PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING NEW EVANGELISATION MADE RESPONSIBLE FOR
CATECHESIS
Vatican City, 25 January 2013 (VIS) – With the Motu Proprio
“Fides per doctrinam” that was signed 16 January and published
today, the Holy Father modifies the apostolic constitution "Pastor bonus",
transferring responsibility for
catechesis from the Congregation for the Clergy to the Pontifical Council for
Promoting New Evangelisation. Following are ample extracts from the
document.
Subject: VISnews130125
From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt
"Faith," the Pope writes, "needs to be supported by doctrine that is
capable of illuminating the minds and hearts of believers. This particular
historical moment in which we are living, marked among other things by a
dramatic crisis of faith,
requires an awareness that is able to respond to the high expectations that
arise in the hearts of believers when facing the new questions that challenge
the world and the Church. Understanding faith, therefore, always requires that
its content be
expressed in a new language, one capable of presenting the living hope of
believers to those inquiring into its purpose."
"On the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II, while
the Church continues to reflect on the richness of the teaching contained its
documents and to find new ways of putting it into practice, it is possible to
see the long path
travelled over these decades in the area of catechesis. It has been a path,
however, that in the years following the Council has not been without
mistakes, even serious ones, both in method and in content. All of this has
brought about profound
reflection and led to the development of post-conciliar documents that
represent a new wealth in catechesis."
"The Council's teachings and the subsequent Magisterium, as interpreters of
the Church's great tradition in this field, have connected the Catechism ever
more closely to the process of evangelisation. The Catechism, therefore,
represents a
significant step in the daily life of the Church, announcing and communicating
the Word of God in a living and effective manner, so that it might reach all
and that believers might be trained and educated in Christ to build His body,
which is the
Church."
"In the Apostolic Letter, formulated as a Motu Proprio, 'Ubicumque et
sempter' of 21 September, 2010, I instituted the Pontifical Council for
Promoting New Evangelisation to pursue 'its own ends both by encouraging
reflection on topics of the new
evangelisation, and by identifying and promoting suitable ways and means to
accomplish it'. In particular, I wanted to assign the task of promoting 'the
use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as an essential and complete
formulation of the content
of the faith for the people of our time' to the new dicastery."
"Given all this, I believe it opportune that that dicastery assume as part
of its institutional tasks the one of caring for, on behalf of the Roman
Pontiff, the relevant instrument of evangelisation that the Catechism, along
with catechetical
teaching in all its diverse forms, represents for the Church in order to bring
about a more organic and effective pastoral outreach. This new pontifical
council will be able to provide the local churches and the diocesan bishops an
appropriate service
in this area."
"Accepting the agreement proposed by the heads of the dicasteries
concerned, therefore, I have decided to transfer the competency for catechesis
that the Apostolic Constitution 'Pastor bonus' had entrusted to the
Congregation for the Clergy on 28
June 1988, to the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, with
the same jurisdiction in the matter as previously exercised by the
Congregation as required by canon law."
___________________________________________________________
WORLD DAY FOR THE FIGHT AGAINST LEPROSY: INTENSIFYING THE SERVICE OF
CHARITY
Vatican City, 25 January 2013 (VIS) – This Sunday, 27 January, will
mark the 60th World Day for the Fight Against Leprosy. For the occasion,
Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral
Assistance to Health Care
Workers, has published a message entitled: "A Fitting Occasion for
Intensifying the Service of Charity". In the text of the document the
archbishop notes that Hansen's disease is "a malady that is as old as it is
grave when we consider the suffering,
the social exclusion and the poverty that [it] involves".
"According to the most recent data of the WHO," the message states, "about
220,000 people?men, women and children?contracted leprosy in 2011 and many of
these new cases were diagnosed when the disease was at an advanced stage.
These data demonstrate
the continuation?notwithstanding the praiseworthy action of international and
national, governmental and non-governmental, institutions, such as the WHO and
the Raoul Follereau Foundation and the Sasakawa Foundation?of a still
insufficient level of
access to centres that offer diagnoses and of a lack of education as regards
prevention in communities that run the risk of contagion, as well as the need
for specifically designed medico-hygienic initiatives. All of this is
fundamental in the case of
leprosy, which by now does not lead to death if it is suitably treated, as it
is the case, to a greater extent, of the other ‘neglected
iseases’ ... These are pathologies that constitute authentic
scourges in some parts of the world but which do not receive sufficient
attention from the international community; amongst these pathologies we find
dengue fever, sleeping sickness, bilharziosis, onchocerciasis, leishmaniasis,
and trachoma."
"In the face of such a health-care emergency, in the light of the Year of
Faith as well, and with the wish to commit ourselves increasingly intensely,
as Catholics, to carrying out what Jesus requested by his commandment
‘Euntes docete et
curate infirmos’ and by our baptism, I wish to renew my invitation to
work to ensure that this Sixtieth World Leprosy Day constitutes a new
‘fitting occasion for intensifying the service of charity in our
ecclesial communities, so that each
one of us can be a good Samaritan for others, for those close to
us’."
"An equally important role should also be played by all those people who
are victims of leprosy, who are called to cooperate in the establishment of a
more inclusive and just society that will allow the integration of those
people who have been cured
of leprosy; in spreading and promoting its forms of diagnosis and treatment;
in stressing the need to receive therapies so as to be cured, thereby
contributing to a weakening of the disease; and in distributing those
medico-hygienic criteria that are
indispensable to hindering its further propagation in the contexts to which
they belong."
"As a Christian, a person who has been afflicted by leprosy also has the
possibility of living his or her condition in a perspective of faith,
‘finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite
love’, praying and
offering up his or her suffering for the good of the Church and humanity. In
awareness that what has been emphasised is certainly not easy, and requires
charity towards themselves and their neighbours, hope, courage, patience and
determination, I would
like to observe, employing the words of St. Paul, that none of us
‘received a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear’: we have
‘received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, "Abba,
Father!"’. And, ‘if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with
him so that we may also be glorified with him’. Even in the most adverse
situations, a Christian is certain that ‘nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’," concludes the text.
___________________________________________________________
AUDIENCES
Vatican City, 25 January 2013 (VIS) – This morning, the Holy Father
received in separate audiences:
- Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the
Evangelisation of Peoples, and
- Mr. Nikolay Sadchikov, ambassador of the Russian Federation, on his
farewell visit.
___________________________________________________________
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican City, 25 January 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father:
- accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of
Kalookan, Philippines presented by Bishop Deogracias S. Iniguez in accordance
with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
- appointed Bishop Buenaventura Malayo Famadico as bishop of San Pablo
(area 1,203, population 2,821,000, Catholics 2,466,000, priests 172, religious
508), Philippines. Bishop Famadico was born in 1956 in Banton, Romblon,
Philippines, was ordained to
the priesthood in 1983, and received episcopal ordination in 2002. He was
previously bishop of Gumaca, Philippines from 2003. He succeeds Bishop Leo M.
Drona, S.D.B., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of San
Pablo the Holy Father
accepted, in accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
___________________________________________________________
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