VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 153   
   DATE 10-09-2015   
      
   Summary:   
   - Audience with the prime minister of Kuwait: the importance of education in   
   promoting respect and peaceful coexistence of peoples and religions   
   - To new bishops: no sphere of human existence is excluded from the pastor's   
   interest   
   - The Pope receives the Equipes Notre Dame: Christian couples are in a better   
   condition to announce Jesus Christ to other families   
   - The Holy Father to visit Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic in   
   November   
   - Audiences   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Audience with the prime minister of Kuwait: the importance of education in   
   promoting respect and peaceful coexistence of peoples and religions   
    Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) - Today the Holy Father Francis received   
   in audience His Highness Sheik Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, prime minister   
   of the State of Kuwait, who subsequently met with Cardinal Secretary of State   
   Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, secretary for   
   Relations with States.   
    During the cordial discussions, various themes of mutual interest were   
   reviewed, including the positive contribution that the historical Christian   
   minority offers to Kuwaiti society. The Parties also focused on the importance   
   of education in promoting a culture of respect and peaceful coexistence between   
   the different peoples and religions.   
    A Memorandum of Understanding between the Secretariat of State and the   
   Ministry   
   of Foreign Affairs of the State of Kuwait was then signed by Archbishop Paul R.   
   Gallagher and Sheik Sabah Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, first deputy prime minister   
   and minister for foreign affairs. With this instrument the Parties undertake to   
   consolidate and strengthen bilateral relations in order to favour mutual   
   collaboration, peace and regional and international stability.   
    The agreement further strengthens the bonds of collaboration in the political   
   and cultural spheres, and offers tools for consultation between the Parties. It   
   entered into effect immediately upon signing.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    To new bishops: no sphere of human existence is excluded from the pastor's   
   interest   
    Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) - The bishops are witnesses to the risen   
   Christ, educators, spiritual guides and catechists, mystagogues and   
   missionaries, Pope Francis affirmed this morning as he received in audience in   
   the Clementine Hall the new bishops ordained during the past year. They were   
   accompanied by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for   
   Bishops, and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the   
   Oriental Churches. The following are extensive extracts from the Holy Father's   
   address.   
    "Bishops .. are witnesses of the Resurrected Christ. This is your primary and   
   indispensable task. You have been entrusted the preaching of the reality that   
   holds up the entire edifice of the Church. Jesus is risen! ... We too will be   
   resurrected with Christ. ... This is not an obvious or easy proclamation. The   
   world is so content with ... what it is seemingly able to provide that appears   
   useful to suppress the demand for what is definitive. ... However, we are   
   assailed   
   by questions, the answers to which can only come from a definitive future. ...   
   How   
   can we face our difficult present if our sense of belonging to the community of   
   the Risen Christ fades? Will we be able to remember the greatness of human   
   destiny if there abates in us the courage to subordinate our life to the love   
   that does not die?".   
    "I think of great challenges such as globalisation, which brings together   
   those   
   who are distant from each other yet at the same time separates those who are   
   close; I think of the epochal phenomenon of migration that unsettles our times;   
   I think of the natural environment, the garden God gave to us as the habitat   
   for   
   human beings and for other creatures, threatened by short-sighted and often   
   predatory exploitation; I think of the dignity and future of human work, of   
   which entire generations are deprived; I think of the desertification of   
   relationships, a widespread abdication of responsibility ... the bewilderment   
   of   
   many young people and the solitude of many elderly. ... I do not wish to focus   
   on   
   this agenda of tasks to complete as I do not want to alarm you. ... I wish   
   only to   
   offer to you the joy of the Gospel. ... Remember always that it is the Gospel   
   that   
   protects you and therefore do not be afraid to go everywhere and to be with   
   those whom God has entrusted to you. ... No sphere of human life is excluded   
   from   
   the interest of the heart of the pastor. ... Be on your guard against the   
   danger   
   of neglecting the many and singular situations of the members of your flock; do   
   not renounce encounters with them; do not spare preaching of the living Word of   
   the Lord; invite all to the mission".   
    Bishops as educators, spiritual guides and catechists   
    "With those who are at home, who frequent your communities and partake of the   
   Eucharist, I invite you to be educators, spiritual guides and catechists, able   
   to take them by the hand and to lead them up Mount Tabor, guiding them in the   
   knowledge of the mystery they profess. ... Do not spare any efforts in   
   accompanying them and do not let them resign themselves to staying on the   
   plain".   
    Bishops as mystagogues   
    "I think of baptised people who do not however respond to the demands of their   
   Baptism. Perhaps it has long been thought that the land on which the seed of   
   the   
   Gospel falls is not in need of care. Some have drifted away as they are   
   disillusioned by the promises of faith or perhaps because the path to realising   
   them has appeared too challenging. Some instead leave, slamming the door behind   
   them, holding our weaknesses against us or seeking, while not entirely   
   successfully, to convince themselves that they had been deceived by hopes that   
   were ultimately dashed. Be bishops able to intercept their path. ... Do not be   
   scandalised by their pain or their disappointments. Enlighten them with a   
   humble   
   flame ... always able to illuminate those who are reached by its light that is,   
   however, never blinding. Devote time to meeting them on the road to their   
   Emmaus. Offer them words that show to them what they are still unable to see:   
   the hidden potential of their very delusions. ... More than with words, warm   
   their   
   hearts by humbly listening, interested in what is truly good for them, so that   
   they open their eyes and are able to reverse course, returning to Him, from   
   Whom   
   they had drifted.   
    Bishops as missionaries   
    "As pastors and missionaries of God's gratuitous salvation, seek also those   
   who   
   do not know Jesus or have simply refused Him. Go in their direction ... without   
   fear or unease. ... It is not true that we can do without these distant   
   brothers.   
   It is not permissible for us to dispense with our concerns about their fate.   
   ...   
   Seeing in us the Lord Who calls to them, perhaps they will have the courage to   
   respond to the divine invitation. If so, our communities will be enriched by   
   what they have to share and our Pastors' hearts will rejoice to repeat once   
   more, "Today salvation has come to this house".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    The Pope receives the Equipes Notre Dame: Christian couples are in a better   
   condition to announce Jesus Christ to other families   
    Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) - This morning in the Paul VI Hall the   
   Pope received in audience the participants in the International Meeting of the   
   Equipes Notre Dame (Teams of Our Lady, END), held in Rome on the theme, "Here I   
   am Lord, send me". The Equipes are a lay movement focusing on married   
   spirituality, established in response to the needs of couples to live fully the   
   sacrament of marriage, using its own method and exploring the complex reality   
   of   
   married couples today. The END were founded in France in 1938 upon the   
   initiative of a number of couples and the priest Fr. Henri Caffarel, whose   
   cause   
   for beatification has been received in Rome.   
    Recalling the upcoming Synod on the family, Francis invited the members of the   
   END to pray for the Synod Fathers and for what they must reflect upon in the   
   assembly on the "vital cell of our societies ... in the difficult current   
   cultural   
   context", and devoted his discourse primarily to the missionary role of the   
   Equipes Notre Dame.   
    "Christian couples and families are often in the best position to announce   
   Jesus Christ to other families, to support them, to strengthen and encourage   
   them. What you live in the couple and the family - accompanied by the charism   
   typical of your movement - this profound and unique joy that the Lord enables   
   you to experience in the intimacy of domestic life, between joy and suffering,   
   you must bear witness to ... so that others, in turn, take the same path".   
    The Pope encouraged all the couples to live deeply the "concrete aspects of   
   commitment" of the movement, such as prayer in couples and in the family, a   
   "beautiful and necessary tradition that has always supported the faith and hope   
   of Christians, and unfortunately abandoned in many regions of the world". He   
   also emphasised the importance of monthly dialogue between spouses, "that   
   well-known and challenging 'need to sit down' that is counter to the habits of   
   our frenetic and agitated world riven with individualism". Finally,   
   participation in the life of a team brings "the wealth of teaching and sharing,   
   as well as the help and comfort of friendship". In this respect Francis   
   underlined the mutual fruitfulness of meeting with the accompanying priests,   
   and   
   thanked the couples of the END for the support and encouragement in the   
   ministry   
   of their priests "who always find, in contact with your Equipes and your   
   families, priestly joy, fraternal presence, emotional balance and spiritual   
   paternity".   
    The missionary task of the movement is of supreme importance and the Holy   
   Father indicated various fields of action, such as accompanying young couples   
   and forming them in faith before and after marriage, or closeness to wounded   
   families, "of whom there are so many these days, due to unemployment, ...   
   health   
   problems, bereavement ... the imbalance caused by distance or absence, or a   
   climate of violence. We must have the courage to enter into contact with these   
   families, in a discreet but generous way, materially, humanly and spiritually,   
   in those circumstances in which they are vulnerable".   
    Finally, the Pope encouraged couples to "be instruments of the mercy of Christ   
   and the Church towards those whose marriage has failed. Never forget that your   
   conjugal fidelity is a gift from God, and that mercy has been shown to every   
   one   
   of us. A united and happy couple can understand better than any other, from   
   within, the harm and the suffering caused by abandonment, betrayal, and a lack   
   of love. It is necessary, therefore, that you bring your witness and your   
   experience to help Christian communities to discern the real situations in   
   which   
   these people find themselves, to welcome them with their wounds, and to help   
   them to journey in faith and in truth, under the gaze of Christ the Good   
   Shepherd, to take part in the life of the Church in an appropriate way. Nor   
   must   
   you forget the unspeakable suffering of the children who experience these   
   painful family situations.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    The Holy Father to visit Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic in   
   November   
    Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) - Accepting the invitation issued by the   
   respective Heads of State and the bishops, Pope Francis will make an apostolic   
   trip to Kenya from 25 to 27 November 2015, Uganda from 27 to 29 November, and   
   the Central African Republic from 29 to 30 November. The programme of the trip   
   will be published in due course.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Audiences   
    Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in   
   audience Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, apostolic nuncio in Canada.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
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