Pope Benedict XVI

Thursday, February 02, 2012

News Vatican Information Service 02/02/2012

SUMMARY:

- The History of the Universe from Atoms to Galaxies

- Audiences

- Other Pontifical Acts

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THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE FROM ATOMS TO GALAXIES

VATICAN CITY, 2 FEB 2012 (VIS) - "An exhibition which recounts the history of the universe, from the particles which make up the atoms in our bodies to distant galaxies". With these words, pronounced during a press conference held this morning in the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Jose Gabriel Funes S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory, defined the exhibition "Stories from another world. The universe inside and outside us". The event will run from 10 March to 1 July at the headquarters of the "Palazzo Blu" Foundation in Pisa, Italy.

Presenting today's conference alongside Fr. Funes were Cosimo Bracci Torsi, president of the "Palazzo Blu" Foundation, and Antonio Masiero, vice president of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).

Fr. Funes noted how Pisa is important in the history of astronomy, being the birthplace of Galileo Galilei and the city in which Cardinal Pietro Maffi practised his pastoral ministry. In 1904 Cardinal Maffi was appointed by Pius X as president of the Vatican Observatory. The exhibition is aimed particularly at young people and great care has been taken "to make complex and difficult knowledge accessible, while at the same time avoiding the risk of superficiality". To this end the work of the curators of the exhibition, Alessandro Omizzolo and Franco Cervelli, has been fundamental, Fr. Funes said.

For his part, Cosimo Bracci Torsi highlighted the fact that the event "is the outcome of fruitful collaboration between lay scientists and religious scientists, all members of scientific institutions of great prestige but with very different origins": the INFN, the Vatican Observatory and the Department of Physics at the University of Pisa. He explained how "the exhibition includes spectacular images, instruments and exhibits such as Lunar and Martian minerals, leading visitors on a fascinating journey which begins in the solar system and our material nature, reaching the stars of this and other galaxies, up to the spatial and temporal confines of the universe and of our current knowledge".

Finally Antonio Masiero explained that the INFN, of which he is vice president, will bring to the exhibition its vast experience of research on the origins and structure of the universe.

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AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, 2 FEB 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in audience:

- Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

- Six prelates of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, on their "ad limina" visit:

- Archbishop Dennis Marion Schnurr of Cincinnati, accompanied by Auxiliary Bishop Joseph R. Binzer.

- Bishop Richard Gerard Lennon of Cleveland.

- Bishop Frederick Francis Campbell of Columbus.

- Bishop Leonard Paul Blair of Toledo.

- Bishop George Vance Murry S.J. of Youngstown.

- Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, president emeritus of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and of the Governorate of Vatican City State.

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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 2 FEB 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Juticalpa, Honduras, presented by Bishop Tomas Andres Mauro Muldoon O.F.M., in accordance with canon 401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law. He is succeeded by Coadjutor Bishop Jose Bonello O.F.M.

- Appointed Fr. Luis Jose Rueda Aparicio of the clergy of the diocese of Socorro y San Gil, Colombia, episcopal vicar for pastoral care, as bishop of Montelibano (area 11,500, population 300,000, Catholics 280,000, priests 38, religious 31), Colombia. The bishop-elect was born in San Gil, Colombia in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1989. He has worked as pastor in a number of parishes and as vice director of the diocesan secretariat for social pastoral care.

- Appointed Bishop Paul Lortie, auxiliary of Quebec, Canada, as bishop of Mont-Laurier (area 19,968, population 95,256, Catholics 77,340, priests 35, permanent deacons 1, religious 58), Canada. He succeeds Bishop Vital Masse, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Bishop Joseph Luc Andre Bouchard of Saint Paul in Alberta, Canada, as bishop of Trois-Rivieres (area 27,128, population 248,274, Catholics 245,108, priests 173, permanent deacons 30, religious 540), Canada. He succeeds Bishop Martin Veillette, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Msgr. Jose Manuel Romero Barrios of the clergy of the diocese of Barcelona, Venezuela, vicar general, as auxiliary of the same diocese (area 43,300, population 2,038,000, Catholics 1,906,000, priests 60, permanent deacons 4, religious 62). The bishop-elect was born in Pariaguan, Venezuela in 1955. Since his ordination in 1979 he has worked as pastor in a number of parishes and as vice rector of the University of Santa Rosa de Lima in Caracas. Since 1991 he has also been military chaplain in Barcelona.

- Appointed Fr. Timothee Bodika Mansiyai P.S.S., rector of the philosophical seminary of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, and counsellor general of the Suplician Fathers, and Fr. Sebastien Muyengo Mulombe of the clergy of Kinshasa, currently a student at the University of Leuven, Belgium, as auxiliaries of Kinshasa (area 8,500, population 7,750,000, Catholics 3,875,000, priests 1,153, religious 2,727). Bishop-elect Bodika Mansiyai was born in Kinshasa in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1990. He gained a doctorate in moral theology in France where he also taught in the regional seminary of Toulouse. He has worked in education in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he has also served as chaplain to a leper colony. Bishop-elect Muyengo Mulombe was born in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1958 and ordained a priest in 1986. He studied in France and has worked in his own country as rector of the Major Theological Seminary John XIII and a professor at the Faculty of Theology in Kinshasa.

- Appointed Fr. Juan Maria Huerta Muro O.F.M., minister provincial for the Franciscan Province of "Blessed Fr. Junipero Serra" as bishop prelate of El Salto (area 36,000, population 387,200, Catholics 328,300, priests 27, religious 24), Mexico. The bishop-elect was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1989. He has worked as master of novices in Tijuana and as dean of the presbyteral council of the same archdiocese.

- Appointed Fr. Bulus Dauwa Johanna, as apostolic vicar of Kontagora (area 50,000, population 1,534,000, Catholics 32,934, priests 36, religious 18), Nigeria. The bishop-elect was born in Vuroro, Nigeria in 1970 and ordained a priest in 1998. He has worked as pastor in a number of parishes and, among other roles, as president of the Justice, Development and Peace Committee.

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Wednesday, February 01, 2012

News Vatican Information Service 02/01/2012

SUMMARY:

- We Must Learn to Have Greater Trust in Divine Providence

- Telegram for the Death of Cardinal Bevilacqua

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WE MUST LEARN TO HAVE GREATER TRUST IN DIVINE PROVIDENCE

VATICAN CITY, 1 FEB 2012 (VIS) - This morning in the Paul VI Hall the Holy Father received thousands of pilgrims from around the world in his weekly general audience. As part of a series of catecheses dedicated to the prayers pronounced by Christ, he focused his remarks on Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Mark the Evangelist narrates how, following the Last Supper, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and readied Himself for personal prayer. "But this time", the Pope said, "something new occurred; it seemed that He did not want to remain alone. Many times in the past Jesus had moved away from the crowds, even from His own disciples. ... However, in Gethsemane he invited Peter, James and John to stay close by; the same disciples who had accompanied Him during the Transfiguration.

"The proximity of these three during the prayer at Gethsemane is significant", Benedict XVI added. It represents "a request for solidarity at the moment in which He felt the approach of death. Above all it was a closeness in prayer, an expression of unity with Him at the moment in which He was preparing to accomplish the Father's will to the end, an invitation to all disciples to follow Him on the path of the Cross".

Jesus' words to the three disciples - "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here and keep awake" - show that He was feeling "fear and anguish at that 'Hour', experiencing the ultimate profound solitude as God's plan was being accomplished. Jesus fear and anguish comprehend all the horror that man feels at the prospect of his own death, its inexorable certainty and the perception of the burden of evil which affects our lives".

Having invited His disciples to keep awake, Jesus moved away from them. Referring to the Gospel of St. Mark, the Pope noted that Jesus "threw Himself to the ground: a position for prayer which expresses obedience to the Father's will, an abandonment of self with complete trust in Him". Jesus then asks the Father that, if possible, the hour might pass from Him. "This is not just the fear and anguish of man in the face of death", the Holy Father explained, "but the distress of the Son of God Who sees the terrible accumulation of evil He must take upon Himself, in order to overcome it and deprive it of power".

In this context, Benedict XVI invited the faithful to pray to God, placing before Him "our fatigue, the suffering of certain situations and of certain days, our daily struggle to follow Him and to be Christians, and the burden of evil we see within and around us, that He may give us hope, make us aware of His closeness and give us a little light on life's journey".

Returning then to Jesus' prayer, the Pope focused on "three revealing passages" in Christ's words: "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want but what you want". Firstly, Benedict XVI said, the Aramaic word "Abba" is used by children to address their fathers, "therefore it express Jesus relationship with God the Father, a relationship of tenderness, affection and trust". Secondly, Jesus' words contain an acknowledgment of the Father's omnipotence "introducing a request in which, once again, we see the drama of Jesus' human will in the face of death and evil. ... Yet the third expression ... is the decisive one, in which the human will adheres fully to the divine will. ... Jesus tells us that only by conforming their will to the divine will can human beings achieve their true stature and become 'divine'. ... This is what Jesus does in Gethsemane. By transferring human will to the divine will the true man is born and we are redeemed".

When we pray the Our Father "we ask the Lord that 'your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven'. In other words, we recognise that God has a will for us and with us, that God has a will for our lives and, each day, this must increasingly become the reference point for our desires and our existence. We also recognise that ... 'earth' becomes 'heaven' - the place where love, goodness, truth and divine beauty are present - only if the will of God is done".

In our prayers "we must learn to have greater trust in Divine Providence, to ask God for the strength to abandon our own selves in order to renew our 'yes', to repeat to Him 'your will be done', to conform our will to His. This is a prayer we must repeat every day, because it is not always easy to entrust oneself to the will of God".

The Gospel says that the disciples were unable to remain awake for Christ, and Pope Benedict concluded his catechesis by saying: "Let us ask the Lord for the power to keep awake for Him in prayer, to follow the will of God every day even if He speaks of the Cross, to live in ever increasing intimacy with the Lord and bring a little of God's 'heaven' to this 'earth'".

Following the catechesis the Holy Father delivered greetings in a number of languages to the pilgrims filling the Paul VI Hall. They included a group of British military chaplains, faithful from Hong Kong and South America, bishops friends of the Sant'Egidio Community from Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as young people and the sick.

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TELEGRAM FOR THE DEATH OF CARDINAL BEVILACQUA

VATICAN CITY, 1 FEB 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father has sent a telegram to Archbishop Charles Chaput O.F.M. Cap. of Philadelphia, U.S.A., for the death of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, former archbishop of that archdiocese who died yesterday at the age of 88. The Holy Father writes:

"Having learned with sadness of the death of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, I offer my heartfelt condolences to you and to all the faithful of the archdiocese. I join you in commending the late cardinal's soul to God, the Father of mercies, with gratitude for his years of episcopal ministry among Christ's flock in Philadelphia, his longstanding commitment to social justice and the pastoral care of immigrants, and his expert contribution to the revision of the Church's law in the years following Vatican Council II. To you, and to all the clergy, religious and laity of the Church in Philadelphia, and to the members of his family, I cordially impart my apostolic blessing as a pledge of consolation and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ".

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