Subject: VISnews 111111   
   Organization: VIS - Ufficio Stampa della Santa Sede   
   From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt    
      
   VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
      
   TWENTY FIRST YEAR - N. 195   
   ENGLISH   
   FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2011   
      
   SUMMARY:   
      
   - Volunteer Work: a Reason for Confidence in a Time of Crisis   
   - Audiences   
   - Other Pontifical Acts   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
   VOLUNTEER WORK: A REASON FOR CONFIDENCE IN A TIME OF CRISIS   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 11 NOV 2011 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican, the Pope   
   received bishops with pastoral responsibility for charitable work and   
   representatives of European charity organisations. They are currently   
   participating in a meeting promoted by the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum" in   
   the context of the European Year of Volunteering.   
      
     "At the present time, marked as it is by crisis and uncertainty", the Pope   
   began, speaking English, "your commitment is a reason for confidence, since   
   it shows that goodness exists and that it is growing in our midst. ... For   
   Christians, volunteer work is not merely an expression of good will. It is   
   based on a personal experience of Christ", Whose "grace helps us to discover   
   within ourselves a human desire for solidarity and a fundamental vocation to   
   love. ... We also become visible instruments of His love in a world that   
   still profoundly yearns for that love amid the poverty, loneliness,   
   marginalisation and ignorance that we see all around us.   
      
     "Of course", he added, "Catholic volunteer work cannot respond to all   
   these needs, but that does not discourage us. ... The little that we manage   
   to do to relieve human needs can be seen as a good seed that will grow and   
   bear much fruit; it is a sign of Christ's presence and love. ... This is the   
   nature of the witness which you, in all humility and conviction, offer to   
   civil society. While it is the duty of public authority to acknowledge and   
   to appreciate this contribution without distorting it, your role as   
   Christians is to take an active part in the life of society, seeking to make   
   it ever more humane, ever more marked by authentic freedom, justice and   
   solidarity".   
      
     Benedict XVI went on: "Our meeting today takes place on the liturgical   
   memorial of St. Martin of Tours. Often portrayed sharing his mantle with a   
   poor man, Martin became a model of charity throughout Europe and indeed the   
   whole world. Nowadays, volunteer work as a service of charity has become a   
   universally recognised element of our modern culture. Nonetheless, its   
   origins can still be seen in the particularly Christian concern for   
   safeguarding, without discrimination, the dignity of the human person   
   created in the image and likeness of God. If these spiritual roots are   
   denied or obscured and the criteria of our collaboration become purely   
   utilitarian, what is most distinctive about the service you provide risks   
   being lost, to the detriment of society as a whole".   
      
     The Pope concluded his remarks by inviting young people "to discover in   
   volunteer work a way to grow in the self-giving love which gives life its   
   deepest meaning".   
   AC/                                                                     VIS   
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   AUDIENCES   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 11 NOV 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in   
   audience:   
      
    - Archbishop Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the   
   Evangelisation of Peoples.   
      
    - Cardinal Velasio De Paolis C.S., president emeritus of the Prefecture for   
   the Economic Affairs of the Holy See.   
   AP/                                                                     VIS   
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   OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 11 NOV 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father:   
      
    - Appointed Msgr. Janusz Stepnowski of the clergy of Lomza, Poland, bureau   
   chief of the Congregation for Bishops, as bishop of Lomza (area 11,500,   
   population 554,433, Catholics 548,548, priests 497, religious 183). The   
   bishop-elect was born in Ostroleka, Poland in 1958 and ordained a priest in   
   1985. He studied in Spain, then in Italy where he also worked in pastoral   
   care in the diocese of Terni. In Rome, apart from his service at the   
   Congregation for Bishops, he has worked for the Tribunal of the Roman Rota   
   and as chaplain at the Convent of the Daughters of the Presentation. He   
   succeeds Bishop Stanislaw Stefanek, whose resignation from the pastoral care   
   of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age   
   limit.   
      
    - Appointed Bishop Carlos Alberto de Pinho Moreira Azevedo, auxiliary of   
   Lisbon, Portugal, as delegate of the Pontifical Council for Culture.   
   NER:RE:NA/                                                              VIS   
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   _____________________________________________   
      
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