SUMMARY:
- SEEKING
THE FACE OF GOD
- THAT
CHRISTIANS MIGHT PROFESS TOGETHER THAT JESUS IS SAVIOUR
-
ARCHBISHOP MAMBERTI: FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION
- OTHER
PONTIFICAL ACTS
______________________________________
SEEKING
THE FACE OF GOD
Vatican
City, 16 January 2013 (VIS) -Salvation history, that is, the account
of God's saving interaction with humanity, was the theme of the Holy
Father's catechesis during this Wednesday's general audience.
The Old
Testament narrates how, after creation, God, in spite of original
sin, again offers human beings the possibility of His friendship
"through the covenant with Abraham and the path of a small
people, of Israel, whom He chooses not according to the criteria of
earthly power but simply out of love. … For this task He used
mediators, like Moses and the prophets and judges, to communicate His
will to the people. They recalled the necessity of faithfulness to
the covenant and kept alive the hope of the full and definitive
realization of His divine promises."
God's
revelation reaches its fullness in Jesus of Nazareth. In Him, "God
visits His people, He visits humanity in a way that goes beyond all
expectations. He sends His Only Begotten Son; God himself becomes
man. Jesus does not tell us something about God's nearness, doesn't
simply speak of the Father: ... He reveals the face of God to us."
Within Jesus' statement, "'Whoever has seen me has seen the
Father' ... the newness of the New Testament is contained. … God
could be seen, God has revealed His face, He is visible in Jesus
Christ."
Benedict
XVI recalled the importance of the search for the face of God
throughout the Old Testament, that is, for "a 'You' who can
enter into relationship, who is not locked away in His heaven,
looking down on humanity from on high. Certainly, God is above all
things, but He turns toward us and listens to us: He sees us, speaks,
extends covenants, and is capable of loving. Salvation history is the
story of God with humanity. It is the story of this relationship of
God who progressively reveals Himself to mankind."
"Something
completely new occurs, however, with the Incarnation. The search for
the face of God is unimaginably changed because this face can now be
seen. It is that of Jesus, of the Son of God who is made man. In Him
God's path of revelation, which began with the call of Abraham, is
fulfilled. He is the fullness of this revelation because He is the
Son of God as well as 'the mediator and the fullness of all
revelation'. In Him coincide the content of Revelation and the One
who reveals … Jesus, true God and true man, is not simply one of
the mediators between God and humankind, but is 'the mediator' of the
new and eternal covenant. … In Him we see and encounter the Father.
In Him we can call God by the name of 'Abba, Father'. In Him we are
given salvation."
"The
desire to truly know God, that is, to see the face of God, is
inherent to every human being, including atheists. Perhaps we also,
unconsciously, have this desire to simply see who He is. … But this
desire is fulfilled in following Christ thus … we finally see God
as a friend. What is important is that we follow Christ not only when
we need Him or when we find a minute of time among our thousands of
daily tasks. … Our entire existence must be directed toward meeting
Jesus Christ, toward love for Him. In such an existence, love for our
neighbour must take a central position; that love that, in light of
the Crucifix, allows us to recognize the face of Jesus in the poor,
the weak, and in those who are suffering."
THAT
CHRISTIANS MIGHT PROFESS TOGETHER THAT JESUS IS SAVIOUR
Vatican
City, 16 January 2013 (VIS) – After his Wednesday catechesis,
Benedict XVI noted that the day after tomorrow, Friday 18 January,
will begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This year its
theme is "What does God require of us?", inspired by a
passage from the prophet Micah. The Pope invited all "to pray,
asking insistently of God, for the great gift of unity between all of
the Lord's disciples. May the Holy Spirit's limitless strength arouse
us to the sincere commitment to seek unity, so that we might all
profess together that Jesus is the saviour of the world."
ARCHBISHOP
MAMBERTI: FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION
Vatican
City, 16 January 2013 (VIS) - Archbishop Dominique Mamberti,
secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States, was interviewed
by Vatican Radio on the decisions of the European Court of Human
Rights in several cases relating to freedom of conscience and
religion.
"On
15 January, the European Court of Human Rights published its
judgements on four cases relating to the freedom of conscience and
religion of employees in the United Kingdom. Two of these cases
concern employees’ freedom to wear a small cross around their neck
in the workplace, while the other two concern the freedom to object
in conscience to the celebration of a civil union between persons of
the same sex and to conjugal counselling for couples of the same
sex."
Some time
ago, the Holy See’s Mission to the Council of Europe published a
Note on the Church’s freedom and institutional autonomy. The
archbishop explained the context of the Note as "the issue of
the Church’s freedom in her relations with civil authorities,"
which "is at present being examined by the European Court of
Human Rights in two cases involving the Orthodox Church of Romania
and the Catholic Church. These are the Sindacatul 'Pastorul cel Bun'
v. Romania and Fernandez Martinez v. Spain cases. On this occasion,
the Permanent Representation of the Holy See to the Council of Europe
drew up a synthetic note explaining the Magisterium [official Church
teaching] on the freedom and institutional autonomy of the Catholic
Church."
"In
these cases," the archbishop said, "the European Court must
decide whether the civil power respected the European Convention on
Human Rights in refusing to recognize a trade union of priests [in
the Romanian case] and in refusing to appoint a teacher of religion
who publicly professes positions contrary to the teaching of the
Church [in the Spanish case]. In both cases, the rights to freedom of
association and freedom of expression were invoked in order to
constrain religious communities to act in a manner contrary to their
canonical status and the Magisterium. Thus, these cases call into
question the Church’s freedom to function according to her own
rules and not to be subject to civil rules other than those necessary
to ensure that the common good and just public order are respected.
The Church has always had to defend herself in order to preserve her
autonomy with regard to the civil power and ideologies. Today, an
important issue in Western countries is to determine how the dominant
culture, strongly marked by materialist individualism and relativism,
can understand and respect the nature of the Church, which is a
community founded on faith and reason."
Faced
with this situation, "the Church is aware of the difficulty of
determining the relations between the civil authorities and the
different religious communities in a pluralist society with regard to
the requirements of social cohesion and the common good. In this
context, the Holy See draws attention to the necessity of maintaining
religious freedom in its collective and social dimension. This
dimension corresponds to the essentially social nature both of the
person and of the religious fact in general. The Church does not ask
that religious communities be lawless zones but that they be
recognized as spaces for freedom, by virtue of the right to religious
freedom, while respecting just public order. This teaching is not
reserved to the Catholic Church; the criteria derived from it are
founded in justice and are therefore of general application."
"Furthermore,
the juridical principle of the institutional autonomy of religious
communities is widely recognized by States that respect religious
freedom, as well as by international law. The European Court of Human
Rights itself has regularly stated this principle in several
important judgements. Other institutions have also affirmed this
principle. This is notably the case with the OSCE [Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe] and also with the United Nations
Committee for Human Rights in, respectively, the 'Final Document' of
the Vienna Conference of 19 January 1989 and 'General Observation no.
22 on the Right to Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion' of 30
July 1993. It is nevertheless useful to recall and defend this
principle of the autonomy of the Church and the civil power.
OTHER
PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican
City, 16 January 2013 (VIS) – Today the Holy Father appointed
Archbishop Joseph Salvador Marino as apostolic nuncio to Malaysia and
to East Timor and as apostolic delegate to Brunei. Archbishop Marino,
titular of Natchitoches, was previously apostolic nuncio to
Bangladesh.
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