dissipating. The fact that armed conflicts are taking place today, above all, against a background of geopolitical tensions in many regions of the world, could favor the impression that not just cultural diversity but religious differences constitute the reason for instability or for threats to the prospects for peace.

And it is under such a profile that the initiative promoted 20 years ago by John Paul II assumes the character of a timely prophecy. His invitation to the leaders of the world religions to come together in a choral testimony for peace served to clarify, without possibility of equivocation, that religion cannot be other than a herald of peace.

As the Second Vatican Council taught, in the declaration Nostro aetate on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions, "we cannot invoke God as Father of all, if we refuse to act like brothers to some men (who are nevertheless) created in the image of God" (no. 5).

Notwithstanding the differences that characterize the various religious pathways, acknowledgment of the existence of God, which men can come to believe even simply from their experience of creation (cfr Rm 1,20), cannot but dispose believers to consider other human beings as brothers.

It is therefore not valid for anyone to make religious differences the assumption or pretext for a bellicose atttude towards other human beings.

One may object that history is well familiar with the sad phenomenon of religious wars. However, we know that such manifestations of violence cannot be attributed to any religion as such, but to the cultural limits within which it is lived and in which it develops over time.

Because when the religious sense achieves maturity, it generates in the believer the perception that faith in God, Creator of the universe and Father of all, can only promote relations of universal brotherhood among men.

In fact, testimony of the intimate link between a relationship with God and the ethic of love is seen in all the great religious traditions. We Christians feel ourselves confirmed and ultimately illumined by the Word of God.

Already the Old Testament manifests God's love for all peoples - gathered by Him, in his alliance with Noah, in one great embrace symbolized by the "rainbow over the clouds" (Gen 9, 13,14,16) and which, according to the prophets, means a gathering into the one single universal family (cfr Is2,2ff; 42,6; 66,18-21; Jer 4,2; Ps 47).

Then in the New Testament, the revelation of this universal design of love culminates in the Paschal mystery, in which the Son of God incarnate, in a truly amazing act of salvific solidarity, offers Himself on the Cross for all of humanity.

Thus God demonstrates that his nature is Love. It is what I wished to underscore in my first Encyclical, which starts with the words 'Deus caritas est' (1 Jn 4,7). This declaration in Scripture not only throws light on the mystery of God but illumines the relationship among men, all called upon to live according to the commandment of love.

The encounter promoted in Assisi by the Servant of God John Paul II opportunely places the accent on the value of prayer in building peace. We are aware how difficult - at times, a cause of despair for us humans - the path will be towards this fundamental good.

Peace is a value in which many components converge. To build it, the cultural, political and economic pathways are definitely necessary. But in the first instance, peace is constructed in our hearts. The sentiments we harbor in our hearts may nourish it, or on the contrary, menace and weaken and suffocate it.

However, the heart of man is also the place where God intervenes. Therefore, alongside the 'horizontal' dimension of our relationship with other men, the 'vertical' dimension of our relationship to God is of fundamental importance, because everything rests on it.

And that is what Pope John Paul II, with his initative in 1986, intended to remind the world forcefully. He asked for authentic prayer, one that involves our whole existence. Thus, he asked that prayer be accompanied by fasting and expressed in pilgrimage, symbol of our path towards the encounter with God. He explained: 'Prayer requires from us a conversion of the heart" (Teachings of John Paul II, 1986, vol. II, p. 1253).

Among the characteristic aspects of the Encounter of 1986, we must emphasize that the value of prayer in building peace was testified to by representatives of the different religious traditions, not from afar, but during a meeting.

In this way, the persons who offered prayers could demonstrate in action that prayer does not divide but unites, and that it constitutes a determinative element for an effective pedagogy of peace, based on friendship, reciprocal welcome, and dialog among men of diverse cultures and religions.

We need this education for peace more than ever, especially when we look at the new generations. So many young people, in the regions of the world marked by conflicts, are educated to feel hate and vengeance, within an ideological context that cultivates the seeds of ancient rancors, preparing these young souls for future acts of violence.

We must tear down such fences in favor of meetings. I am therefore very happy that the initiatives programmed for this year in Assisi are in this direction and that, in particular, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog has considered doing something that would specifically apply to young people.

In order not to mistake the sense of what John Paul II wished to achieve in 1986, and which with his own expression he referred to as 'the spirit of Assisi', it is important not to forget the care taken at the time so that the inter-religious meeting would not lend itself to syncretistic interpretations founded on relativist assumptions.

Precisely because of that consideration, John Paul II declared right at the start: "The fact that we have all come here does not imply any intention to seek a religious consensus among us nor to negotiate our respective beliefs of faith. Nor does our meeting signify that religions can reconcile themselves on the basis of a common commitment to an earthly project that would go beyond everything else. Nor is it a concession to relativism in religious beliefs....(Teachings, cit., p1252).

I wish to reaffirm this principle which is the assumption for that dialog among religions that 40 years ago the Second Vatican Council intended in the Declaration on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions (cfr Nostra aetatem 2).

I am glad to take the occasion to greet the representatives of other religions who are taking part in any of the commemorations in Assisi.

Like us Christians, they know that in prayer, it is possible to have a special experience of God and to draw effective stimuli to dedicate ourselves to the cause of peace.

Still, it is our duty even in prayer to avoid inopportune confusion. Even as we find ourselves together to pray for peace, we offer our prayers according to the distinct pathways of our respective religions. That was the choice in 1986, and such choice must remain valid today.

The convergence of different religions should not give the impression that we are yielding to that relativism that negates the sense of truth itself and the possibility of drawing from it.

For his daring and prophetic initiative, John Paul II chose the evocative setting of this city of Assisi, universally famous for the figure of St. Francis. Il Poverello (the Poor One)incarnated in exemplary manner the beatitude proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospel: "Blessed are the peacemakers, because they shall be called children of God" (Mt 5,9).

The testimony that Francis gave in his time makes him a natural point of reference for those who even today cultivate the ideal of peace, of respect for nature, of dialog among persons, religions and cultures.

It is important to remember, if we are not to betray his message, that it was his radical choice for Christ which gave him the key to understand that brotherhood to which all men are called, and in which even inanimate creatures - from "Brother Sun" to "Sister Moon" - participate in some way.

I would also like to point out that the eighth centenary of the conversion of St. Francis coincides with this 20th anniversary year of the initiative for a Prayer for Peace by John Paul II. The two commemorations illumine each other reciprocally.

In the words of the Lord to Francis from the Crucifix of St. Damian - "Go, Francis, repair my House...", in his choice of radical poverty, in his kiss to the leper that expressed his new capacity to see and love Christ in his suffering brothers, began that human and Christian adventure which continues to fascinate so many men in our time and makes this city the destination of countless pilgrims.

I entrust to you, venerated Brother, Pastor of this Church of Assisi-Novera Umbra-Gualdo Todino, the task of bringing these reflections of mine to the attention of the participants in the various celebrations planned to commemorate the 20th anniversary of that historic event which was the Inter-Religious Encounter of October 1986.

Please convey to all my affectionate greeting, along with the blessing that I impart to them, which I accompany with my best wishes and the prayer of the Poverello of Assisi, "May the Lord give you peace!"


Castel Gandolfo, 2 September 2006

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/09/2006 22.39]

Here is the address delivered in English (except for a few brief paragraphs in French) by the Holy Father to the Members of the Canada-Ontario bishops confrence who are making their ad limina visit to Rome this year. They were received by the Pope in Castel Gandolfo.

Your Eminence,
Dear Brother Bishops,

1. "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1Jn 4:16). With fraternal affection I cordially welcome you, the Bishops of Ontario, and I thank Bishop Smith for the kind sentiments expressed on your behalf. I warmly reciprocate them and assure you, and those entrusted to your pastoral care, of my prayers and solicitude.

Your visit ad Limina Apostolorum, and to the successor of Peter, is an occasion to affirm your commitment to make Christ increasingly more visible within the Church and society, through joyful witness to the Gospel that is Jesus Christ himself.

The Evangelist John’s numerous exhortations to abide in the love and truth of Christ evoke an appealing image of a sure and safe dwelling place. God first loves us (1 Jn 4:10) and we, drawn towards this gift, find a resting place where we can "constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God" (Deus Caritas Est, 7). Saint John was also compelled to urge his communities to remain in that love. Already some had been weakened by the disputes and distractions which eventually lead to division.

2. Dear Brothers, your own Diocesan communities are challenged to resonate with the living statement of faith: "we know and believe the love God has for us" (1 Jn 4:16). These words, which eloquently reveal faith as personal adherence to God and concurrent assent to the whole truth that God reveals (cf. Dominus Iesus, 7), can be credibly proclaimed only in the wake of an encounter with Christ.

Drawn by his love the believer entrusts his entire self to God and so becomes one with the Lord (cf. 1 Cor 6:17). In the Eucharist this union is strengthened and renewed by entering into the very dynamic of Christ’s self-giving so as to share in the divine life: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him" (Jn 6:56; cf. Deus Caritas Est, 13).

He said the following paragraphs in French:

St. John's declaration remains ever topical. In societies which are more and more secularized, as you yourself have experienced, the love which springs forth from God towards humanity can often be ignored or even refused.

In thinking that to refuse a relationship with God constitutes, in one way or another, a means for his own liberaiton, man becomes a stranger to himself, because "in truth, the mystery of man cannot be truly clarified except within the mysetery of the Word incarnate" (Gaudium et spes, n. 22).

With the lack of interest that they show towards the love which reveals the fulness of man's truth, many men and women today continue to keep away from the house of God and live in the desert of individual isolation, of social rupture and the loss of cultural identity.

He resumed the rest of the address in English:

3. Within this perspective, one sees that the fundamental task of the evangelization of culture is the challenge to make God visible in the human face of Jesus. In helping individuals to recognize and experience the love of Christ, you will awaken in them the desire to dwell in the house of the Lord, embracing the life of the Church. This is our mission.

It expresses our ecclesial nature and ensures that every initiative of evangelization concurrently strengthens Christian identity. In this regard, we must acknowledge that any reduction of the core message of Jesus, that is, the ‘Kingdom of God’, to indefinite talk of ‘kingdom values’ weakens Christian identity and debilitates the Church’s contribution to the regeneration of society. When believing is replaced by ‘doing’ and witness by talk of ‘issues’, there is an urgent need to recapture the profound joy and awe of the first disciples whose hearts, in the Lord’s presence, "burned within them" impelling them to "tell their story" (cf. Lk 24:32; 35).

Today, the impediments to the spread of Christ’s Kingdom are experienced most dramatically in the split between the Gospel and culture, with the exclusion of God from the public sphere.

Canada has a well-earned reputation for a generous and practical commitment to justice and peace, and there is an enticing sense of vibrancy and opportunity in your multicultural cities. At the same time, however, certain values detached from their moral roots and full significance found in Christ have evolved in the most disturbing of ways.

In the name of ‘tolerance’ your country has had to endure the folly of the redefinition of spouse, and in the name of ‘freedom of choice’ it is confronted with the daily destruction of unborn children. When the Creator’s divine plan is ignored the truth of human nature is lost.

False dichotomies are not unknown within the Christian community itself. They are particularly damaging when Christian civic leaders sacrifice the unity of faith and sanction the disintegration of reason and the principles of natural ethics, by yielding to ephemeral social trends and the spurious demands of opinion polls.

Democracy succeeds only to the extent that it is based on truth and a correct understanding of the human person. Catholic involvement in political life cannot compromise on this principle; otherwise Christian witness to the splendour of truth in the public sphere would be silenced and an autonomy from morality proclaimed (cf. Doctrinal Note" The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, 2-3; 6).

In your discussions with politicians and civic leaders I encourage you to demonstrate that our Christian faith, far from being an impediment to dialogue, is a bridge, precisely because it brings together reason and culture.

4. Within the context of the evangelization of culture, I wish to mention the fine network of Catholic schools at the heart of ecclesial life in your Province.

Catechesis and religious education is a taxing apostolate. I thank and encourage those many lay men and women, together with Religious, who strive to ensure that your young people become daily more appreciative of the gift of faith which they have received.

More than ever this demands that witness, nourished by prayer, be the all-encompassing milieu of every Catholic school. Teachers, as witnesses, account for the hope that nourishes their own lives (cf. 1 Pt 3:15) by living the truth they propose to their pupils, always in reference to the one they have encountered and whose dependable goodness they have sampled with joy (cf. Address to Rome’s Ecclesial Diocesan Convention, Living the Truth that God Loves his People, 6 June 2005). And so with Saint Augustine they say: "we who speak and you who listen acknowledge ourselves as fellow disciples of a single teacher" (St. Augustine, Sermons, 23:2).

A particularly insidious obstacle to education today, which your own reports attest, is the marked presence in society of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires.

Within such a relativistic horizon an eclipse of the sublime goals of life occurs with a lowering of the standards of excellence, a timidity before the category of the good, and a relentless but senseless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom.

Such detrimental trends point to the particular urgency of the apostolate of ‘intellectual charity’ which upholds the essential unity of knowledge, guides the young towards the sublime satisfaction of exercising their freedom in relation to truth, and articulates the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life.

Introduced to a love of truth, I am confident that young Canadians will relish exploring the house of the Lord who "enlightens every person who comes into the world (Jn 1:9) and satisfies every desire of humanity.

5. Dear Brothers, with affection and fraternal gratitude I offer these reflections to you and encourage you in your proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Experience his love and in this way cause the light of God to enter into the world! (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 39).

Invoking upon you the intercession of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing to you and the priests, Religious, and lay faithful of your dioceses.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/09/2006 14.08]

The Holy Father today also received the credentials of the new ambassador of Chile to the Holy See. In his speech delivered in Spanish, he stressed once again the importance of the defense of human life, matrimony and the family.

I will post a translation here.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/09/2006 14.23]

The addresses and homilies delivered by the Holy Father during his trip to Bavaria September 9-14, 2006 are found in the thread APOSTOLIC VOYAGE TO BAVARIA.

There have been a number of important addresses and messages by the Holy Father in the past two weeks which require translation, and which I hope to be able to post, for the record, as I translate them.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/09/2006 15.35]

Here is a translation of the homily delivered extemporaneously by the Holy Father today at the Mass he concelebrated in the Redemptoris Mater chapel of the Vatican with priests who are members of the International Theological Commission:
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Dear brothers and sisters,

I did not really prepare a homily today, just some notes on which to meditate. The mission of St. Bruno, the saint of the day, appears clearly interpreted, we might say, in the prayer for the day which reminds us that his mission was silence and contemplation.

Silence and contemplation have a purpose: they serve to keep - amid the daily distraction of daily life - (a space for) continuing union with God. That is the purpose: that union with God should always be in our spirit and transform all our being.

Silence and contemplation - St. Bruno's characteristics - help us to find amid the distractions of every day a profound and continuing union with God.

Silence and contemplation! But the calling of a theologian, a beautiful calling, is to talk. That is his mission: amid the loquacity of our time, and other times, amid the inflation of words, to keep the essential words alive and present. To present with words the Word that comes from God, the Word that is God.

But how can we, being part of this world with all its words, present the Word in words, if not through a process of purifying our own thoughts, which above, all should also be a purification of our words?

How can we open the world - ourselves, first of all - to the Word, without first entering into the silence of God, from which the Word proceeds?

For the purification of our words, and therefore, for the purification of words in the world, we need that silence which becomes meditation, which makes us enter into the silence of God and thus arrive at the point from which the Word was born, the redemptive Word.

St. Thomas Aquinas, following a long tradition, says that in theology, God is not the object that we speak of. This is our normal idea. In fact, God is not the object but the subject of theology.

He who speaks in theology should be God himself. Our thoughts and words should serve only so that God's word can be heard, can find room in the world.

So we find ourselves invited anew to this path of renouncing our own words, on a path of purification so that our words may only be an instrument through which God can speak, so that God is not the object but the subject of theology.

In this context, I am reminded of a beautiful sentence in the first Letter of St. Peter, chapter 1, verse 22. In Latin, it says - «Castificantes animas nostras in oboedentia veritatis» . Obedience to truth should make our souls chaste - and thus, guide us to right words and right actions.

In other words, to speak in search of applause, to speak according to what we think others want to hear, to speak in obedience to the dictatorship of common opinion, may be considered a prostitution of words and of the spirit.

The "chastity" that the apostle Peter refers to means not submitting ourselves to common standards, not to seek applause, but rather, obedience to the truth.

I think that is the fundamental virtue of theology, this difficult discipline of obedience to the truth - which makes us co-workers in the truth, the voice of truth, because we do not speak in the rivers of words that characterizes the world today, but in words that are purified and made chaste by obedience to the truth. And therefore, we can be truly bearers of the truth.

This also reminds me of St. Ignatius of Antioch who had this beautiful thought: "Wheover has understood the words of the Lord understands His silence, because the Lord can be known in His silence."

The analysis of Jesus's words can only go up to a certain point, which remains our thought. Only when we reach the silence of the Lord, in His being with the Father from whom the words come, only then can we really begin to understand the profundity of these words.

The words of Jesus were born from His silence on the mountain, as the Scriptures tell us, when He was with His Father. From the silence of His communion with the Father, from being immersed in the Father, His words were born.

(Likewise), only by arriving at this point of communion, and taking off from this point, we reach the true depth of the Word and we can be its authentic interpreters.

In talking to us, the Lord invites us to join him on the Mountain, and in silence, learn anew the true sense of His words.

Having said this, we come to the two readings today. Job had cried out to God, he had even struggled with God in the face of the evident injustices he had to deal with. And then he is confronted with the greatness of God. And he understands that in the face of the true greatness of God, our words are mere poverty and cannot even remotely approach the greatness of God, and so he says: "I have spoken twice, I will say no more."

Silence before the greatness of God, because our words become too puny. It reminds me of the last weeks of St. Thomas's life - when he stopped writing, he stopped speaking. His friends asked him: "Master, why don't you speak, why don't you write?" And he says, "Before what I have seen, all my words seem to me like straw."

The great expert on St.Thomas, Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrel, tells us not to misunderstand these words. Straw is not nothing. Straw carries the grain, and that is its great value. It carries the grain. So even the straw of words remains valid as a bearer of the grain.

This, I would say, even for us, is a relativization of our work as well as a valuation of it. It is also an indication to us so that the straw of our work should truly carry the grain of God's Word.

The Gospel today ends with, "Whoever listens to you, listens to me." What an admonition, what an examination of conscience these words require! Is it true that whoever hears me really hears the Lord? Let us pray and work that it may always be true that whoever listens to us, listens to Christ. Amen!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/10/2006 14.24]

As many of Pope Benedict's (and Cardinal Ratzinger's) homilies as I've read, I'm still in awe of his discourse and the way he focuses on the fundamentals as well as the pure beauty of his words.

The Vatican has released the text of the Holy Father's letter dated 9/22/06 to Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy and the participants of a meeting held in Alice Springs, Australia Oct. 2-7 to mark the 20th anniversary of John Paul II's visit there. The letter was written in English.
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To My Venerable Brother
Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy

It is with great gladness that, through you, I convey my greetings to the Most Reverend Edmund Collins, Bishop of Darwin, and all those meeting in Alice Springs from 2 to 7 October 2006 to mark the Twentieth Anniversary of the visit of my beloved predecessor Pope John Paul II. Please be assured of my prayers and spiritual closeness at this time of joyful remembrance.

The art of remembrance, exercised within an arch of hope, is not just an occasion of simple recollection. It renews purpose.

For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders communities of Australia gathered today, this is expressed in the desire to propose anew the challenges with which Pope John Paul II encouraged them:

"Be faithful to your worthy traditions, adapt your living culture whenever this is required and above all open your hearts to the consoling, purifying and uplifting message of Jesus Christ who died so that we might have life and have it to the full" (Address to the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, Alice Springs 29 November 1986, Insegnamenti IX, 2 1986, p. 1763).

How might these challenges be embraced when there is much that could lead to discouragement or even despair?

As Jesus, during his time on earth, moved from village to village preaching the Good News of truth and love, he captured the attention of those who heard him. Unlike the Scribes, who were rejected for their hypocrisy, we are told that the Lord "made a deep impression because he taught them with authority" (Mk 1: 22).

Indeed, every human community needs and seeks strong, inspiring leaders to guide others into the way of hope. Much rests therefore upon the example of the Elders of communities. I encourage them to exercise authority wisely through faithfulness to their traditions - songs, stories, paintings, dances - and most especially through a renewed expression of their deep awareness of God, made possible through the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Your Eminence, through you I wish to appeal directly to the young people present: keep alight the flame of hope and ‘walk tall’. Christ is at your side! Even in the darkest hour his light continues to shine.

Indeed, with the Psalmist we can proclaim: "I hear whispering of many - terror on every side - but I trust in you, O Lord: I say, ‘You are my God’" (Ps 31:13-15).

Don’t allow your "dreaming" to be undermined by the shallow call of those who might lure you into the misuse of alcohol and drugs, as promises of happiness. Such promises are false, and lead only to a circle of misery and entrapment.

Instead, I exhort you to foster the encounter with the mystery of God’s spirit active in you and in creation, beckoning you to a life of purpose, service, satisfaction, and joy.

To the wider community, I wish to repeat what I have already alluded to in my address earlier this year to the nation’s Ambassador to the Holy See.

Much has been achieved along the path of racial reconciliation yet there is still much to be accomplished. No one can exempt themself from this process.

While no culture may use past hurt as an excuse to avoid facing the difficulties in meeting the contemporary social needs of its own people, it is also the case that only through the readiness to accept historical truth can a sound understanding of contemporary reality be reached and the vision of a harmonious future espoused.

I therefore again encourage all Australians to address with compassion and determination the deep underlying causes of the plight which still afflicts so many Aboriginal citizens.

Commitment to truth opens the way to lasting reconciliation through the healing process of asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness - two indispensable elements for peace. In this way our memory is purified, our hearts are made serene, and our future is filled with a well-founded hope in the peace which springs from truth.

With these sentiments of prayerful solicitude, and confident in the love of Christ which draws us forward (cf. 2 Cor 5:14), I cordially impart to you and all those gathered my Apostolic Blessing, which I readily extend to their family members wherever they may be.

From the Vatican, 22 September 2006

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I see the projection of Regensburg and the issue of Islam in almost everything the Holy Father says these days, whatever group he is addressing. Indeed, his consistency and his ability to stay on message has been one of his greatest strengths as a communicator.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/10/2006 5.14]

The Holy Father met today with the bishops of western Canada at the end of their ad-limina visit to Rome. He addressed them in English, except for the brief part indicated below which he delivered in French, Canada's second official language. The discourse was virtually a homily, as the Holy Father took the parable of the prodigal son in today's Gospel as his starting point.
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Dear Brother Bishops,

"We should celebrate and rejoice ... he has come to life; he was lost and is found" (Lk 15:32).

With fraternal affection I warmly welcome you, the Bishops of the Western Catholic Conference of Canada, and I thank Bishop Wiesner for the good wishes offered on your behalf. I warmly reciprocate them and assure you, and those entrusted to your pastoral care, of my prayers and solicitude. Your meeting with the Successor of Peter concludes the visits ad limina Apostolorum of the Canadian Bishops’ Conference.

Notwithstanding the increasingly secular climate within which you serve, your reports contain much from which you can draw encouragement. In particular, I have been heartened to note the zeal and generosity of your priests, the selfless dedication of the Religious present in your Dioceses and the increasing readiness among the laity to embolden their witness to Christ’s truth and love in their homes, schools, places of work and in the public sphere.

The Holy Father said the following in French:

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most appreciated passages in Sacred Scripture. Its profound illustration of God’s mercy and the important human desire for conversion and reconciliation, as well as the restoration of broken relationships, speaks to men and women of all ages.

Man is frequently tempted to exercise his freedom by keeping his distance from God. The experience of the prodigal son enables us to recognize in history as well as in our own lives that when freedom is sought outside of God, the result is negative: loss of personal dignity, moral confusion and social disintegration.

Nevertheless, the Father’s passionate love for humanity triumphs over human pride. Given freely, it is a love that pardons and leads us to enter more profoundly into the communion of the Church of Christ. It truly offers to all peoples union with God, and as perfectly manifested by Christ on the Cross, it reconciles justice and love (Deus caritas est, n. 10).

He resumed in English:

And what of the elder brother? Is he not, in a certain sense, all men and women as well; perhaps particularly those who sadly distance themselves from the Church?

His rationalization of his attitude and actions evokes a certain sympathy, yet in the final analysis illustrates his inability to understand unconditional love. Unable to think beyond the limits of natural justice, he remains trapped within envy and pride, detached from God, isolated from others and ill at ease with himself.

Dear Brothers, as you reflect upon the three characters in this parable - the Father in his abundant mercy, the younger son in his joy at being forgiven, and the elder brother in his tragic isolation - be confirmed in your desire to address the loss of a sense of sin, to which you have referred in your reports.

This pastoral priority reflects an eager hope that the faithful will experience God’s boundless love as a call to deepen their ecclesial unity and overcome the division and fragmentation that so often wound today’s families and communities.

From this perspective, the Bishop’s responsibility to indicate the destructive presence of sin is readily understood as a service of hope: it strengthens believers to avoid evil and to embrace the perfection of love and the plenitude of Christian life.

I wish therefore to commend your promotion of the Sacrament of Penance. While this Sacrament is often considered with indifference, what it effects is precisely the fullness of healing for which we long. A new-found appreciation of this Sacrament will confirm that time spent in the confessional draws good from evil, restores life from death, and reveals anew the merciful face of the Father.

Understanding the gift of reconciliation calls for a careful reflection on the ways to evoke conversion and penance in man’s heart (cf. Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 23).

While manifestations of sin abound – greed and corruption, betrayed relationships and exploitation of persons – the recognition of individual sinfulness has waned. Behind this weakening of the recognition of sin, with its commensurate attenuation of the need to seek forgiveness, is ultimately a weakening of our relationship with God (cf. Address at Ecumenical Vespers, Regensburg, 12 September 2006).

Not surprisingly this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in societies marked by secularist post-Enlightenment ideology. Where God is excluded from the public forum the sense of offence against God - the true sense of sin - dissipates, just as when the absolute value of moral norms is relativized, the categories of good or evil vanish, along with individual responsibility.

Yet, the human need to acknowledge and confront sin in fact never goes away, no matter how much an individual may, like the elder brother, rationalize to the contrary. As Saint John tells us: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 Jn 1:8). It is an integral part of the truth about the human person.

When the need to seek forgiveness and the readiness to forgive are forgotten, in their place a disturbing culture of blame and litigiousness arises. This ugly phenomenon, however, can be dispelled.

Following the light of Christ’s healing truth is to say with the father: "My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours" and we must be glad "because your brother ... who was lost ... is found" (Lk 15:31-32).

The lasting peace and harmony so longed for by individuals, families and society underpin your concerns to deepen reconciliation and understanding with the many First Nations communities found in your region. Much has been achieved.

In this regard, I have been heartened to learn from you about the work of the Catholic Aboriginal Council for Reconciliation and the aims of the Amerindian Fund. Such initiatives bring hope and bear witness to the love of Christ which draws us forward (cf. 2 Cor 5:14). Yet there is still much to be accomplished.

I therefore encourage you to address with compassion and determination the underlying causes of the difficulties surrounding the social and spiritual needs of the Aboriginal faithful.

Commitment to truth opens the way to lasting reconciliation through the healing process of asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness - two indispensable elements for peace. In this way our memory is purified, our hearts are made serene, and our future is filled with a well-founded hope in the peace which springs from truth.

With fraternal affection I share these reflections with you and assure you of my prayers as you seek to make the sanctifying and reconciling mission of the Church ever more appreciated and recognizable in your ecclesial and civic communities.

With these sentiments I commend you to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and to the intercession of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. To you and to the priests, deacons, Religious, and lay faithful of your Dioceses I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing.


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I wish I could figure out how to apply color to my posts, because I would love to mark with Regensburg-red all the allusions that the Holy Father makes that could well apply to post-Regensburg and the Islam issue!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/10/2006 0.28]

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 9, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave Sunday afternoon, after watching the premiere of the film "Pope Luciani: The Smile of God."

The film, produced by the Italian public television channel RAI, was viewed at the headquarters of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. Present for the occasion were the president of RAI, senator Claudio Petruccioli; the director, Giorgio Capitani; and Neri Marcore, the actor who plays the role of Albino Luciani, who became Pope John Paul I.


Mr. President of RAI
Ladies and Gentlemen:

We have just watched together this beautiful film, which covers the most significant stages of the life of my venerated predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul I. I feel the urgent necessity to express my sincere gratitude first of all to you, Mr. President, and then to the Administrative Council and director general of RAI for having offered me and my collaborators this pleasing opportunity.

I greet those responsible for "RAI Fiction" and those of the Leone Cinematografica society, who have conceived and produced this interesting film. I express special greetings and gratitude to the director, Giorgio Capitani, to the different actors, especially Neri Marcore, who has interpreted Albino Luciani.

I also greet all of you, who accepted the invitation to participate in this meeting, in which we have been able to relive evocative moments of the life of the Church in the past century.

Above all we have been able to recall the gentle figure full of meekness of a Pontiff strong in faith, firm in principles, but always ready to welcome and smile.

Faithful to tradition and open to renewal, the Servant of God Albino Luciani, as priest, bishop and Pope carried out a tireless pastoral activity, constantly stimulating the clergy and laity to pursue, in the different areas of the apostolate, the one and only ideal of holiness.

A teacher of truth and passionate catechist, he reminded all believers, with the fascinating simplicity that characterized him, of the commitment and joy of evangelization, underlining the beauty of Christian love, the only force able to defeat violence and to build a more fraternal humanity.

Finally, I gladly recall the devotion he felt for the Virgin. When he was patriarch of Venice he wrote: "It is impossible to conceive our life, the life of the Church, without the rosary, without the Marian feasts, without the Marian shrines and without the Virgin's images."

It is beautiful to accept your invitation and to find, as he did, in the fact of placing himself humbly in Mary's hands, the secret of daily serenity and concrete commitment to peace in the world.

Once again, thank you, dear friends, for your presence. With affection, I bless you all and your dear ones.

[Translation by ZENIT]

© Copyright 2006 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Here is the text of the Holy Father's address this morning to a delegation from the Anti-Defamation League. The Holy Father spoke in English:
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Dear Friends,

I am pleased to welcome to the Vatican the delegation of the Anti-Defamation League. On many occasions you visited my predecessor Pope John Paul II, and I am happy to continue to meet representative groups of the Jewish people.

In our world today, religious, political, academic and economic leaders are being seriously challenged to improve the level of dialogue between peoples and between cultures.

To do this effectively requires a deepening of our mutual understanding and a shared dedication to building a society of ever greater justice and peace.

We need to know each other better and, on the strength of that mutual discovery, to build relationships not just of tolerance but of authentic respect. Indeed, Jews, Christians and Muslims share many common convictions, and there are numerous areas of humanitarian and social engagement in which we can and must cooperate.

The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate reminds us that the Jewish roots of Christianity oblige us to overcome the conflicts of the past and to create new bonds of friendship and collaboration.

It affirms in particular that the Church deplores all forms of hatred or persecution directed against the Jews and all displays of anti-Semitism at any time and from any source (cf. No. 4).

The four decades since the Declaration have brought many positive advances, and they have also witnessed some early steps, perhaps still too tentative, towards a more open conversation on religious themes. It is precisely at this level of frank exchange and dialogue that we will find the basis and the motivation for a solid and fruitful relationship.

May the Eternal One, our Father in heaven, bless every effort to eliminate from our world any misuse of religion as an excuse for hatred or violence. May He bless all of you, your families and your communities.

Here are the words addressed by the Holy Father to the bishops of Zambia making their ad-limina visit to Rome:. He spoke in English:


My dear Brothers in Christ,

I am pleased to welcome you, the Bishops of Zambia, to this fraternal encounter during your visit ad Limina Apostolorum. In a special way I thank the Most Reverend Telesphore George Mpundu, who has expressed your devotion to the Holy See and to me as Peter’s successor. I am grateful for your good wishes, which I gladly reciprocate.

Our conversations have led me to deeper appreciation of the Catholic Church in your country: her joys, her difficulties and her hopes. Through you I greet and embrace the clergy, religious and lay faithful of Zambia.

Recently in Germany I had occasion to say: "As people of prayer filled with his light, we reach out to others and bring them into our prayer and into the presence of God, who will not fail to do his part" (Cathedral of Saint Corbinian, Freising, 14 September 2006).

I encourage you therefore to urge your people to dedicate themselves to prayer and holiness, discovering the treasure of a life built on faith in Christ. May they invite all those whom they encounter to share that treasure!

The light of holiness that shines forth in those who have discovered this treasure is enkindled at the moment of baptism. In baptism Christ liberates the believer from the dominion of sin, freeing him from an existence filled with fear and superstition and calling him to a new life. "Beloved, we are God’s children now ... and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure" (1 Jn 3:2-3).

Indeed, the Christian has placed his trust in Christ and can be ever confident that he hears his prayers and answers them. As you strive to prepare your people for lives of genuine holiness, be sure to instruct them in the value and the practice of prayer, especially liturgical prayer, where in a sublime way the Church is united with Christ the High Priest in his eternal intercession for the salvation of the world.

Moreover, the Catholic Church encourages the faithful to practise popular forms of piety. Therefore, always teach your people the value of the intercession of the saints, who are the great friends of Jesus (cf. Jn 12:20-22), and particularly the special intercession of Mary, his Mother, who is always attentive to our needs (cf. Jn 2:1-11).

My dear Brother Bishops, I have no doubt that you will continue to devote your lives with generous love to God’s people in Zambia. The Lord has chosen you to keep them and guide them on the way that leads to sanctity. Do so with wise advice, unwavering resolve and paternal affection.

Saint Jerome in his Commentary on Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus puts it this way: "Let the bishop practise abstinence with respect to all the troubles that can agitate the soul: let him not be inclined to anger or crushed by sadness and let him not be tortured by fear" (cf. vv. 8-9, PL 26, 603b-42). This is especially true in your dealings with your brother priests, who at times can be led astray by the many temptations of contemporary society.

As pastors and fathers to your co-workers in the vineyard, you must always communicate to them the joy of serving the Lord with a proper detachment from the things of this world. Tell them that they are close to the Pope’s heart and in his daily prayers.

With you I encourage them to stand steadfast in the true faith and to look forward with living hope to the joyful possession of that undefiled, imperishable treasure, won for us by Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Pet 1:4).

We believe that the Church is holy. When you urge your priests to live holy lives in accordance with their calling, when you preach generous love and fidelity in marriage and when you exhort everybody to practise the works of mercy, remind them of the Lord’s own words: "You are the light of the world ... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Mt 5:14-16).

Holiness is a divine gift, which manifests itself in love of God and love of neighbour. Dear Brothers, show your people the beautiful face of Christ by living a life of genuine love. Show Christ’s compassion especially for the poor, for refugees, for the sick and for all who suffer. At the same time, in your teaching continue to proclaim the need for honesty, family affection, discipline and fidelity, all of which have a decisive impact on the health and stability of society.

Your visit to Rome is a visible sign of your personal search for holiness and your ardent desire to act as heralds of the Gospel, following the heroic example of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Saint Matthew expresses the Church’s missionary mandate as follows: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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; and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Mt 28:18-20).

This passage is a source of great hope for all who devote their energies to the Apostolic Ministry. These words remind us of the constant and active presence of the living Christ in his holy Catholic Church. I invite you and those who cooperate with you in your ministry to meditate on them and to renew your trust in the Lord.

As you return home, take with you my affectionate greetings to the people of your country. May your witness as men filled with the hope of the resurrection lead them to an ever greater appreciation of the joys that the Lord has promised us. To each of you and to all those in your pastoral care I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.

An English news item yesterday said the Holy Father spoke to pilgrims at the end of an open-air Mass celebrated by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in St. Peter's Square to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of a hospital founded by Padre Pio in the Puglia region of southeastern Italy.

The bulletin does not mention a Mass, but it does say that the Pope addressed the pilgrims in St. Peter's Squzre at 12 noon yesterday. The visiting groups represent the Works of St. Pio of Pietrelcina and the Diocese of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo from Puglia, Padre Pio's home region.

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Lord Cardinals,
venerated brothers in the eipiscopate and the priesthood,
dear brothers and sisters!

I meet you with great joy in this Square which, in 1999 and in 2002, witnessed the beatification and canonization of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.

Today you have come here in great numbers to mark the 50th anniversary of that which constituted a conspicuous and integral part of his work: the Home of Relief from Suffering.

I welcome you all with affection and address each of you with my cordial greetings: to Archbishop Umberto D’Ambrosio, whom I thank for his kind words; to the Capuchin friars of the Sanctuary and of the province; to the members of the Prayer Groups coming from every part of Italy and in even from other countries; and to the pilgrims from the diocese of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo.

Together, you form a great spiritual family, you who consider yourselves sons of Padre Pio, a simple man, a 'poor friar', as he used to say, to whom God entrusted the perennial message of His Love, crucified for the salvation of all humanity.

The first heirs of his testimony are you, dear Capuchin friars, who are in carge of the Sanctuary of St. Mary of Mercies and the big new church named for St. Pio of Pietrelcina. You are the principal guiding spirits of that place of grace, the destination for millions of pilgrims every year.

Urged on and sustained by the example of Padre Pio and by his intercession, strive to emulate him yourselves to help others live a profound spiritual experience, centered on the contemplation of the Crucified Christ, who revealed and mediates the merciful love of our heavenly Father.

It was from Padre Pio's heart, ardent with charity, that the Home of Relief from Suffering originated. Its very name manifests the inspiring idea whence it came from and the program it was intended to realize.

Padre Pio wanted to call it a "home" so that the sick, especially those who are poor, would feel at home and at their ease, welcomed into a family atmosphere, thus finding in such a home a 'relief' from their suffering.

Relief thanks to two converging forces: prayer and science. This was the founder's idea which must always be kept in mind and which has been adopted by all who work in this hospital.

Faith in God and scientific research work together for the same end, which can best be expressed in the words of Jesus Himself: "that they may have life and have it in abundance" (Jn 10,10).

Yes, God is life, and wishes that man be healed of every ailment of the body and the spirit. Because of this, Jesus took care tirelessly of the sick, pre-announcing with their healing that the Kingdom of HGod was at hand.

For the same reason, the Church - thanks to the charism of so many saints - has continued and disseminated over the centuries this prophetic ministry of Christ, through numberless initiatives in the field of health and service to the suffering.

If the scientific and technological dimension is properly that of the hospital, prayer itself extends over all the wortk of Padre Pio. It is the horizontal element, one might say - the soul of every initiative, the spiritual force that moves everything and orients everything towards charity, which is ultimately God Himself. God is love.

Therefore, the basic binomial that I wish to recall to your attention is that which is at the center of my first encyclical: love of God and love of our neighbor, prayer and charity (cfr Deus caritas est, 16-18).

Padre Pio was, above all, 'a man of God.' From his childhood, he felt himself called by God, and he responded "with all his heart, all his soul and all his strength" (cfr Dt 6,5). Thus, God's love could take possession of his humble person and make it a chosen instrument of God's designs for salvation.

God be praised, who in every age chooses simple and generous soouls to carry out great things (cfr Lk 1,48-49)! Everything in the Church comes from God, and without Him, nothing can stand.

The works of Padre Pio offer an extraordinary example of this truth. The House of Relief could well be called a 'miracle.' Who could have imagined it humanly possible that beside the small convent house of San Giovanni Rotondo there would arise one of the largest and most modern hospitals in all of southern Italy? Who but the man of God, who looks at reality with the eyes of faith and with great hope, because he knows that to God, nothing is impossible?

That is why we celebrate the Home of Relief from Suffering as well as the Prayer Groups of Padre Pio - namely, those of you who represent the part of his work that 'knocks' continuously at God's heart, like an army of intercessors and penitents seeking to obtain the graces necessary for the Church and the world.

Dear friends from the Prayer Groups, your beginnings go back to the winter of 1942 when the Second World War afflicted Italy, Europe and the world. On February 17 of that year, my venerated predecessor, Pope Pius XII ,launched an appeal to the Christian people so that they may gather together to pray for peace. Padre Pio urged his spiritual sons to respond promptly to that call from the Vicar of Christ.

And so the Prayer Groups were born, with their organizational center right in the Home of Relief which was then still under contruction. This is an image that remains an eloquent symbol: the works of Padre Pio as a great construction site animated by prayer and destined to carry out works if charity.

The Prayer Groups are found in parishes, in convents, in hospitals, and there are now more than 3,000 spread all over the globe.

You who are here today are a numerous representation. That original response to the Pope's appeal has always marked the character of your spiritual network: your prayers - as your statute says - are "with the Church, for the Church and in the Church" - to be lived always in full adherence to the Magisterium, in ready obedience to the Pope and the bishops, under the guidance of the priest named by the bishop.

That statute also prescribes an essential task of the Prayer Groups, which is "actual and hard-working charity for the relief of those who suffer and others who are in need, in the actual practice of the love of God."

And here once again is the double term of prayer and charity, God and our neighbor. The Gospel does not allow loopholes: he who turns to the God of Jesus Christ is impelled to serve his brothers, just as he who dedicates himself to the poor will discover in them the mysterious face of God.

Dear friends, the time has come for me to conclude. I wish to leave you my sincere thanks for the support that you give me through your prayers. God will reward you!

At the same time, for the working community of the Home of Relief from Suffering, I ask God for the special grace that you may always remain faithful to the spirit and to the works of Padre Pio. I entrust this prayer to the heavenly intercession of Padre Pio and of the Virgin Mary.

With these sentiments, I impart from hy heart to all of you and those who are dear to you my Apostolic Blessing.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/10/2006 0.08]

Here is a translation of the homily delivered by the Holy Father today at the Mass of canonization held in St. Peter's Square for the following new saints: RAFAEL GUÍZAR VALENCIA, (1878-1938), Mexican bishop; FILIPPO SMALDONE, ( 1848-1923), Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Heart; ROSA VENERINI, (1656-1728), virgin, founder of the Congregation of Maestre Pie Venerini; and THÉODORE GUÉRIN (ANNE-THÉRÈSE), (1798-1856), virgin, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence of ST. Mary of the Woods.
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Dear brothers and sisters!

Four new saints are proposed today for the veneration of the universal Church: Rafael Guízar y Valencia, Filippo Smaldone, Rosa Venerini and Théodore Guérin. Their names will forever be remembered.

In contrast, we think immediately of the 'rich young man' in the Gospel we just heard. This young man has remained anonymous. If he had responded positively to the invitation of Jesus, he would have become His disciple and the evangelists would have recorded his name.

This fact immediately allows us to see the theme of tehe Liturgy of the Word this Sunday. If man places his security in the riches of this world, he will not achieve the full sense of life and true joy; if instead, trusting in the word of God, he renounces himself and his worldly goods for the Kingdom of Heaven, he will apparently lose much but in fact gain everything.

A saint is that man or woman who, responding with joy and gnerosity to the call of Christ, leaves everything to follow Him. Like Peter and the other Apostles, like St. Therese of Jesus (Therese of Liseux) whom we remember today, and numberless other friends of God, the new saints went through this exigent but satisfying evangelical itinerary, and received back - along with the trials and persecutions of their earthly life - 'a hundredfold', as well as eternal life.

Jesus therefore can guarantee a happy existence and eternal life, but through a road different from that imagined by the rich young man - not through one good deed or some legal contribution, but by choosing the Kingdom of God as the 'precious pearl' for which it is worth selling all that one possesses (cfr Mt 13, 45-46).

The rich young man did not get to take this step. Even if he earned a look full of love from Jesus (cfr Mk 10,21), his heart could not detach itself from the wealth he possessed. And that was a teaching for the disciples: "How difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!" (Mk 10,23).

Earthly riches occupy and preoccupy the mind and heart. Jesus does not say wealth is bad but that it keeps us far from God if
it is not, so to speak, 'invested' into the Kingdom of the heavens, especially to come to the aid of the poor.

To understand this is fruit of that wisdom that the first Reading speaks of. Wisdom, it says, is more precious than silver and gold, than even of beauty, health and light itself, because "the splendor it emanates never sets" (Wis 7,10).

Obviously, this wisdom cannot be reduced to a mere intellectual dimension. It is much more. It is the 'wisdom of the heart," as Psalm 89 calls it. It is a gift that comes from on high (cfr Jc 3,17), from God, and it is obtained by praying (cfr Wis 7,7).

That wisdom in fact has not remained far from man's reach; it has made itself acessible to his heart (cfr Dt 30,14), taking form in the First Alliance between God and Israel through Moses. The wisdom of God is contained in the Ten Commandments.

Thus, Jesus says in the Gospel that "to enter into life" , it is necessary to follow the commandments (cfr Mk 10,19). It is necessary but not enough. In fact, as St. Paul says, salvation does not come from the Law, but from grace. And St. John reca that the Law came down through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ (cfr Jn 1,17).

To arrive at salvation, therefore, it is necessary to open oneself in faith to the grace of Christ, who places a demanding condition on those who turn to Him: "Come follow me!" (Mk 10,21).

The saints had the courage and humility to say Yes - they renounced everything to be His friends. That was done by the four new Saints we venerate today. In them we find realized the experience of Peter: "See, we have left everything and we have followed You" (Mk 10,28). Their only reasure is in heaven - God.

In Spanish, he said the following:

The Gospel which we heard helps us to understand the figure of San Rafael Guizar y Valencia, Bishop of Veracruz in the beloved nation of Mexico, as an example of those who left everything to 'follow Christ.'

This saint was faithful to the divine Word, "alive and effective," which penetrates the deepest profundity of the spirit (cf Hb 4,12). Imitating Christ who was poor, he gave up his goods, and never accepted gifts form the powerful, or if he did, he gave them away immediately.

For that he received "a hundredfold" and could thereby help the poor, even in the midst of 'persecutions' without end (cf Mk 10.30). His charity, lived to a heroic degree, earned him the title "Bishop of the Poor." In his priestly and later episcopal ministry, he was a tireless preacher of popular missions, the most appropriate method at that time to evangelize peoples, using his Catechism of the Christian doctrine.

Since the formation of priests was one of his priorities, he reconstructed the seminary that was called 'the apple of his eyes,' and for that, he often said: "A bishop may lack miter, staff and even a cathedral, but he can never lack a seminary, because the future of his diocese depends on that."

With this profound sense of priestly fatherhood, he faced new persecutions and displacements, while guaranteeing that his seminarians would continue to be educated.

May the example of St. Rafael Guizar y Valencia be a call to our brother bishops and priests to consider fundamental in their pastoral programs - in addition to the spirit of poverty and evangelization - the drive for religious and priestly vocations and the formation of priests and religious according to the heart of Christ.

He resumed in Italian:

St. Filippo Smaldone, a son of southern Italy, was able to transmute into his life the best virtues of the region. A priest with a great heart, nourished by constant prayer and Eucharistic adoration, he was above all a witness and servant of charity, which he manifested eminently in his service to the poor, especially to the deaf-mute to whom he dedicated himself wholly.

The work he begun continues, thanks to the Congregation of the SAlesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts founded by him, and which is now found in various parts of Italy and throughout the world.

In the deaf-mute, St. Filippo Smaldone saw a reflection of the image of Jesus, and he used to say that just as one prostrated himself before the Blessed Sacrament, so should one kneel before a deaf-mute.

We gather from his example the invitation to always consider indissoluble the love for the Eucharist and for our neighbor. In fact, the true capacity to love our brothers only comes through our encounter with the Lord in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

St. Rosa Venerini is another example of the faithful disciple of Christ, ready to abandon everything to fulfill the will of Christ. She loved to say: "I find myself so bound to the divine will that nothing matters; I just want to live according to His will, and to serve Him the way He wants, nothing more." (Biografia Andreucci, p 515).

From this abandonment to God came the far-seeing activities that she carried out courageously fot the spiritual elevation and authentic emancipation of the young women of her time. St. Rosa did not content herself with providing young women with an adequate education. but she worked to assure them a complete education with a firm basis in the doctines of the Church.

Her apostolic style continues to characterize today the Congregation of the Maestre Pie Venerini which she founded. How current and important today is the service which she rendered for our society in the field of education, especially for young women!

He said the following in English:

"Go, sell everything you own, and give the money to the poor… then come, follow me." These words have inspired countless Christians throughout the history of the Church to follow Christ in a life of radical poverty, trusting in Divine Providence.

Among these generous disciples of Christ was a young Frenchwoman, who responded unreservedly to the call of the divine Teacher. Mother Theodore Guérin entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence in 1823, and she devoted herself to the work of teaching in schools.

Then, in 1839, she was asked by her Superiors to travel to the United States, to become the head of a new community in Indiana. After their long journey over land and sea, the group of six sisters arrived at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. There they found a simple log-cabin chapel in the heart of the forest. They knelt down before the Blessed Sacrament and gave thanks, asking God’s guidance upon the new foundation.

With great trust in Divine Providence, Mother Theodore overcame many challenges and persevered in the work that the Lord had called her to do. By the time of her death in 1856, the Sisters were running schools and orphanages throughout the State of Indiana.

In her own words, "How much good has been accomplished by the Sisters of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods! How much more good they will be able to do if they remain faithful to their holy vocation!"

In French, he said:

Mother Théodore Guérin is a beautiful spiritual figure and a model of Christian life. She was always available for the missions the Church asked of her. She found the strength and the daring to serve these missions in the Eucharist, in prayer, and an infinite confidence in divine Providence.

Her interior strength impelled her to a special attention for the poor, especially the children.

He concluded in Italian:

Dear brothers and sisters, let us give thanks to the Lord for the gift of holiness, which today blazes with singular beauty in the Church. Jesus invites us, as He did the saints, to follow him in order to have eternal life as our legacy. Their testimonial example is illuminating and inspiring especially to the young, because they allowed themselves to be conquered by Christ, by His look full of love.

Mary, Queen of the Saints, pray for us that among the Christian people there will be more men adn women like St. Rafael Guizar y Valencia, St. Filippo Smaldone, St, Rosa Venerini and St. Theodore Guerin, ready to abandon everything for the Kingdom of God, willing to adopt for themselves the logic of giving and of service as a way to save the world. Amen!
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Since the Angelus recitation followed shortly after the Mass, the Holy Father limited himself in the Angelus message to greeting the various pilgrim groups who came to Rome specially for the canonization rite.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/10/2006 22.43]

The feast of Diwali is celebrated by all Hindus. It is also known as Deepavali, meaning "a row of oil lamps." [This is one of the most memorable images one can have in India - a big city like Bombay or New Delhi, say, at Diwali, when almost every edifice, big or small, has hundreds of oil lamps burning through the night, aligned along windows, walls, rooftops, ledges and fences. The lamps are usually simple small pottery or glass jars with oil and wick.]

Symbolically based on ancient myth, the lights represent the victory of truth over lies, of light over shadows, of life over death, of good over evil. The celebration lasts three days and marks the beginning of a new year, bringing with it family reconciliations, especially between borthers and sisters, and an occasion to show adoration of God.

This year, Diwali will be marked by most Hindus on October 20. For the occasion, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog has sent a message to all Hindus on the theme "Overcome hate with love."

The message in English is signed by Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Council.
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Overcoming hatred with love

Dear Hindu Friends,

1. As people seeking for the Absolute you will pause for a short while on your spiritual journey and celebrate joyfully Deepavali, your ancient religious feast, which for you signifies the victory of truth over untruth, light over darkness, good over evil and life over death. On behalf of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue I wish Hindus all over the world a happy feast of Diwali.

2. The reality of love is closely connected to truth, light, goodness and life. I would like to reflect on this theme of love, through which believers of different religions are invited to overcome the evil of hatred and distrust in contemporary society.

The recent terrorist bomb attacks in Mumbai, India, are yet another example of these phenomena which so often end in brutal violence. I am sure that, enriched in the light of our particular religious traditions, our resolve to invite all believers to overcome hatred by love will benefit society at large.

My own reflection is inspired by the first Encyclical letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est (God is Love). The Pope wrote this letter, convinced that his message is both timely and significant "in a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence " (n. 1).

3. The importance and demands of love can be best learned from God who, the Christian faith professes, is Himself Love, and whose eternal Son, for love of us, became incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ.

God is the source and fullness of all love. Our love for one another becomes worthy of its name only when it has its source in God and is nourished by our union with the same God.

Blessed (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta, for example, constantly renewed her love of neighbour and her selfless service to the poor in her encounter with God in incessant daily prayer.

4. God loves us all without exception and his love is unconditional. Our human response to God’s love must be spelt out in concrete stewardship of God’s creatures, especially to human beings.

It is urgent and necessary that believers of different religions manifest jointly to the world that hatred can be overcome by love.

In today’s complex societies, is it not possible for us to join hands and collaborate in seeking justice for all, working together on common projects, for the development of the downtrodden, the marginalised, the destitute, the orphan and the weak?

"Despite the great advances made in science and technology, each day we see how much suffering there is in the world on account of different kinds of poverty, both material and spiritual" (Deus caritas est, n. 30).

Moral and spiritual poverty, which are caused by breeding hatred in one’s heart, can be eradicated by believers who are filled with love and compassion. Love creates trust, which in turn, promotes genuine relationships among believers of different religions.

5. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI ends his letter, Deus caritas est, with the following words: "Love is the light – and in the end, the only light – that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working" (n. 39).

The Pope’s words obviously refer to Jesus Christ who is the Light of the world. However, these words can also draw your attention since for you the meaning of your feast, Diwali, is symbolized by light. May our love finally overcome the darkness of hatred in the world! Happy Diwali to you, my dear Hindu friends!

Paul Cardinal Poupard
President

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/10/2006 22.36]

Like the message for Diwali above, this address is not the Holy Father's, but such messages and addresses are made in the name of the Holy See and therefore, indirectly, in his name. In any case, their contents represent the views of the Holy See and the Church on specific topics.

The following is the address given yesterday by Archbishp Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, before the sixth commssion of the General Assembly in New York. The address on measures to deal with international terrorism was delivered in English.


Mr Chairman,

In recent years, terrorism has developed into a sophisticated network of political, economic and technical collusion which crosses national borders to embrace the whole world. Because the stakes are so high and concern us all, there is hardly any need to illustrate the importance of an internationally binding Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

My delegation believes that in the debate aimed at adopting a Convention, it is fundamental to affirm from the very outset that effective counter-terrorism measures and the protection of human rights are not conflicting goals. Indeed, the former must serve the latter, because the protection of human rights is the primary objective of any counter-terrorism strategy.

The absolute unacceptability of terrorism lies precisely in the fact that it uses innocent people as means to obtain its ends, thus showing contempt and utter disregard for human life and dignity. This disregard for life reaches the point of cynically using innocent individuals and entire populations as human shields to hide and protect terrorists and their weapons.

Moreover, counter-terrorism strategy must not sacrifice fundamental human rights in the name of security. Rather, it must refrain from selective implementation of measures; otherwise, it would corrode the very values that it intends to protect, alienate large parts of the world population and diminish the moral strength of such a strategy.

Terrorists must never be allowed to point to this kind of deficiency on the part of states for their actions, because it can only dignify in the eyes of some the grievances they claim justify their aberrant behaviour. On the other hand, not even the terrorists' contempt for human life and dignity can justify denying them treatment according to international humanitarian and human rights norms.

Because legality and juridical certainty are at the core of the defence of human rights, the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism should make clear that no cause, no matter how just, can excuse or legitimize the deliberate killing or maiming of civilian populations.

Even the legitimate right to resist unjust authorities and the right to self-determination and national liberation, must not threaten social fabric and domestic public order, neither of which should normally be considered acts of war or illegitimate oppression.

Terrorism is a cultural manifestation - in the sense of being anti-culture and anti-civilization - of warped perceptions of reality, of xenophobic complexes, of contempt for the other, of seeing the other as a threat, of cynical abuse of religion.

Faced with such a phenomenon, legal measures and arms are not sufficient; we must respond also with cultural instruments capable of convincing that non-violent alternatives to redress genuine grievances exist. History offers examples of non-violent struggle that were able to rectify unjust systems and structures, and redress just grievances in an effective and lasting manner.

Such success stories also remind us that the fight against terrorism must include a courageous and resolute political, diplomatic and economic commitment to relieve situations of oppression and marginalization which facilitate the designs of terrorists. It is widely recognized that the recruitment of terrorists is easier in situations where rights are trampled and injustices tolerated over extended periods of time.

Still, it must be firmly stated that the injustices existing in the world can never be used to excuse acts of terrorism, and it should be noted that the victims of the radical breakdown of order which terrorism seeks to achieve include above all the countless millions of men and women who are least able to withstand a collapse of international solidarity. The terrorist’s claim to be acting on behalf of the poor is a patent falsehood.

In particular, religions and inter-religious dialogue have a fundamental role to play in contrasting the terrorists’ preaching of hate and violence as antithetical to authentic religion, in promoting a culture of peace and mutual respect, and in helping people with grievances to opt for non-violent means.

This grave duty falls upon religions, but States and the family of nations can help by fostering an environment in which religions and interfaith dialogue can flourish.

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

Here is a translation of the full text of the Holy Father's address on 10/19/06 to the 4th National Convention of the Church in Italy, which met in Verona:


I am happy to be with you in this beautiful and historic city of Verona to take active part in the fourth national convention of the Church in Italy. I greet each and everyone in the Lord’s name.

I thank Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Bishops Conference, and Dr. Giovanna Ghirlanda, representing the Diocese of Verona, for the kind words of welcome they addressed to me in the name of all of yo,u and for the news they have given me about what has happened in the Convention so far.

I thak Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, president of the preparatory committee, and those who have worked for its realization.

This 4th National Convention is a new stage in the road to realizing Vatican-II that the Italian Church has undertaken since the years immediately following the conclusion of that great Council: It is, above all, a path of communion with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, and therefore among us, in the unity of the one Body of Christ (cfr 1Jn 1,3; 1Cor 12,12-13); a path that is oriented to evangelization - to keep the faith alive and firm among the Italian people; therefore, a tenacious testimony of love for Italy and of hardworking concern for the good of its sons.

The Church in Italy has followed this path in close and constant union with the Successor of Peter. I am happy to recall with you the servants of God Paul VI, who initiated the first Convention in a now-distant 1976, and John Paul II, with his fundamental interventions – we all remember them – at the Conventions in Loreto and in Palermo, which reinforced ithe confidence of the Italian Church in being able to function in such a way that faith in Jesus Christ may continue to offer, even to the men and women of our time, sense of existential orientation and could therefore have “a guiding role and drawing power” in the nation’s road towards the future” (cfr Speech at the Convention of Loreto, 11 April 1985, n.7).

The Risen Lord and His Church
In the same spirit I have come today to Verona to pray to the Lord with you, to share – even if briefly – the work you Are doing these days and to propose to you some of my reflections on what seems to be most important for the Christian presence in Italy.

You made a very felicitous choice in placing the risen Jesus as the center of attention at this convention and in the life and testimony of the Church in Italy.

The resurrection of Christ is a fact that took place in history, of which the Apostles were witnesses and certainly not its inventors.

At the same time, the resurection was not just a simple return to earthly life – it is, in fact, the greatest ‘mutation’ that has ever taken place, the decisive ‘leap’ towards a profoundly new dimension of life, the entrance into a decidedly different order, which primarily involved Jesus of Nazareth, but also us, the whole human family, history and the whole universe.

Because of this, the resurrection of Christ is the center of Christian preaching and testimony, from the beginning to the end of time. This is obviously a great mystery, the mystery of our salvation, which finds in the resurrection of the incarnate Word its fulfillment, as well as the anticipation and the guarantee of our hope.

The key to this mystery is love, and it can only be approached and understood to some degree with the logic of love. Jesus Christ rose from the dead because his whole being was a perfect and total union with God, which is love that is truly stronger than death.

He was one with indestructible Life and so he could give His own life, allowing himself to be killed, though he could not succumb definitively to death. Concretely, at the Last Supper, He had anticipated and accepted out of love His own death on the Cross, thus transforming it into a gift of Himself, a gift which gives us life, which frees us and which saves us.

His resurrection was therefore like an explosion of light, an explosion of love that released the chains of sin and of death. It inaugurated a new dimension of life and of reality, from which emerged a new world, which continually compenetrates our world, transforms it and draws it to itself.

All of this took place concretely in the life and testimony of the Church. Indeed, the Church itself is the first fruit of this transformation, which is God’s work, not ours. It comes to us through prayer and the sacrament of Baptism, which is really death and resurrection, a rebirth, a transformation to a new life.

It is that which St. Paul remarks in his Letter to the Galatians: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (2,20). Therefore, my essential identity was changed through Baptism, and I continue to exist only in this transformation. My own "I" was taken away and became part of a greater subject, in which my "I" is there but transformed, purified and opened up, by becoming part of the new, in which it acquires a new space of existence.

Thus we become “one in Christ” (Gal 3.28), a single new subject, and our "I" is liberated from its isolation. “I, but no longer me” – this is the formula of Christian existence based on Baptism, the formula of a resurrection in time, the formula of the Christian ‘innovation’ that was called on to transform the world. This is our Paschal joy.

Our vocation and our task as Christians consists in cooperating so that what the Holy Spirit undertook within us at Baptism may reach effective fulfillment in the daily reality of our life. In fact, we are called on to become new men and women so we can be true witnesses of the Risen One, and thereby, bearers of joy and Christian hope in the world, more specifically, in the community of men and women among whom we live.

Thus, from this fundamental message of the Resurrection present in us and in our daily work, I come to the subject of the service of the Church in Italy to the nation, to Europe and to the world.


The service of the Church in Italy
to the nation, to Europe and to the world

Italy today presents itself as a terrain profoundly in need of, and at the same time, very favorable for such witness.

Profoundly needy because it participates in the culture which now prevails in the West which would be universal and self-sufficient, and would generate a new way of life. It has generated a new wave of illuminsm and secularization, for which only that which is calculable and experimentable would be rationally valid, while on the plane of praxis, individual freedom is set up as the fundamental value to which all others must be subordinate.

Thus God remains excluded from the culture and from public life, and faith in Him becomes more difficult, if only because we live in a world which is almost always presented as "made" by us, in which God no longer appears directly, and seems to have become superfluous and even extraneous.

Closely related to all this, a radical reduction of man has taken place - he is now considered just another product of narure, and as such, not truly free, and susceptible to being treated like any other animal.

And so we have a true reversal of our culture’s point of departure, which was a the belief in the centrality of man and of his freedom.

Along the same lines, ethics is now confined between the limits of relativism and utilitarianism, with the exclusion of any moral principle which could be valid and binding in itself.

It is not difficult to see how this type of culture represents a radical and profound break not only with Christianity, but in general, with the religious and moral traditions of mankind.

Therefore it would not be capable of starting any true dialog with other cultures in which the religious dimension is a strong presence, let alone being able to respond to the fundamental questions on the sense and purpose of life.

This culture is marked by profound deficiencies but also by a great and uselessly concealed need of hope.

Italy however, as I said earlier, constitutes a favorable terrain for Christian testimony. In fact, the Church is very much a living reality here – we see it! – which has a very intimate presence in the lives of people of all ages and conditions.

Christian traditions are often still rooted and continue to bear fruit, whereas there is an ongoing effort at evangelization and catechesis, addressed in particular to the new generations but now also to families.

Here we feel with increasing clarity the inadequacy of a reasoning that is closed in on itself, and of an ethic that is too individualistic. Effectively, we are aware of the grave risk of being detached from the Christian roots of our civilization.

This sensation, which is felt widely among the people of Italy, has been formulated explicitly and forcefully by many important men of culture, even among those who do not share - or at least, do not practice - our faith.

The Church and the Catholics of Italy are therefore called on to take on this great opportunity, and above all, to be aware of it.

Our attitude should never be a resigned closing in on ourselves; we should keep alive and, if possible, increase our dynamism, we should open ourselves confidently to new relationships, we should not neglect or ignore any energies that can contribute to the moral and cultural growth of Italy.

In fact it is incumbent on us – not through our own poor resources, but with the strength that comes from the Holy Spirit – to give positive and convincing answers to the expectations and questions of our people.

If we can do this, then the Church in Italy will render a great service not only to the nation, but even to Europe and the world, because the traps of secularism are everywhere, but equally universal is the need for a faith that is lived byconfronting the challenges of our time.

To make visible the great Yes to faith
Dear brothers and sisters, now we must ask ourselves how, and on what basis, we can fulfill such a task. In this Convention, you have rightfully upheld that it is indispensable to give concrete and practical substance to Christian testimony, examining how that can be realized and developed in each of the broad areas in which human experience is lived.

We would be helped thereby not to lose sight in our pastoral activity of the link between faith and daily life, between what the Gospel says and the concerns and aspirations which are closest to the human heart.

These days therefore, you have reflected on the life of the emotions, and on the family, on work and celebration, on education and culture, on poverty and illness, on the duties and responsibilities of social and political life.

For my part, I wish to underline how, through such multiform testimony, there should emerge above all that great Yes which God affirmed through Jesus Christ– Yes to life, to human love, to our freedom and our intelligence; and that at the same time, our faith in the God with a human face should bring joy to the world.

Christianity is, in fact, open to all that is just, true and pure in all cultures and civilizations, to that which can lighten, console and fortify our existence.

St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, wrote: “All that is noble, true, just, pure, lovable, honorable, that which is virtue and merits praise – may all these be the object of your thoughts” (4,8).

The disciples of Christ recognize and gladly welcome the authentic values of the culture of our time, like scientific knowledge and technological progress, human rights, religious freedom and democracy.

But Christians cannot ignore nor underestimate the dangerous frailty of human nature which has jjeopardized man’s path in every historic context; in particular, Christians should not gloss over the tensions and contradictions of our era.

Therefore, the work of evangelization is never a simple adaptation to the culture, but it is always a purification, a courageous break which leads to maturation and healing, an opening which allows the birth of that ‘new creature’ (@Cor 5,17; Gal 6,15) which is the fruit of the Holy Spiirit.

As I wrote in the encyclical Deus caritas est, at the beginning of being a Christian – and therefore, at the start of our testimony as believers – was not an ethical decision nor a great idea, but the encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ “who gives to life a new horizon and with it a decisive direction” (n.1).

The fecundity of this ecnouter is manifested – in a peculiar and creative manner – even in the actual human and cultural context, above all in relation to reason, which gave rise to modern sciences and to its related technologies.

One of the fundamental characteristics of the latter is in fact the systematic employment of the tools of mathematics to be able to work on nature and put its immense energies at our service.

Mathematics as such is a creation of our intelligence: the correspondence between its structures and the real structures of the universe – the assumption of all modern scientific and technological developments, already formulated explicitly by Galileo Galilei in his famous statement that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics – arouses our admiration and raises a great question.

In fact it implies that the universe itself is structured intelligently, in a way that there is a profound correspondence between our subjective reason and nature’s objective reason. It therefore becomes inevitable to ask ourselves if there should not be a single originating intelligence which is the common source of one and the other.

And thus our very reflection itself on the development of science brings us towards the creative Logos. This overturns the tendency to give primacy to the irrational, to chance and to necessity, so that even our intelligence and our liberty can only point us back to the Logos.

On this bases it is also possible to widen the spaces for our rationality, reopen it to the great questions about truth and goodness, bring together theology, philosophy and the sciences, with full respect for their respective methodologies and their reciprocal autonomy, but also aware of the intrinsic unity that holds them together.

That is a task which lies before us, a fascinating adventure worth undertaking, so we can give a new impetus to the culture of our time and can restitute full citizenship for the Christian faith within that culture. The ‘cultural project’ of the Church in Italy for such an end is undoubtedly a haopy intuition and a very important contribution.

The human person:
Reason, intelligence, love
The human being is not just reason and intelligence, although these are constitutive elements. He carries within him, inscribed in the depths of his heart, a need for love, to be loved and to love in turn.

That is why he asks himself – and is often bewildered – about the difficulties of life, about the evil in this world which appears to be so strong and at the same time radically devoid of sense.

In particular, in our era, notwithstanding all the progress achieved, evil has not been defeated; in fact, its power seems to grow, and all efforts to hide it are soon unmasked, as we know from our daily experience as well as from great historical events.

Thus the insistent question remains whether in our life there can be a secure space for authentic love, and ultimately, whether the world is truly a work of God’s wisdom.

Here, more than any human reasoning, the disturbing novelty of Biblical revelation helps us: the Creator of heaven and earth, the only God who is the spring of every being, this unique creative Logos, this creative reason, knows how to love man as a person - indeed, He loves man so passionately and wishes in turn to be loved.

This creative reason, which is also love, gave life to a love story with Israel, His people, and in this, despite the betrayal of this people, His love shows itself rich with inexhaustible loyalty and mercy – it is love which forgives beyond any limits.

In Jesus Christ, this attitude reaches its extreme form, unheard of, dramatic. In Him God becomes one of us, our brother in humanity, who sacrifices Himself for us. In his death on the Cross – apparently the biggest wrong ever done in history – is fulfilled “that turning of God against Himself, in which He gives himself to raisw up man and save him”, in which is manifested what is meant by the statement “God is love” (1 Jn 4,8). And we can also understand how to define authentic love (cfr Enc. Deus caritas est, nos. 9-10, 12).

Precisely because he truly loves us, God respects and saves our freedom. Against the power of evil and sin he does not propose a greater power, but – as our beloved Pope John Paul II told us in his encyclical Dives in misericordia, and later in his book Memory and Identity, his true spiritual testament – he preferred to set the limit of his patience and his mercy, and that limit wass, concretely, the suffering of the Son of God.
And so, even our suffering is transformed from within, it is introduced into the dimension of love, and holds the promise of salvation.

Dear brothers and sisters, all this John Paul II did not simply think nor believe with an abstract faith; he understood and lived it with a faith matured in suffering. On this road, as a Church we are called to follow Him , in the manner and measure that God disposes for each of us.

The Cross rightly terrifies us, as it provoked fear and angusih in Jesus Christ (cfr Mk 14,33-36). But the Cross is not a negation of life that we should get rid of in order to be happy. It is in fact God’s supreme Yes to man; the supreme expression of His love and the wellspring of of a full and perfect life. It contains therefore the the most convincing invitation to follow Jesus‘s example of giving Himself.

Here I wish to turn a special thought to the suffering members of the Body of Christ; in Italy as elsewhere, they complete in their own flesh whatever was lacking in Jesus’s suffering (cfr Col 1,24),. and therefore contribute in a most efffective way to our common salvation. They are the most convincing witnesses of the joy that comes from God and which gives us the strenght to accept the Cross in love and persevreance.

We know very well that this choice made in faith to follow Christ is never easy. On the contrary, it is always opposed and controversial. The Church therefore continues to be ‘a sign of contradiction’, in the manner of its Master (cfr Lk 2,34) even in our time.

But this should not make us lose heart. On the contrary, we must always be ready to give a response (apo-logia) to whoever asks us the reason (logos) for our hope, as the First Letter of St.Peter (3.15) invites us to do, and which you have chosen quite opportunely as the Biblioal guide for this Convention.

We should answer “with kindess and respect, with an upright conscience” (3,15-16),with that gentle strength that comes from union with Christ. We should do this in every area, in thought and in action, through our personal behavior and through public testimony.

The strong unity which is realized within the Church in the first centuries between a faith that was a friend to intelligence and a praxis of life characterized by reciprocal love and aring attention to the poor and the suffering made possible the first great missionary expansion of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. That is also what happened later, in different cultural contexts and historical situations.

This remains the main road for evangelization: may the Lord guide us to live this unity between truth and love in the conditions proper to our time, for the evangelization of the Italy and the world today.

And so I come to an important and fundamental point, education.

Education
In reality, in order that the experience of faith and of Christian love may be received, lived and transmitted from one generation to the next, a fundamental and decisive question is education of the individual.

We must cocnvern ourselves with the formation of his intelligence, without neglecting that of his freedom and his ability to love. For this, we also need a recourse to Grace.
Only in this way can we effectiively counteract the risk for the human family arising from the imbalance between the too-rapid technical growth of our technological powers and the far more laborious growth of our moral resources.

True education must inspire the courage to make definitive decisions, which today are considered to be chains that mortify our freedom, although they are really indispensable for personal growth and to achieve something great in life, most specifically, to allow love to mature in all its beauty – thus giving substance and significance to freedom itself.

From this solicitude for the human being and his education comes our “No” to weak and deviant forms of love and to counterfeit freedom, as well as the restriction of reason only to that which is calculable and manipulable.

Actually, these No’s are rather Yes’es to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God.

I wish to express here all my appreciation for the great formative and educational work that the various churches have tirelessly carried on throughout Italy,; for their pastoral attention to new generations and to families – I thank you all for your efforts!

Among the multiple forms of this commitment, I cannot omit mentioning in particular the Catholic school which still inspires, to some degree, old prejudicies which generate damaging setbacks, that are no longer justifiable, to the recognition of its function and to allowing its activities.


Testimonies of charity
Jesus said that everything we do for the least of his brothers, we do for Him (cfr Mt 25, 40). Therefore, the authenticity of our adherence to Christ can be verified specially in the love and concrete solicitude that we show for the weakest and the poorest among us, for whoever is in great danger and in the most serious dificulties.

The Church in Italy has a great tradition of closeness, aid and solidarity towards the needy, the sick and the marginalized, which finds its highest expression in a wondrous series of ‘saints of charity.’

This tradition continues to this day and takes responsibility for many forms of new poverty – moral and material – through Caritas, through volunteer social work, through the often unseen work of so many parishes, religious communities, associations and groups, and single individuals who are impelled by the love of Christ and of their brothers.
The Church in Italy has also shown extraordinary solidarity with the endless multitudes of the earth’s poor people.

Therefore it is even more important that all these testimonies of charity always j=leep their specific profiles high and shining, nourished by himulity and trust in the Lord, keeping free of ideological suggestions and partisan sympathies, and above all, measuring their vision against that of Christ. Practical action is important but what counts even more is our personal involvement in the needs and suffering of others.

In this way, dear brothers and sisters, the charity of the Church makes God’s love visible in the world, and thus makes more convincing our faith in the God who was incarnated, died and resurrected.

Civic and political responsibilities of Catholics
Your convention has rightly confronted the issue of citizenship, namely, the civic and political responsibilities of Catholics.

Indeed, Christ came to save the actual concrete man who lives in history and in society. Therefore, Christianity and the Church, from the very beginning, have also had a public dimension and value.

As I wrote in the encyclical Deus caritas est (cfr nos. 28-29), Jesus Christ brought a substantial innovation to the relation between religion and politics which opened the way to a more humane and freer world, through the distinction and reciprocal autonomy betweeh Church and State, between that which is Caesar’s and that which is God’s (cfr Mt 22,21).

The same religious freedom which we hold to be a universal value, particularly needed in the world today, has its historical roots in this. The church, therefore, is not and does not intend to be a political agent. At the same time, it has a profound interest in the good of the community, in the spirit of justice, and offers the community its specific contribution at two levels.

Christian faith purifies reason and helps it to be even better. With its social doctrine, based on what conforms to the nature of every human being, the Church contributes to enable that which is just to be effectively acknowledged and
eventually made real.

To such an end, moral and spiritual energies are indispensable that place the exigencies of justice ahead of any personal interest, or social category, or even of the state. Here again, the Church has ample opportunity to root these energies in conscience, to nourish them and make them robust.

The immediate task of acting in the political sphere to construct a just order in socpety is therefore not for the Church as such, but for its lay members who function as citizens under their own personal responsibility.

It is a task of greatest importance, to which Italian lay Christians are called to dedicate themselves with generosity and courage, enlightened by their faith and by the Church Magisterium, and inspired by the love of Christ.

Special attention and extraordinary commitment are required these days by great challenges which have placed vast portions of the human family under great danger: wars and terrorism, hunger and thirst, some terrible epidemics.

But we must also face, with the same determination and clarity of purpose, the risk of political and legislative choices which contradict anthropological values, principles and ethics rooted in human nature, particualrly regarding the preservation of human life at all stages, from conception to natural death, and the promotion of families founded on matrimony, avoiding the introduction into the public order of other forms of union which would contribute to destabilizing the family, obscuring its singular character and its irreplaceable social role.

The open and couragesout testimony that the Church and Italian Catholics have shown and are showing in this regard is a precious service to Italy, useful and inspiring even for many other nations.

This commitment and this testimony aere surely a part of that great Yes that as believers in Christ we say to man who is loved by God.

To be united in Christ
Dear brothers and sisters, the tasks and responsibilities which this ecclesiastical convention has made evident are certainly huge and many.

But we are inspired by keeping in mind always that we are not alone in carrying this weight: We sustain each other, but above all, the Lord Himself guides and sustains the fragile boat of the Church.

Thus let us return to the point where we started. It is decisive for us to be united with Him, and for each of us, to be with Him so we may go forth in His name (cfr Mk 3,13-15).

Our true strength lies therefore in nourishing ourselves with His words and with His Body, unitinj ourselves in the offering He made for us, as we will do at the Eucharistic celebration this afternoon, amd adore Him present in the Blessed Sacrament.

Before every activity and every program we have, we should in fact perform an Adoration which makes us truly free and gives us the criteria for how we must act.

In the union with Christ, may we be preceded and guided by the Virgin Mary, who is loved and venerated in every place in Italy. In her, we find, pure and undeformed, the true essence of the Church, and therefore, from her, let us learn to know and love the mystery of the Church which lives in history. Let us feel part of the Church to our very depths. Let us become in our turn ‘anima eccesiali’. Let us learn to resist that ‘internal secularization’ which undermines our Church today as a consequence of the processes of secularization that have left profound marks on European civilization.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us raise our prayers to the Lord together, humble but full of trust, so that the Catholic community in Italy, within the living communion of the Church in every place and in all times, and closely united with your own bishops, may bring with renewed impetus, to this beloved nation and to every corner of the world, joyous testimony of the Risen Christ, hope of Italy and of the world.