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VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - N° 233
DATE 21-12-2012
Summary:
- FAMILY, DIALOGUE, NEW EVANGELISATION: CENTRAL THEMES OF BENEDICT XVI'S
ADDRESS TO THE CURIA
- AUDIENCES
- OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
___________________________________________________________
FAMILY, DIALOGUE, NEW EVANGELISATION: CENTRAL THEMES OF BENEDICT XVI'S ADDRESS
TO THE CURIA
Vatican City, 21 December 2012 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father received
the cardinals and members of the Roman Curia and the Governorate of Vatican
City State for the traditional exchange of Christmas and New Year greetings.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano,
dean of the College of Cardinals, greeted the Pope in the name of those
present.
Given below are ample extracts from Benedict XVI's address.
"Once again we find ourselves at the end of a year that has seen all kinds of
difficult situations, important questions and challenges, but also signs of
hope, both in the Church and in the world. I shall mention just a few key
elements regarding the
life of the Church and my Petrine ministry. First of all, ... there were the
journeys to Mexico and Cuba – unforgettable encounters with the power of
faith, so deeply rooted in human hearts, and with the joie de vivre that
issues from faith".
Events 2012
"In Mexico, I recall how the great liturgy beside the statue of Christ the
King made Christ's kingship present among us – His peace, His justice,
His truth. All this took place against the backdrop of the country's problems,
afflicted as it is by
many different forms of violence and the hardships of economic dependence.
While these problems cannot be solved simply by religious fervour, neither can
they be solved without the inner purification of hearts that issues from the
power of faith, from
the encounter with Jesus Christ. And then there was Cuba – here too
there were great liturgical celebrations, in which the singing, the praying
and the silence made tangibly present the One that the country's authorities
had tried for so long to
exclude. That country's search for a proper balancing of the relationship
between obligations and freedom cannot succeed without reference to the basic
criteria that mankind has discovered through encounter with the God of Jesus
Chri
st".
"As further key moments in the course of the year, I should like to single out
the great Meeting of Families in Milan and the visit to Lebanon, where I
consigned the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation that is intended to offer
signposts for the life of
churches and society in the Middle East along the difficult paths of unity and
peace. The last major event of the year was the Synod on the New
Evangelisation, which also served as a collective inauguration of the Year of
Faith, in which we commemorate
the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago, seeking to
understand it anew and appropriate it anew in the changed circumstances of
today".
Family
"The great joy with which families from all over the world congregated in
Milan indicates that, despite all impressions to the contrary, the family is
still strong and vibrant today. But there is no denying the crisis that
threatens it to its
foundations – especially in the western world. ... The challenges
involved are manifold. First of all there is the question of the human
capacity to make a commitment or to avoid commitment. ... Man's refusal to
make any commitment – which
is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of
freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering –
means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his 'I' ultimately for
himself, without
really rising above it. ... When such commitment is repudiated, the key
figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child –
essential elements of the experience of being human are lost".
"The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and
profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the
true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much
deeper. While up to
now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one
cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very
notion of being – of what being human really means – is being
called into question. He
quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: 'one is not born a woman, one
becomes so' (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the
foundation for what is put forward today under the term 'gender' as a new
philosophy of sexuality.
According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that
man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we
choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. ... Pe
ople
dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that
serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and
decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make
it for themselves.
According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and
female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an
essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This
very duality as something
previously given is what is now disputed. ... Man calls his nature into
question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of
nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes
man's fundamental choice where
he himself is concerned. ... But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man
and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality
established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had
occupied hither
to and
the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a
subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right
and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes
the freedom to
create oneself, then necessarily the Maker Himself is denied and ultimately
man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God
at the core of his being".
Dialogue
"At this point I would like to address the second major theme, ... the
question of dialogue and proclamation. Let us speak firstly of dialogue. For
the Church in our day I see three principal areas of dialogue, in which she
must be present in the
struggle for man and his humanity: dialogue with states, dialogue with society
– which includes dialogue with cultures and with science – and
finally dialogue with religions. In all these dialogues the Church speaks on
the basis of the light
given her by faith. But at the same time she incorporates the memory of
mankind, which is a memory of man's experiences and sufferings from the
beginnings and down the centuries, in which she has learned about the human
condition ... Human culture, of
which she is a guarantee, has developed from the encounter between divine
revelation and human existence. The Church represents the memory of what it
means to be human in the face of a civilization of forgetfulness, which knows
only itse
lf and
its own criteria. Yet just as an individual without memory has lost his
identity, so too a human race without memory would lose its identity. ... In
her dialogue with the state and with society, the Church does not, of course,
have ready answers for
individual questions. Along with other forces in society, she will wrestle for
the answers that best correspond to the truth of the human condition. The
values that she recognizes as fundamental and non-negotiable for the human
condition she must
propose with all clarity. She must do all she can to convince, and this can
then stimulate political action".
"In man's present situation, the dialogue of religions is a necessary
condition for peace in the world and it is therefore a duty for Christians as
well as other religious communities. This dialogue of religions has various
dimensions. In the first
place it is simply a dialogue of life, a dialogue of being together. This will
not involve discussing the great themes of faith – whether God is
Trinitarian or how the inspiration of the sacred Scriptures is to be
understood, and so on. It is
about the concrete problems of coexistence and shared responsibility for
society, for the state, for humanity. In the process, it is necessary to learn
to accept the other in his otherness and the otherness of his thinking. To
this end, the shared
responsibility for justice and peace must become the guiding principle of the
conversation. A dialogue about peace and justice is bound to pass beyond the
purely pragmatic to an ethical struggle for the truth and for the human being:
a dialogue
concerning the values that come before everything. In this way what began as a
purely practical dialogue becomes a quest for the right way to live as a human
being. ... Thus this search can also mean taking common steps towards the one
truth, even if
the fundamental choices remain unaltered. If both sides set out from a
hermeneutic of justice and peace, the fundamental difference will not
disappear, but a deeper closeness will emerge nevertheless".
"Two rules are generally regarded nowadays as fundamental for inter-religious
dialogue:1. Dialogue does not aim at conversion, but at understanding. In this
respect it differs from evangelisation, from mission. 2. Accordingly, both
parties to the
dialogue remain consciously within their identity, which the dialogue does not
place in question either for themselves or for the other".
"True, dialogue does not aim at conversion, but at better mutual understanding
– that is correct. But all the same, the search for knowledge and
understanding always has to involve drawing closer to the truth. Both sides in
this piece-by-piece
approach to truth are therefore on the path that leads forward and towards
greater commonality, brought about by the oneness of the truth. ... I would
say that the Christian can afford to be supremely confident, yes,
fundamentally certain that he can
venture freely into the open sea of the truth, without having to fear for his
Christian identity. To be sure, we do not possess the truth, the truth
possesses us: Christ, Who is the truth, has taken us by the hand, and we know
that His hand is holding
us securely on the path of our quest for knowledge".
New evangelisation
"Finally, at least a brief word should be added on the subject of
proclamation, or evangelisation. ... The word of proclamation is effective in
situations where man is listening in readiness for God to draw near, where man
is inwardly searching and thus
on the way towards the Lord. His heart is touched when Jesus turns towards
him, and then his encounter with the proclamation becomes a holy curiosity to
come to know Jesus better. As he walks with Jesus, he is led to the place
where Jesus lives, to the
community of the Church, which is His body. That means entering into the
journeying community of catechumens, a community of both learning and living,
in which our eyes are opened as we walk".
"'Come and see!' This saying, addressed by Jesus to the two seeker-disciples,
He also addresses to the seekers of today. At the end of the year, we pray to
the Lord that the Church, despite all her shortcomings, may be increasingly
recognizable as His
dwelling-place. We ask Him to open our eyes ever wider as we make our way to
His house, so that we can say ever more clearly, ever more convincingly: 'we
have found Him for Whom the whole world is waiting, Jesus Christ, the true Son
of God and true
man'. With these sentiments, I wish you all from my heart a blessed Christmas
and a happy New Year".
___________________________________________________________
AUDIENCES
Vatican City, 21 December 2012 (VIS) - This afternoon the Holy Father will
receive in audience Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for
the Evangelisation of Peoples.
___________________________________________________________
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican City, 21 December 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop
Devprasad John Ganawa S.V.D. of Jhabua, India, as bishop of Udaipur (area
47,000, population 8,224,000, Catholics 24,265, priests 71, religious 217),
India. He succeeds Bishop
Joseph Pathalil, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese
the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.
___________________________________________________________
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VISnews121221
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE YEAR XXII - N° 233DATE 21-12-2012
Summary: - FAMILY, DIALOGUE, NEW
EVANGELISATION: CENTRAL THEMES OF
BENEDICT XVI'S ADDRESS TO THE CURIA - AUDIENCES - OTHER PONTIFICAL
ACTS
FAMILY, DIALOGUE, NEW EVANGELISATION: CENTRAL THEMES OF BENEDICT XVI'S
ADDRESS TO THE CURIA
Vatican City, 21 December 2012 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father
received the cardinals and members of the Roman Curia and the Governorate of
Vatican City State for the traditional exchange of Christmas and New Year
greetings. Cardinal Angelo
Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, greeted the Pope in the name of
those present.
Given below are ample extracts from Benedict XVI's address.
"Once again we find ourselves at the end of a year that has seen all kinds
of difficult situations, important questions and challenges, but also signs of
hope, both in the Church and in the world. I shall mention just a few key
elements regarding the
life of the Church and my Petrine ministry. First of all, ... there were the
journeys to Mexico and Cuba – unforgettable encounters with the power of
faith, so deeply rooted in human hearts, and with the joie de vivre that
issues from faith".
Events 2012
"In Mexico, I recall how the great liturgy beside the statue of Christ the
King made Christ's kingship present among us – His peace, His justice,
His truth. All this took place against the backdrop of the country's problems,
afflicted as it is
by many different forms of violence and the hardships of economic dependence.
While these problems cannot be solved simply by religious fervour, neither can
they be solved without the inner purification of hearts that issues from the
power of faith,
from the encounter with Jesus Christ. And then there was Cuba – here too
there were great liturgical celebrations, in which the singing, the praying
and the silence made tangibly present the One that the country's authorities
had tried for so long
to exclude. That country's search for a proper balancing of the relationship
between obligations and freedom cannot succeed without reference to the basic
criteria that mankind has discovered through
encounter with the God of Jesus Christ".
"As further key moments in the course of the year, I should like to single
out the great Meeting of Families in Milan and the visit to Lebanon, where I
consigned the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation that is intended to offer
signposts for the life
of churches and society in the Middle East along the difficult paths of unity
and peace. The last major event of the year was the Synod on the New
Evangelisation, which also served as a collective inauguration of the Year of
Faith, in which we
commemorate the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago, seeking
to understand it anew and appropriate it anew in the changed circumstances of
today".
Family
"The great joy with which families from all over the world congregated in
Milan indicates that, despite all impressions to the contrary, the family is
still strong and vibrant today. But there is no denying the crisis that
threatens it to its
foundations – especially in the western world. ... The challenges
involved are manifold. First of all there is the question of the human
capacity to make a commitment or to avoid commitment. ... Man's refusal to
make any commitment – which
is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of
freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering –
means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his 'I' ultimately for
himself, without
really rising above it. ... When such commitment is repudiated, the key
figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child –
essential elements of the experience of being human are
lost".
"The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed
and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on
the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes
much deeper. While up
to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one
cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very
notion of being – of what being human really means – is being
called into question. He
quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: 'one is not born a woman, one
becomes so' (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the
foundation for what is put forward today under the term 'gender' as a new
philosophy of sexuality.
According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that
man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we
choose for ourselves, while in the past it was
chosen for us by society. ... People dispute the idea that they have a nature,
given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human
being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously
given to them, but
that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account,
being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human
creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all
about, as ordained by
God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed.
... Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and
will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment
is concerned, now
becomes man's fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. ... But if
there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is
the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child
has
lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him.
Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child
has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right
to obtain. When the
freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily
the Maker Himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity
as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being".
Dialogue
"At this point I would like to address the second major theme, ... the
question of dialogue and proclamation. Let us speak firstly of dialogue. For
the Church in our day I see three principal areas of dialogue, in which she
must be present in the
struggle for man and his humanity: dialogue with states, dialogue with society
– which includes dialogue with cultures and with science – and
finally dialogue with religions. In all these dialogues the Church speaks on
the basis of the light
given her by faith. But at the same time she incorporates the memory of
mankind, which is a memory of man's experiences and sufferings from the
beginnings and down the centuries, in which she has learned about the human
condition ... Human culture, of
which she is a guarantee, has developed from the encounter between divine
revelation and human existence. The Church represents the memory of what it
means to be human in the face of a civilization of forgetfulness, which
knows only itself and its own criteria. Yet just as an individual without
memory has lost his identity, so too a human race without memory would lose
its identity. ... In her dialogue with the state and with society, the Church
does not, of course, have
ready answers for individual questions. Along with other forces in society,
she will wrestle for the answers that best correspond to the truth of the
human condition. The values that she recognizes as fundamental and
non-negotiable for the human
condition she must propose with all clarity. She must do all she can to
convince, and this can then stimulate political action".
"In man's present situation, the dialogue of religions is a necessary
condition for peace in the world and it is therefore a duty for Christians as
well as other religious communities. This dialogue of religions has various
dimensions. In the first
place it is simply a dialogue of life, a dialogue of being together. This will
not involve discussing the great themes of faith – whether God is
Trinitarian or how the inspiration of the sacred Scriptures is to be
understood, and so on. It is
about the concrete problems of coexistence and shared responsibility for
society, for the state, for humanity. In the process, it is necessary to learn
to accept the other in his otherness and the otherness of his thinking. To
this end, the shared
responsibility for justice and peace must become the guiding principle of the
conversation. A dialogue about peace and justice is bound to pass beyond the
purely pragmatic to an ethical struggle for the truth and for the human
being: a dialogue concerning the values that come before everything. In this
way what began as a purely practical dialogue becomes a quest for the right
way to live as a human being. ... Thus this search can also mean taking common
steps towards the one
truth, even if the fundamental choices remain unaltered. If both sides set out
from a hermeneutic of justice and peace, the fundamental difference will not
disappear, but a deeper closeness will emerge nevertheless".
"Two rules are generally regarded nowadays as fundamental for
inter-religious dialogue:1. Dialogue does not aim at conversion, but at
understanding. In this respect it differs from evangelisation, from mission.
2. Accordingly, both parties to the
dialogue remain consciously within their identity, which the dialogue does not
place in question either for themselves or for the other".
--- NetMgr/2 1.0y+
* Origin: NetMgr+ @ Sursum Corda! BBS Meridian MS USA (1:396/45)
