SUMMARY:
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POPE PRAYS FOR VICTIMS OF FIRE IN BRAZILIAN DISCOTHEQUE
-
INDULGENCES FOR THE WORLD DAY OF THE SICK
-
CHRISTIAN MEANING OF 'CARPE DIEM'
-
HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY: THAT HORRORS OF THE PAST NOT BE REPEATED
-
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAITH AND MARRIAGE, THEME OF POPE'S ADDRESS TO
TRIBUNAL OF THE ROMAN ROTA
-
ECUMENISM: WALKING BEYOND BARRIERS
-
AUDIENCES
-
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
______________________________________
POPE
PRAYS FOR VICTIMS OF FIRE IN BRAZILIAN DISCOTHEQUE
Vatican
City, 28 January 2013 (VIS) – Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio
Bertone, S.D.B., in the Holy Father's name, sent a telegram to
Archbishop Helio Adelar Rubert of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul,
Brazil, for the death of 231 youths on Saturday in a fire at a
discotheque of that locality.
"The
Pope," reads the text, "shocked by the tragic death of
hundreds of young people … asks that you express his deepest
condolences to the families of the victims, sharing in the sorrow of
all those who mourn them. He entrusts the dead to God, the Father of
mercy, and prays for the comfort and restoration of the wounded and
for the courage and consolation of all those affected by the tragedy.
He sends his apostolic blessing to all those who are suffering and
those who are assisting them."
INDULGENCES
FOR THE WORLD DAY OF THE SICK
Vatican
City, 28 January 2013 (VIS) – Benedict XVI will grant Plenary
Indulgence to the faithful participating in the 21st World Day of the
Sick to be celebrated 7–11 February, in Altotting, Germany
according to a decree published today and signed by Cardinal Manuel
Monteiro de Castro and Bishop Krzysztof Nykiel, respectively
penitentiary major and regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary.
Persons
following the example of the Good Samaritan, who "with a spirit
of faith and a merciful soul, put themselves at the service of their
brothers and sisters who are suffering or who, if sick, endure the
pains and hardships of life … bearing witness to the faith through
the path of the Gospel of suffering" will obtain the Plenary
Indulgence, once a day and under the usual conditions (sacramental
Confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer in keeping with the
intentions of the Holy Father), applicable also to the souls of
deceased faithful:
A)
each time from 7–11 February, in the Marian Shrine of Altotting or
at any other place decided by the ecclesiastical authorities, that
they participate in a ceremony held to beseech God to grant the goals
of the World Day of the Sick, praying the Our Father, the Creed, and
an invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Faithful
in public hospitals or any private house who, like the Good
Samaritan, charitably assist the ill and who, because of such
service, cannot attend the aforementioned celebrations, will obtain
the same gift of Plenary Indulgence if, for at least a few hours on
that day, they generously provide their charitable assistance to the
sick as if they were tending to Christ the Lord Himself and pray the
Our Father, the Creed, and an invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary,
with their soul removed from attachment to any form of sin and with
the intention of carrying out as soon as possible that which is
necessary to obtain the plenary indulgence.
The
faithful who because of illness, advance age, or other similar
reasons cannot take part in the aforementioned celebrations will
obtain the Plenary Indulgence if, with their soul removed from
attachment to any form of sin and with the intention of carrying out
as soon as possible the usual conditions, spiritually participating
in the sacred events of the determined days, particularly through
liturgical celebrations and the Supreme Pontiff's message broadcast
by television or radio, they pray for all the sick and offer their
physical and spiritual suffering to God through the Virgin Mary,
'Salus Infirmorum' (Health of the Sick).
B)
Partial Indulgence will be conceded to all the faithful who, between
the indicated days, with a contrite heart raise devout prayers to the
merciful Lord beseeching assistance for the sick in spirit during
this Year of Faith.
CHRISTIAN
MEANING OF 'CARPE DIEM'
Vatican
City, 27 January 2013 (VIS) – "Each moment can be the
auspicious 'today' of our conversion. Each day can be the salvific
'today' because salvation is a continuous story for the Church and
for each of Christ's disciples. This is the Christian meaning of
'carpe diem'; seize the day that God calls on you to offer you
salvation." These were the words that the Pope addressed to the
faithful gathered at noon today in St. Peter's Square to pray the
Angelus.
As
is customary, Benedict XVI commented on the Sunday liturgy's
readings, particularly the Gospel where St. Luke speaks of Jesus'
presence in the synagogue of Nazareth on a Saturday. "As an
observer believer, the Lord does not avoid the weekly liturgy rhythm
and joins in with the assembly of his fellow countryman to pray and
listen to the Scriptures. The rite called for a reading from the
Torah or from the Prophets, followed by a commentary. That day, Jesus
rose to read and found the passage from the prophet Isaiah that
begins: 'The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has
anointed me; He has sent me to bring Good News to the afflicted.'"
On finishing the reading, "in an attentive silence, Jesus says:
'Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.' St.
Cyril of Alexandria affirms that 'today', situated between Jesus'
first and His final coming, corresponds to the believer's ability to
listen and repent. However, an even more radical meaning is that
Jesus himself is the 'today' of salvation history because He
completes the fullness of redemption."
"This
Gospel passage also challenges us 'today'. Firstly, it makes us think
of our way of living Sunday; it is a day of family and of rest but
even more, it is the day that we dedicate to the Lord, participating
in the Eucharist in which we are nourished with the Body and Blood of
Christ and with His life-giving Word. Secondly, in our times of
dispersion and distraction, this Gospel passage invites us to ask
ourselves about our ability to listen. Before we can speak of God and
with God, we have to listen to Him, and the Church's liturgy is the
'school' of this listening to the Lord who speaks to us."
After
praying the Angelus, the Pop released into the Roman sky two doves
that a boy and a girl from Catholic Action had brought to him to
conclude the Caravan of Peace in St. Peter's Square, the theme to
which the month of January is traditionally dedicated.
HOLOCAUST
REMEMBRANCE DAY: THAT HORRORS OF THE PAST NOT BE REPEATED
Vatican
City, 27 January 2013 (VIS) – On this International Remembrance Day
dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust,
Benedict XVI, after praying the Angelus, said: "The memory of
this enormous tragedy that so severely struck mainly the Jewish
people should represent for all a constant warning so that the
horrors of the past are not repeated, so that every form of hatred
and racism is overcome, and so that the respect and dignity of the
human person is promoted".
Today
also marks the 60th World Day for the Fight Against Leprosy and the
Pope expressed his "nearness to those suffering from that
disease" and encouraged the work of researchers, health care
workers, and volunteers in that area, particularly those who are part
of Catholic organizations and the association Friends of Raoul
Follereau. "I ask for the spiritual intercession of St. Damien
De Veuster and St. Marianna Cope?who gave their lives for those
afflicted by leprosy?for you all."
"This
Sunday," he continued, "also marks a special day of
intercession for peace in the Holy Land. I thank all those who are
promoting it in the different parts of the world and a special
greeting to those present here."
The
Pope concluded by addressing the Polish faithful. "Today I join
with the Church in Poland in giving thanks for the life and ministry
of the late Cardinal Jozef Glemp. May the Lord reward his pastoral
dedication and keep him in His glory!"
RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN FAITH AND MARRIAGE, THEME OF POPE'S ADDRESS TO TRIBUNAL OF
THE ROMAN ROTA
Vatican
City, 26 January 2013 (VIS) – This morning in the Clementine Hall
of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father received members of the
Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the opening of the
judicial year. His address, from which ample extracts follow, focused
on the relationship between faith and marriage in light of the
"current crisis of faith that affects various areas of the
world, bearing with it a crisis of conjugal society."
“The
Code of Canon Law defines the natural reality of marriage as the
irrevocable covenant between a man and a woman. Mutual trust, in
fact, is the indispensable basis of any agreement or covenant. On a
theological level, the relationship between faith and marriage has an
even deeper meaning. Even though a natural reality, the spousal bond
between two baptised persons has been elevated by Christ to the
dignity of a sacrament.”
“Contemporary
culture, marked by a strong subjectivism and an ethical and religious
relativism, poses serious challenges to the person and the family.
First, the very capacity of human beings to bond themselves to
another and whether a union that lasts an entire life is truly
possible. … Thinking that persons might become themselves while
remaining ‘autonomous’ and only entering into relationships with
others that can be interrupted at any time is part of a widespread
mentality. Everyone is aware of how a human being's choice to bind
themself with a bond lasting an entire life influences each person’s
basic perspective according to which they are either anchored to a
merely human plane or open themselves to the light of faith in the
Lord.”
"‘Whoever
remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me
you can do nothing,’ Jesus taught His disciples, reminding them of
the human being’s essential incapacity to carry out alone that
which is necessary for the true good. Rejecting the divine proposal
leads, in fact, to a profound imbalance in all human relationships,
including marriage, and facilitates an erroneous understanding of
freedom and self-realization. These, together with the flight from
patiently borne suffering, condemns humanity to becoming locked
within its own selfishness and self-centredness. On the contrary,
accepting faith makes human persons capable of giving themselves …
and thus of discovering the extent of being a human person."
“Faith
in God, sustained by God’s grace, is therefore a very important
element in living mutual devotion and conjugal faithfulness. This
does not mean to assert that faithfulness, among other properties,
are not possible in the legitimate marriage between unbaptised
couples. In fact, it is not devoid of goods that ‘come from God the
Creator and are included, in a certain inchoative way, in the marital
love that unites Christ with His Church’. But, of course, closing
oneself off from God or rejecting the sacred dimension of the
conjugal bond and its value in the order of grace make the concrete
embodiment of the highest model of marriage conceived of by the
Church, according to God’s plan, arduous. It may even undermine the
very validity of the covenant if … it results in a rejection of the
very principle of the conjugal obligation of faithfulness or of other
essential elements or properties of the marriage.”
“Tertullian,
in his famous “Letter to His Wife”, which speaks about married
life marked by faith, writes that Christian couples are truly ‘two
in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit too. Together
they pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their
fasts; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining one
another.’"
“The
saints who lived their matrimonial and familial union within a
Christian perspective were able to overcome even the most adverse
situations, sometimes achieving the sanctification of their spouse
and children through a love reinforced by a strong faith in God,
sincere religious piety, and an intense sacramental life. Such
experiences, marked by faith, allow us to understand, even today, how
precious is the sacrifice offered by the spouse who has been
abandoned or who has suffered a divorce—'being well aware that the
valid marriage bond is indissoluble, and refraining from becoming
involved in a new union. … In such cases their example of fidelity
and Christian consistency takes on particular value as a witness
before the world and the Church'.”
Lastly,
I would like to reflect briefly on the ‘bonum coniugum’. Faith is
important in carrying out the authentic conjugal good, which consists
simply in wanting, always and in every case, the welfare of the
other, on the basis of a true and indissoluble ‘consortium vitae’.
Indeed, the context of Christian spouses living a true ‘communio
coniugalis’ has its own dynamism of faith by which the
‘confessio’—the personal, sincere response to the announcement
of salvation—involves the believer in the action of God’s love.
‘Confessio' and ‘caritas’ are 'the two ways in which God
involves us, make us act with Him, in Him and for humanity, for His
creation. … “Confessio” is not an abstract thing, it is
“caritas”, it is love. Only in this way is it really the
reflection of divine truth, which as truth is also, inseparably,
love'.”
“Only
through the call of love, does the presence of the Gospel become not
just a word but a living reality. In other words, while it is true
that ‘Faith without charity bears no fruit, while charity without
faith would be a sentiment constantly at the mercy of doubt’, we
must conclude that ‘Faith and charity each require the other, in
such a way that each allows the other to set out along its respective
path.’ If this holds true in the broader context of communal life,
it should be even more valuable to the conjugal union. It is in that
union, in fact, that faith makes the spouses’ love grow and bear
fruit, giving space to the presence of the Triune God and making the
conjugal life itself, lived thusly, to be ‘joyful news’ to the
world.”
“I
recognize the difficulties, from a legal and a practical perspective,
in elucidating the essential element of the ‘bonum coniugum’,
understood so far mainly in relation to the circumstance of
invalidity. The ‘bonum coniugum’ also takes on importance in the
area of simulating consent. Certainly, in cases submitted to your
judgement, there will be an ‘in facto’ inquiry that can verify
the possible validity of the grounds for annulment, predominant to or
coexistent with the three Augustinian ‘goods’: procreativity,
exclusivity, and perpetuity. Therefore, don’t let it escape your
consideration that there might be cases where, precisely because of
the absence of faith, the good of the spouses is damaged and thus
excluded from the consent itself. For example, this can happen when
one member of the couple has an erroneous understanding of the
martial bond or of the principle of parity or when there is a refusal
of the dual union that characterizes the marital bond by either
excluding fidelity or by excluding the use of intercourse ‘humano
modo’.
“With
these considerations I certainly do not wish to suggest any facile
relationship between a lack of faith and the invalidity of a marital
union, but rather to highlight how such a deficiency may, but not
necessarily, damage the goods of marriage, since the reference to the
natural order desired by God is inherent to the conjugal covenant.”
ECUMENISM:
WALKING BEYOND BARRIERS
Vatican
City, 25 January 2013 (VIS) – This afternoon at 5:30pm, for the
feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Benedict XVI presided over
second Vespers in the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls. The
celebration marked the closure of the 46th Week of Prayer for
Christian Unity, which this year had the theme: "What does God
require of us?" Many representatives from other Churches and
ecclesial communities participated in the celebrations, including
Metropolitan-Archbishop Gennadios (Limouris), representing the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and Rev. Richardson,
representing the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"Communion
in the same faith is the basis for ecumenism," the Holy Father
said, emphasizing that "God gives us unity as something
inseparable from the faith" and that "the profession of
baptismal faith in God, the Father and Creator, who has revealed
Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ, pouring out the Spirit who gives
life and holiness already unites Christians. Without faith?which is
first a gift from God, but also the response of human persons?the
entire ecumenical movement would be reduced to a type of 'contract',
to adhere to out of common interest. … The doctrinal questions that
still divide us should not be overlooked or minimized. Rather, they
should be faced with courage, in a spirit of fraternity and mutual
respect. Dialogue, when it reflects the priority of faith, can be
open to God's action with the firm confidence that alone we cannot
build unity, but that the Holy Spirit is the one who guides us toward
full communion and who allows us to see the spiritual wealth present
in the different Churches and ecclesial communities."
"In
today's society," the Pope noted, "it seems that the
Christian message seems to have less and less of an impact on
personal and communal lives. This represents a challenge to all the
Churches and ecclesial communities. … While we walk toward full
unity, therefore, we have to pursue a concrete collaboration between
the disciples of Christ in order to further the spread of the faith
in the modern world. Nowadays there is a great need for
reconciliation, dialogue, and mutual understanding, for a more
incisive presence in today's reality."
"True
faith in God is inseparable from personal holiness as well as from
the search for justice," the pontiff highlighted. After
recalling that the theme for this year's Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity was proposed by the Student Christian Movement in India in
collaboration with the All India Catholic University Federation and
the National Council of Churches in India, he assured his prayers for
all the Christians of that country who "at times are called to
bear witness to their faith under difficult conditions. 'Walking
humbly with God' means, first of all, walking in the radicality of
faith, like Abraham, trusting in God, even placing our every hope and
aspiration in Him, but it also means walking beyond barriers, beyond
the hatred, racism, and social and religious discrimination that
divide and damage all of society."
"Our
search for unity in truth and love, should never lose sight of the
perception that Christian unity is the work and the gift of the Holy
Spirit and that it goes well beyond our efforts. Spiritual ecumenism,
therefore, especially prayer, is at the heart of ecumenical
commitment. Ecumenism, however, will never bear lasting fruit unless
it is accompanied by the concrete gestures of conversion that move
our conscience and favour the healing of memories and relationships.
… Genuine conversion … is a fundamental element of our ecumenical
commitment. The renewal of the inner life of our hearts and minds,
which is reflected in everyday life, is crucial in any dialogue or
path of reconciliation, making ecumenism a reciprocal commitment of
understanding, respect, and love, 'so that the world may believe'."
AUDIENCES
Vatican
City, 28 January 2013, (VIS) – This morning, the Holy Father
received in separate audiences:
-
Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, prefect of the Congregation for
Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and
eight
prelates from the Campania region of the Italian Episcopal Conference
on their "ad limina" visit:
-
Archbishop Andrea Mugione of Benevento,
-
Archbishop Pasquale Cascio of Sant’Angelo dei
Lombardi-Conza-Nusco-Bisaccia,
-
Bishop Michele De Rosa of Cerreto Sannita-Telese-Sant’Agata de’
Goti
-
Bishop Giovanni D’Alise of Ariano Irpino-Lacedonia,
-
Bishop Francesco Marino of Avellino,
-
Bishop Ciro Miniero of Vallo della Lucania,
-
Bishop Antonio De Luca, C.SS.R., of Teggiano-Policastro, and
-
Dom Beda Umberto Paluzzi, O.S.B., Abbot of Montevergine.
On
Saturday, 26 January, the Holy Father received Cardinal Marc Ouellet,
P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, in audience.
OTHER
PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican
City, 26 January 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father:
-
appointed Fr. Guy Charbonneau, P.M.E., as bishop of the diocese of
Choluteca (area 5,775, population 700,000, Catholics 586,000, priests
28, religious 67),Honduras. The bishop-elect was born in 1946 in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada and ordained a priest in 1970. Between 1970
and 2003 he served in various pastoral and administrative roles on
parochial, diocesan, and national levels in Honduras. From 2008 to
the present he was Superior General of the Society of Foreign
Missions of Quebec, Canada.
-
appointed Msgr. Laurent Djalwana Lompo as auxiliary bishop of the
archdiocese of Niamey (area 200,000, population 7,400,000, Catholics
20,100, priests 42, religious 90), Niger. The bishop-elect was born
in 1967 in Koulbou, Niger and ordained a priest in 1997. He has
served as pastor in and vocations director for the archdiocese. From
2003 to the present he served as the archdiocese's vicar general. The
Holy Father has also assigned him the titular see of Buffada.
-
appointed Fr. Rafael Garcia de la Serrana Villalobos as vice director
of the Department of Technical Services for the Governorate of
Vatican City State. Fr. de la Serrana Villalobos is a member of the
clergy of the personal prelature Opus Dei.
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