|
Pope Benedict XVI- Addresses |
Papal Q-and-A Session
With Priests
Dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso, Italy
Part 1
- On Conscience, Pastoral Organization and Immigrants
Part 2 - On
Divorce, Youth, Missions and Beauty
Part 3 - On Sports,
Priorities and Vatican II
H.H. Benedict XVI
July 24, 2007, Church of St Justin Martyr, Auronzo di Cadore
www.zenit.org
Part 1
On Conscience, Pastoral Organization and Immigrants
* * *
Your Holiness, I am Fr Claudio. The question I wanted to
ask you is about the formation of conscience, especially in young
people, because today it seems more and more difficult to form a
consistent conscience, an upright conscience. Good and evil are
often confused with having good and bad feelings, the more emotive
aspect. So I would like to hear your advice. Thank you.
Benedict XVI: Your Excellency, dear
Brothers, I would like first of all to express my joy and gratitude
for this beautiful meeting. I thank the two Pastors, Bishop Andrich
and Bishop Mazzocato, for their invitation. I offer my heartfelt
thanks to all of you who have come here in such large numbers during
the holiday season. To see a church full of priests is encouraging
because it shows us that there are priests. The Church is alive,
despite the increasing problems in our day and especially in the
Western hemisphere. The Church is still alive and has priests who
truly desire to proclaim the Kingdom of God; she is growing and
standing up to these complications that we perceive in our cultural
situation today. Now, to a certain extent, this first question
reflects a problem of Western culture, since in the last two
centuries the concept of "conscience" has undergone a profound
transformation. Today, the idea prevails that only what is
quantifiable can be rational, which stems from reason. Other things,
such as the subjects of religion and morals, should not enter into
common reason because they cannot be proven or, rather, put to the
"acid test", so to speak. In this situation, where morals and
religion are as it were almost expelled from reason, the subject is
the only ultimate criterion of morality and also of religion, the
subjective conscience which knows no other authority. In the end,
the subject alone decides, with his feelings and experience, on the
possible criteria he has discovered. Yet, in this way the subject
becomes an isolated reality and, as you said, the parameters change
from one day to the next. In the Christian tradition, "conscience",
"con-scientia", means "with knowledge": that is, ourselves, our
being is open and can listen to the voice of being itself, the voice
of God. Thus, the voice of the great values is engraved in our being
and the greatness of the human being is precisely that he is not
closed in on himself, he is not reduced to the material, something
quantifiable, but possesses an inner openness to the essentials and
has the possibility of listening.
In the depths of our
being, not only can we listen to the needs of the moment, to
material needs, but we can also hear the voice of the Creator
himself and thus discern what is good and what is bad. Of course,
this capacity for listening must be taught and encouraged. The
commitment to the preaching that we do in church consists of
precisely this: developing this very lofty capacity with which God
has endowed human beings for listening to the voice of truth and
also the voice of values. I would say, therefore, that a first step
would be to make people aware that our very nature carries in itself
a moral message, a divine message that must be deciphered. We can
become increasingly better acquainted with it and listen to it if
our inner hearing is open and developed. The actual question now is
how to carry out in practice this education in listening, how to
make human beings capable of it despite all the forms of modern
deafness, how to ensure that this listening, the Ephphatha of
Baptism, the opening of the inner senses, truly takes place. In
taking stock of the current situation, I would propose the
combination of a secular approach and a religious approach, the
approach of faith. Today, we all see that man can destroy the
foundations of his existence, his earth, hence, that we can no
longer simply do what we like or what seems useful and promising at
the time with this earth of ours, with the reality entrusted to us.
On the contrary, we must respect the inner laws of creation, of this
earth, we must learn these laws and obey these laws if we wish to
survive.
Consequently, this
obedience to the voice of the earth, of being, is more important for
our future happiness than the voices of the moment, the desires of
the moment. In short, this is a first criterion to learn: that being
itself, our earth, speaks to us and we must listen if we want to
survive and to decipher this message of the earth. And if we must be
obedient to the voice of the earth, this is even truer for the voice
of human life. Not only must we care for the earth, we must respect
the other, others: both the other as an individual person, as my
neighbour, and others as communities who live in the world and have
to live together. And we see that it is only with full respect for
this creature of God, this image of God which man is, and with
respect for our coexistence on this earth, that we can develop. And
here we reach the point when we need the great moral experiences of
humanity. These experiences are born from the encounter with the
other, with the community. We need the experience that human freedom
is always a shared freedom and can only function if we share our
freedom with respect for the values that are common to us all. It
seems to me that with these steps it will be possible to make people
see the need to obey the voice of being, to respect the dignity of
the other, to accept the need to live our respective freedom
together as one freedom, and through all this to recognize the
intrinsic value that can make a dignified communion of life possible
among human beings. Thus, as has been said, we come to the great
experiences of humanity in which the voice of being is expressed. We
especially come to the experiences of this great historical
pilgrimage of the People of God that began with Abraham. In him, not
only do we find the fundamental human experiences but also, we can
hear through these experiences the voice of the Creator himself, who
loves us and has spoken to us.
Here, in this context,
respecting the human experiences that point out the way to us today
and in the future, I believe that the Ten Commandments always have a
priority value in which we see the important signposts on our way.
The Ten Commandments reinterpreted, relived in the light of Christ,
in the light of the life of the Church and of her experiences, point
to certain fundamental and essential values. Together, the Fourth
and Sixth Commandments suggest the importance of our body, of
respecting the laws of the body and of sexuality and love, the value
of faithful love, of the family; the Fifth Commandment points to the
value of life and also the value of community life; the Seventh
Commandment regards the value of sharing the earth's goods and of a
fair distribution of these goods and of the stewardship of God's
creation; the Eighth Commandment points to the great value of truth.
If, therefore, in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Commandments we have
love of neighbour, in the Seventh we have the truth. None of this
works without communion with God, without respect for God and God's
presence in the world. In any case, a world without God becomes an
arbitrary and egoistic world. There is light and hope only if God
appears. Our life has a meaning which we must not produce ourselves
but which precedes us and guides us. In this sense, therefore, I
would say that together, we should take the obvious routes which
today even the lay conscience can easily discern. We should
therefore seek to guide people to the deepest voices, to the true
voice of the conscience that is communicated through the great
tradition of prayer, of the moral life of the Church. Thus, in a
process of patient education, I think we can all learn to live and
to find true life.
I am Fr Mauro. Your Holiness, in exercising our pastoral
ministry we are increasingly burdened by many duties. Our tasks in
the management and administration of parishes, pastoral organization
and assistance to people in difficulty are piling up. I ask you,
what are the priorities we should aim for in our ministry as priests
and parish priests to avoid fragmentation on the one hand and on the
other, dispersion? Thank you.
Benedict XVI: That is a very realistic
question, is it not? I am also somewhat familiar with this problem,
with all the daily procedures, with all the necessary audiences,
with all that there is to do. Yet, it is necessary to determine the
right priorities and not to forget the essential: the proclamation
of the Kingdom of God. On hearing your question, I remembered the
Gospel of two weeks ago on the mission of the 70 disciples. For this
first important mission which Jesus had them undertake, the Lord
gave them three orders which on the whole I think express the great
priorities in the work of a disciple of Christ, a priest, in our day
too. The three imperatives are: to pray, to provide care, to preach.
I think we should find the balance between these three basic
imperatives and keep them ever present as the heart of our work.
Prayer: which is to say, without a personal relationship with God
nothing else can function, for we cannot truly bring God, the divine
reality or true human life to people unless we ourselves live them
in a deep, true relationship of friendship with God in Jesus Christ.
Hence, the daily celebration of the Holy Eucharist is a fundamental
encounter where the Lord speaks to me and I speak to the Lord who
gives himself through my hands. Without the prayer of the Hours, in
which we join in the great prayer of the entire People of God
beginning with the Psalms of the ancient people who are renewed in
the faith of the Church, and without personal prayer, we cannot be
good priests for we would lose the essence of our ministry. The
first imperative is to be a man of God, in the sense of a man in
friendship with Christ and with his Saints.
Then comes the second
command. Jesus said: tend the sick, seek those who have strayed,
those who are in need. This is the Church's love for the
marginalized and the suffering. Rich people can also be inwardly
marginalized and suffering. "To take care of" refers to all human
needs, which are always profoundly oriented to God. Thus, as has
been said, it is necessary for us to know our sheep, to be on good
terms with the people entrusted to us, to have human contact and not
to lose our humanity, because God was made man and consequently
strengthened all dimensions of our being as humans. However, as I
said, the human and the divine always go hand in hand. To my mind,
the sacramental ministry is also part of this "tending" in its
multiple forms. The ministry of Reconciliation is an act of
extraordinary caring which the person needs in order to be perfectly
healthy. Thus, this sacramental care begins with Baptism, which is
the fundamental renewal of our life, and extends to the Sacrament of
Reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick. Of course, all the
other sacraments and also the Eucharist involve great care for
souls. We have to care for people but above all -- this is our
mandate -- for their souls. We must think of the many illnesses and
moral and spiritual needs that exist today and that we must face,
guiding people to the encounter with Christ in the sacrament,
helping them to discover prayer and meditation, being silently
recollected in church with this presence of God.
And then, preaching.
What do we preach? We proclaim the Kingdom of God. But the Kingdom
of God is not a distant utopia in a better world which may be
achieved in 50 years' time, or who knows when. The Kingdom of God is
God himself, God close to us who became very close in Christ. This
is the Kingdom of God: God himself is near to us and we must draw
close to this God who is close for he was made man, remains man and
is always with us in his Word, in the Most Holy Eucharist and in all
believers. Therefore, proclaiming the Kingdom of God means speaking
of God today, making present God's words, the Gospel which is God's
presence and, of course, making present the God who made himself
present in the Holy Eucharist. By interweaving these three
priorities and, naturally, taking into account all the human
aspects, including our own limitations that we must recognize, we
can properly fulfil our priesthood. This humility that recognizes
the limitations of our own strength is important as well. All that
we cannot do, the Lord must do. And there is also the ability to
delegate and to collaborate. All this must always go with the
fundamental imperatives of praying, tending and preaching.
My name is Fr Daniele. Your Holiness, the Veneto is an
area with a steady influx of immigrants where a sizable number of
non-Christians are present. This situation confronts our dioceses
with a new, internal task of evangelization. Moreover, this
represents a certain difficulty since we have to reconcile the needs
of Gospel proclamation with those of a respectful dialogue with
other religions. What pastoral instructions can you suggest? Thank
you.
Benedict XVI: You are naturally in close
touch with this situation. And in this regard, I may be unable to
give you much practical advice, but I can say that in all the ad
limina visits, whether the Bishops come from Asia, Africa, Latin
America or every part of Italy, I am always confronted with such
situations. A uniform world no longer exists. All the other
continents, the other religions, the other ways of living human life
are present especially in the West. We are living a permanent
encounter where we resemble the ancient Church because she
experienced the same situation. Christians formed a tiny minority, a
mustard seed that began to sprout, surrounded by very different
religions and ways of life. We must learn once again, therefore, all
that the first generations of Christians experienced. In his First
Letter, St Peter said: "Always be prepared to make a defence to
anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you" (3:15).
Thus, he formulated for the ordinary person of that time, for the
ordinary Christian, the need to combine proclamation and dialogue.
He did not say formally: "Proclaim the Gospel to everyone". He said:
"You must be able, ready, to account for the hope that is in you". I
think that this is the necessary synthesis between dialogue and
proclamation. The first point is that the reason for our hope must
be ever present within us. We must be people who live faith and
think faith, people with an inner knowledge of it. So it is that
faith becomes reason within us, it becomes reasonable. Meditation on
the Gospel and in this case, proclamation, the homily and catechesis
to enable people to ponder faith, already constitute fundamental
elements in this web of dialogue and proclamation.
We ourselves must think
faith, live faith and, as priests, find different ways to make faith
present so that our Christian Catholics can find the conviction,
readiness and ability to account for their faith. This proclamation
which transmits the faith to today's conscience must have many
forms. The homily and catechesis are indisputably two of its
principal forms, but there are also many ways of meeting, such as
seminars on faith, lay movements, etc., where people talk about
faith and learn the faith. All this makes us capable, first of all,
of truly living as the neighbours of non-Christians -- here, mainly
Orthodox Christians, Protestants and also exponents of other
religions, Muslims and others. The first aspect is to live beside
them, recognizing with them their neighbour, our neighbour; thus,
living love of neighbour on the front line as an expression of our
faith. I think that this is already a very powerful witness and also
a form of proclamation: truly living love of neighbour with these
others, recognizing the latter, recognizing them as our neighbour so
that they can see: this "love of neighbour" is for me. If this
happens, we will be able to more easily present the source of our
behaviour, in other words, that love of neighbour is an expression
of our faith. Thus, our dialogue cannot move on suddenly to the
great mysteries of faith, although Muslims have a certain knowledge
of Christ that denies his divinity but at least recognizes him as a
great Prophet. They love Our Lady. These are consequently elements
that we have in common, even in faith, and are starting points for
dialogue. A perception of fundamental understanding on the values we
should live is practical, feasible and above all necessary.
Here too, we have a
treasure in common because Muslims come from the religion of
Abraham, reinterpreted and relived in ways to be studied and to
which we should finally respond. Yet, the great substantial
experience of the Ten Commandments is present and this seems to me a
point that requires further investigation. Moving on to the great
mysteries seems to me to be moving to a level that is far from easy
and impossible to attain at large meetings. Perhaps the seed should
enter hearts, so that here and there the response of faith in a more
specific dialogue may mature. But what we can and must do is to seek
a consensus on the fundamental values expressed in the Ten
Commandments, summed up in love of neighbour and love of God, and
which can thus be interpreted in the various life contexts. We are
at least on a common journey towards the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, the God who is ultimately the God with the human face, the
God present in Jesus Christ. But if the latter step is to be made in
intimate, personal encounters or small groups, the journey towards
this God, from which derives these values that make life in common
possible, I think this is feasible also at larger meetings. As a
result, in my opinion a humble, patient form of proclamation should
be undertaken here, which awaits but already realizes our life in
accordance with knowledge enlightened by God.
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Part 2
On Divorce, Youth, Missions and Beauty
* * *
I am Fr Samuele. We have accepted your invitation to pray, care
for people and preach. We are taking you seriously by caring for you
yourself; so, to express our affection, we have brought you several
bottles of wholesome wine from our region, which we will make sure
that you receive through our Bishop. So now for my question. We are
seeing an enormous increase in situations of divorced people who
remarry, live together and ask priests to help them with their
spiritual life. These people often come to us with a heartfelt plea
for access to the sacraments. These realities need to be faced and
the sufferings they cause must be shared. Holy Father, may I ask you
what are the human, spiritual and pastoral approaches with which one
can combine compassion and truth? Thank you.
Benedict XVI: Yes, this is indeed a painful problem and there
is certainly no simple solution to resolve it. This problem makes us
all suffer because we all have people close to us who are in this
situation. We know it causes them sorrow and pain because they long
to be in full communion with the Church. The previous bond of
matrimony reduces their participation in the life of the Church.
What can be done? I would say: as far as possible, we would
naturally put prevention first. Hence, preparation for marriage
becomes ever more fundamental and necessary. Canon Law presupposes
that man as such, even without much education, intends to contract a
marriage in harmony with human nature, as mentioned in the first
chapters of Genesis. He is a human being, his nature is human and
consequently he knows what marriage is. He intends to behave as
human nature dictates to him.
Canon Law starts from
this presupposition. It is something compulsory: man is man, nature
is what it is and tells him this. Today, however, this axiom, which
holds that man prompted by his nature will make one faithful
marriage, has been transformed into a somewhat different axiom. "Volunt
contrahere matrimonium sicut ceteri homines". It is no longer nature
alone that speaks, but the "ceteri homines": what everyone does. And
what everyone does today is not simply to enter into natural
marriage, in accordance with the Creator, in accordance with
creation. What the "ceteri homines" do is to marry with the idea
that one day their marriage might fail and that they will then be
able to move on to another one, to a third or even a fourth
marriage. This model of what "everyone does" thus becomes one that
is contrary to what nature says. In this way, it becomes normal to
marry, divorce and remarry, and no one thinks this is something
contrary to human nature, or in any case those who do are few and
far between. Therefore, to help people achieve a real marriage, not
only in the sense of the Church but also of the Creator, we must
revive their capacity for listening to nature.
Let us return to the
first query, the first question: rediscovering within what everyone
does, what nature itself tells us, which is so different from what
this modern custom dictates. Indeed, it invites us to marry for
life, with lifelong fidelity including the suffering that comes from
growing together in love. Thus, these preparatory courses for
marriage must be a rectification of the voice of nature, of the
Creator, within us, a rediscovery, beyond what all the "ceteri
homines" do, of what our own being intimately tells us. In this
situation, therefore, distinguishing between what everyone else does
and what our being tells us, these preparatory courses for marriage
must be a journey of rediscovery. They must help us learn anew what
our being tells us. They must help couples reach the true decision
of marriage in accordance with the Creator and the Redeemer. Hence,
these preparatory courses are of great importance in order to "learn
oneself", to learn the true intention for marriage. But preparation
is not enough; the great crises come later. Consequently, ongoing
guidance, at least in the first 10 years, is of the utmost
importance. In the parish, therefore, it is not only necessary to
provide preparatory courses but also communion in the journey that
follows, guidance and mutual help. May priests, but not on their
own, and families, which have already undergone such experiences and
are familiar with such suffering and temptations, be available in
moments of crisis.
The presence of a
network of families that help one another is important and different
movements can make a considerable contribution. The first part of my
answer provides for prevention, not only in the sense of preparation
but also of guidance and for the presence of a network of families
to assist in this contemporary situation where everything goes
against faithfulness for life. It is necessary to help people find
this faithfulness and learn it, even in the midst of suffering.
However, in the case of failure, in other words, when the spouses
are incapable of adhering to their original intention, there is
always the question of whether it was a real decision in the sense
of the sacrament. As a result, one possibility is the process for
the declaration of nullity. If their marriage were authentic, which
would prevent them from remarrying, the Church's permanent presence
would help these people to bear the additional suffering. In the
first case, we have the suffering that goes with overcoming this
crisis and learning a hard-fought for and mature fidelity. In the
second case, we have the suffering of being in a new bond which is
not sacramental, hence, does not permit full communion in the
sacraments of the Church. Here it would be necessary to teach and to
learn how to live with this suffering. We return to this point, to
the first question of the other diocese. In our generation, in our
culture, we have to rediscover the value of suffering in general,
and we have to learn that suffering can be a very positive reality
which helps us to mature, to become more ourselves, and to be closer
to the Lord who suffered for us and suffers with us. Even in the
latter situation, therefore, the presence of the priest, families,
movements, personal and communitarian communion in these situations,
the helpful love of one's neighbour, a very specific love, is of the
greatest importance. And I think that only this love, felt by the
Church and expressed in the solidarity of many, can help these
people recognize that they are loved by Christ and are members of
the Church despite their difficult situation. Thus, it can help them
to live the faith.
My name is Fr Saverio, so of course my question concerns the
missions. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Encyclical "Fidei
Donum." Many priests in our Diocese, myself included, have accepted
the Pope's invitation; they, we, have lived and are living the
experience of the mission ad gentes. There can be no doubt that this
is an extraordinary experience which in my modest opinion could be
shared by a great number of priests with a view to exchanges between
Sister Churches. Since the instruction in the Encyclical is still
timely today, given the dwindling number of priests in our
countries, how and with what attitude should it be accepted and
lived both by the priests who are sent out and by the whole diocese?
Thank you.
Pope Benedict XVI: Thank you. I would first like to thank all
these fidei donum priests and the dioceses. As I have already
mentioned, I have received a great number of ad limina visits from
Bishops of Asia, Africa and Latin America and they all tell me: "We
are badly in need of fidei donum priests and we are deeply grateful
for the work they do. They make present, often in extremely
difficult situations, the catholicity of the Church and they make
visible the great universal communion which we form, as well as the
love for our distant neighbour who becomes close in the situation of
the fidei donum priest". In the past 50 years I have almost tangibly
felt and seen this great gift, truly given, in my conversations with
priests who say to us: "Do not think that we Africans are now quite
self-sufficient; we are still in need of the visibility of the great
communion of the universal Church". I would say that we all need to
be visible as Catholics and we need to love the neighbour who comes
from afar and thus finds his neighbour.
Today, the situation has
changed in the sense that we in Europe also receive priests from
Africa, Latin America and even from other parts of Europe. This
enables us to perceive the beauty of this exchange of gifts, this
gift of one to the other, because we all need one another: it is
precisely in this way that the Body of Christ grows. To sum up, I
would like to say that this gift was and is a great gift, perceived
in the Church as such: in so many situations that I cannot describe
here, which involve social problems, problems of development,
problems of the proclamation of the faith, problems of loneliness,
the need for the presence of others, these priests are a gift in
which the dioceses and particular Churches recognize the presence of
Christ who gives himself for us. At the same time, they recognize
that Eucharistic Communion is not only a supranatural communion but
becomes concrete communion in this gift of self of diocesan priests
who make themselves available to other dioceses, and that the
network of particular Churches thus truly becomes a network of love.
Thanks to all those who have made this gift. I can only encourage
Bishops and priests to continue making this gift. I know that today,
with the shortage of vocations, it is becoming more and more
difficult in Europe to make this gift; but we already have the
experience that other continents in turn, such as especially India
and Africa, also give us priests. Reciprocity continues to be of
paramount importance. Precisely the experience that we are the
Church sent out into the world which everyone knows and loves, is
very necessary and also constitutes the power of proclamation. Thus,
people can see that the mustard seed bears fruit and ceaselessly,
time and again, becomes a great tree in which the birds of the air
find repose. Thank you and be strong.
Fr Alberto: Holy Father, young people are our future and our
hope: but they sometimes see life as a difficulty rather than an
opportunity; not as a gift for themselves and for others but as
something to be consumed on the spot; not as a future to be built
but as aimless wandering. The contemporary mindset demands that
young people be happy and perfect all of the time. The result is
that every tiny failure and the least difficulty are no longer seen
as causes for growth but as a defeat. All this often leads to
irreversible acts such as suicide, which wound the hearts of those
who love them and of society as a whole. What can you tell us
educators who feel all too often that our hands are tied and that we
have no answers? Thank you.
Benedict XVI: I think you have just given us a precise
description of a life in which God does not figure. At first sight,
it seems as if we do not need God or indeed, that without God we
would be freer and the world would be grander. But after a certain
time, we see in our young people what happens when God disappears.
As Nietzsche said: "The great light has been extinguished, the sun
has been put out". Life is then a chance event. It becomes a thing
that I must seek to do the best I can with and use life as though it
were a thing that serves my own immediate, tangible and achievable
happiness. But the big problem is that were God not to exist and
were he not also the Creator of my life, life would actually be a
mere cog in evolution, nothing more; it would have no meaning in
itself. Instead, I must seek to give meaning to this component of
being. Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a
somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and
evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive
alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to
conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would
have to exclude God.
This antithesis is
absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs
in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and
which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the
other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query,
especially the great philosophical question: where does everything
come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man?
I believe this is of the utmost importance. This is what I wanted to
say in my lecture at Regensburg: that reason should be more open,
that it should indeed perceive these facts but also realize that
they are not enough to explain all of reality. They are
insufficient. Our reason is broader and can also see that our reason
is not basically something irrational, a product of irrationality,
but that reason, creative reason, precedes everything and we are
truly the reflection of creative reason. We were thought of and
desired; thus, there is an idea that preceded me, a feeling that
preceded me, that I must discover, that I must follow, because it
will at last give meaning to my life. This seems to me to be the
first point: to discover that my being is truly reasonable, it was
thought of, it has meaning. And my important mission is to discover
this meaning, to live it and thereby contribute a new element to the
great cosmic harmony conceived of by the Creator. If this is true,
then difficulties also become moments of growth, of the process and
progress of my very being, which has meaning from conception until
the very last moment of life. We can get to know this reality of
meaning that precedes all of us, we can also rediscover the meaning
of pain and suffering; there is of course one form of suffering that
we must avoid and must distance from the world: all the pointless
suffering caused by dictatorships and erroneous systems, by hatred
and by violence.
However, in suffering
there is also a profound meaning, and only if we can give meaning to
pain and suffering can our life mature. I would say, above all, that
there can be no love without suffering, because love always implies
renouncement of myself, letting myself go and accepting the other in
his otherness; it implies a gift of myself and therefore, emerging
from myself. All this is pain and suffering, but precisely in this
suffering caused by the losing of myself for the sake of the other,
for the loved one and hence, for God, I become great and my life
finds love, and in love finds its meaning. The inseparability of
love and suffering, of love and God, are elements that must enter
into the modern conscience to help us live. In this regard, I would
say that it is important to help the young discover God, to help
them discover the true love that precisely in renunciation becomes
great and so also enables them to discover the inner benefit of
suffering, which makes me freer and greater. Of course, to help
young people find these elements, companionship and guidance are
always essential, whether through the parish, Catholic Action or a
Movement. It is only in the company of others that we can also
reveal this great dimension of our being to the new generations.
I am Fr Francesco. Holy Father, one sentence you wrote in
your book made a deep impression on me: "[But] what did Jesus
actually bring if not world peace, universal prosperity and a better
world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: "God. He has
brought God'" (Jesus of Nazareth, English edition, p. 44); I find
the clarity and truth of this citation disarming. This is my
question: there is talk about the new evangelization, the new
proclamation of the Gospel -- this was also the main theme of the
Synod of our Diocese, Belluno-Feltre -- but what should we do so
that this God, the one treasure brought by Jesus and who all too
often appears hazy to many, shines forth anew in our homes and
becomes the water that quenches even the thirst of the many who seem
no longer to be thirsting? Thank you.
Benedict XVI: Thank you. Yours is a fundamental question. The
fundamental question of our pastoral work is how to bring God to the
world, to our contemporaries. Of course, bringing God is a
multi-dimensional task: already in Jesus' preaching, in his life and
his death we see how this One develops in so many dimensions. I
think that we should always be mindful of two things: on the one
hand, the Christian proclamation. Christianity is not a highly
complicated collection of so many dogmas that it is impossible for
anyone to know them all; it is not something exclusively for
academicians who can study these things, but it is something simple:
God exists and God is close in Jesus Christ. Thus, to sum up, Jesus
Christ himself said that the Kingdom of God had arrived. Basically,
what we preach is one, simple thing. All the dimensions subsequently
revealed are dimensions of this one thing and all people do not have
to know everything but must certainly enter into the depths and into
the essential. In this way, the different dimensions also unfold
with ever increasing joy.
But in practice what
should be done? I think, speaking of pastoral work today, that we
have already touched on the essential points. But to continue in
this direction, bringing God implies above all, on the one hand,
love, and on the other, hope and faith. Thus, the dimension of life
lived, bearing the best witness for Christ, the best proclamation,
is always the life of true Christians. If we see that families
nourished by faith live in joy, that they also experience suffering
in profound and fundamental joy, that they help others, loving God
and their neighbour, in my opinion this is the most beautiful
proclamation today. For me too, the most comforting proclamation is
always that of seeing Catholic families or personalities who are
penetrated by faith: the presence of God truly shines out in them
and they bring the "living water" that you mentioned.
The fundamental
proclamation is, therefore, precisely that of the actual life of
Christians. Of course, there is also the proclamation of the Word.
We must spare no effort to ensure that the Word is listened to and
known. Today, there are numerous schools of the Word and of the
conversation with God in Sacred Scripture, a conversation which
necessarily also becomes prayer, because the purely theoretical
study of Sacred Scripture is a form of listening that is merely
intellectual and would not be a real or satisfactory encounter with
the Word of God. If it is true that in Scripture and in the Word of
God it is the Living Lord God who speaks to us, who elicits our
response and our prayers, then schools of Scripture must also be
schools of prayer, of dialogue with God, of drawing intimately close
to God: consequently, the whole proclamation. Then, of course, I
would say the sacraments. All the Saints also always come with God.
It is important --
Sacred Scripture tell us from the very outset -- that God never
comes by himself but comes accompanied and surrounded by the Angels
and Saints. In the great stained glass window in St Peter's which
portrays the Holy Spirit, what I like so much is the fact that God
is surrounded by a throng of Angels and living beings who are an
expression, an emanation, so to speak, of God's love. And with God,
with Christ, with the man who is God and with God who is man, Our
Lady arrives. This is very important. God, the Lord, has a Mother
and in his Mother we truly recognize God's motherly goodness. Our
Lady, Mother of God, is the Help of Christians, she is our permanent
comfort, our great help. I see this too in the dialogue with the
Bishops of the world, of Africa and lately also of Latin America; I
see that love for Our Lady is the driving force of catholicity. In
Our Lady we recognize all God's tenderness, so, fostering and living
out Our Lady's, Mary's, joyful love is a very great gift of
catholicity. Then there are the Saints. Every place has its own
Saint. This is good because in this way we see the range of colours
of God's one light and of his love which comes close to us. It means
discovering the Saints in their beauty, in their drawing close to me
in the Word, so that in a specific Saint I may find expressed
precisely for me the inexhaustible Word of God, and then all the
aspects of parochial life, even the human ones. We must not always
be in the clouds, in the loftiest clouds of Mystery. We must have
our feet firmly planted on the ground and together live the joy of
being a great family: the great little family of the parish; the
great family of the diocese, the great family of the universal
Church. In Rome I can see all this, I can see how people from every
part of the world who do not know one another are actually
acquainted because they all belong to the family of God. They are
close to one another because they all possess the love of the Lord,
the love of Our Lady, the love of the Saints, Apostolic Succession
and the Successor of Peter and the Bishops.
I would say that this
joy of catholicity with its many different hues is also the joy of
beauty. We have here the beauty of a beautiful organ; the beauty of
a very beautiful church, the beauty that has developed in the
Church. I think this is a marvellous testimony of God's presence and
of the truth of God. Truth is expressed in beauty, and we must be
grateful for this beauty and seek to do our utmost to ensure that it
is ever present, that it develops and continues to grow. In this
way, I believe that God will be very concretely in our midst.
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Part 3
On Sports, Priorities and Vatican II
* * *
I am Fr Lorenzo, a parish priest. Holy Father, the faithful
expect only one thing from priests: that they be experts in
encouraging the encounter of human beings with God. These are not my
own words but something Your Holiness said in an Address to the
clergy. My spiritual director at the seminary, in those trying
sessions of spiritual direction, said to me: "Lorenzino, humanly
we've made it, but...", and when he said "but", what he meant was
that I preferred playing football to Eucharistic Adoration. And he
meant that this did my vocation no good and that it was not right to
dispute lessons of morals and law, because the teachers knew more
about them that I did. And with that "but", who knows what else he
meant. I now think of him in Heaven, and in any case I say some
requiems for him. In spite of everything, I have been a priest for
34 years and I am happy about that, too. I have worked no miracles
nor have I known any disasters or perhaps I did not recognize them.
I feel that "humanly we've made it" is a great compliment. However,
does not bringing man close to God and God to man pass above all
through what we call humanity, which is indispensable even for us
priests?
Benedict XVI: Thank you. I would simply say "yes" to what you
said at the end. Catholicism, somewhat simplistically, has always
been considered the religion of the great "et et": not of great
forms of exclusivism but of synthesis. The exact meaning of
"Catholic" is "synthesis". I would therefore be against having to
choose between either playing football or studying Sacred Scripture
or Canon Law. Let us do both these things. It is great to do sports.
I am not a great sportsman, yet I used to like going to the
mountains when I was younger; now I only go on some very easy
excursions, but I always find it very beautiful to walk here in this
wonderful earth that the Lord has given to us. Therefore, we cannot
always live in exalted meditation; perhaps a Saint on the last step
of his earthly pilgrimage could reach this point, but we normally
live with our feet on the ground and our eyes turned to Heaven. Both
these things are given to us by the Lord and therefore loving human
things, loving the beauties of this earth, is not only very human
but also very Christian and truly Catholic. I would say - and it
seems to me that I have already mentioned this earlier - that this
aspect is also part of a good and truly Catholic pastoral care:
living in the "et et"; living the humanity and humanism of the human
being, all the gifts which the Lord has lavished upon us and which
we have developed; and at the same time, not forgetting God, because
ultimately, the great light comes from God and then it is only from
him that comes the light which gives joy to all these aspects of the
things that exist. Therefore, I would simply like to commit myself
to the great Catholic synthesis, to this "et et"; to be truly human.
And each person, in accordance with his or her own gifts and charism,
should not only love the earth and the beautiful things the Lord has
given us, but also be grateful because God's light shines on earth
and bathes everything in splendour and beauty. In this regard, let
us live catholicity joyfully. This would be my answer. (Applause)
I am Fr Arnaldo. Holy Father, pastoral and ministerial
requirements in addition to the reduced number of priests impel our
Bishops to review the distribution of clergy, resulting in an
accumulation of tasks for one priest as well as responsibility for
more than one parish. This closely affects many communities of the
baptized and requires that we priests -- priests and lay people --
live and exercise the pastoral ministry together. How is it possible
to live this change in pastoral organization, giving priority to the
spirituality of the Good Shepherd? Thank you, Your Holiness.
Benedict XVI: Yes, let us return to this question of pastoral
priorities and how to be a parish priest today. A little while ago,
a French Bishop who was a Religious and so had never been a parish
priest, said to me: "Your Holiness, I would like you to explain to
me what a parish priest is. In France we have these large pastoral
units covering five, six or seven parishes and the parish priest
becomes a coordinator of bodies, of different initiatives". But it
seemed to him, since he was so busy coordinating the different
bodies he was obliged to deal with, that he no longer had the
possibility of a personal encounter with his sheep. Since he was a
Bishop, hence, the Pastor of a large parish, he wondered if this
system were right or whether we ought to rediscover a possibility
for the parish priest to be truly a parish priest, hence, pastor of
his flock. I could not, of course, come up with the recipe for an
instant solution to the situation in France, but the problem in
general is: to ensure that, despite the new situations and new forms
of responsibility, the parish priest does not forfeit his closeness
to the people, his truly being in person the shepherd of this flock
entrusted to him by the Lord.
Situations are not the
same: I am thinking of the Bishops in their dioceses with widely
differing situations; they must see clearly how to ensure that the
parish priest continues to be a pastor and does not become a holy
bureaucrat. In any case, I think that a first opportunity in which
we can be present for the people entrusted to us is precisely the
sacramental life. In the Eucharist we are together and can and must
meet one another; the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation is a
very personal encounter; Baptism is a personal encounter and not
only the moment of the conferral of the Sacrament. I would say that
all these sacraments have a context of their own: baptizing entails
offering the young family a little catechesis, speaking to them so
that Baptism may also become a personal encounter and an opportunity
for a very concrete catechesis. Preparation for First Communion,
Confirmation and Marriage is likewise always an opportunity for the
parish priest, the priest, to meet people personally; he is the
preacher and administrator of the sacraments in a way that always
involves the human dimension.
A sacrament is never
merely a ritual act, but the ritual and sacramental act strengthens
the human context in which the priest or parish priest acts.
Furthermore, I think it very important to find the right ways to
delegate. It is not right that the parish priest should only
coordinate other bodies. Rather, he should delegate in various ways,
and obviously at Synods -- and here in this Diocese you have had the
Synod -- a way is found to free the parish priest sufficiently. This
should be done in such a way that on the one hand he retains
responsibility for the totality of pastoral units entrusted to him.
He should not be reduced to being mainly and above all a
coordinating bureaucrat. On the contrary, he should be the one who
holds the essential reins himself but can also rely on
collaborators. I believe that this is one of the important and
positive results of the Council: the co-responsibility of the entire
parish, for the parish priest is no longer the only one to animate
everything. Since we all form a parish together, we must all
collaborate and help so that the parish priest is not left on his
own, mainly as a coordinator, but truly discovers that he is a
pastor who is backed up in these common tasks in which, together,
the parish lives and is fulfilled. Thus, I would say that, on the
one hand, this coordination and vital responsibility for the whole
parish, and on the other, the sacramental life and preaching as a
centre of parish life, could also today, in circumstances which are
of course more difficult, make it possible to be a parish priest who
may not know each person by name, as the Lord says of the Good
Shepherd, but one who really knows his sheep and is really their
pastor who calls and guides them.
I am asking the last question and I am very tempted to keep
quiet for it is a small question, Your Holiness, and after you have
nine times found the way to speak to us of God and so exalt us, I
feel that what I am about to ask you is trivial and poor, as it
were; yet I shall do so! Just a word for those of my generation who
trained during the years of the Council and set out with enthusiasm
and perhaps also the ambition to change the world. We worked very
hard and today we are in a somewhat tricky position because we are
worn out, many of our dreams failed to come true and we feel
somewhat lonely. The oldest say to us, "You see, we were right to
have been more prudent"; and the younger ones sometimes taunt us for
being "nostalgic for the Council". This is our question: Can we
still bring a gift to our Church, especially with that attachment to
people which we feel has marked us? Please help us to recover our
hope and serenity.
Benedict XVI: Thank you. This is an important question with
which I am well acquainted. I also lived at the time of the Council.
I was in St Peter's Basilica with great enthusiasm and saw new doors
opening. It really seemed to be the new Pentecost in which the
Church could once again convince humanity, after the world had
distanced itself from the Church in the 18th and 19th centuries; it
seemed that the Church and the world were meeting again and that a
Christian world and a Church of the world, truly open to the world,
were being born anew. We had so many hopes but in fact things turned
out to be more difficult.
However, the great
legacy of the Council which opened up a new road endures; it is
still a magna carta of the Church's journey, very essential and
fundamental. Why did this happen? Perhaps I would like to begin with
a historical observation. A post-conciliar period is almost always
very difficult. The important Council of Nicea -- which for us
really is the foundation of our faith, in fact, we confess the faith
formulated at Nicea -- did not lead to a situation of reconciliation
and unity as Constantine, who organized this great Council, had
hoped. It was followed instead by a truly chaotic situation of
in-fighting. In his book on the Holy Spirit, St Basil compares the
situation of the Church subsequent to the Council of Nicea to a
naval battle at night in which no one recognizes the other but
everyone fights everyone else. It really was a situation of total
chaos: thus, St Basil painted in strong colours the drama of the
post-conciliar period, the aftermath of Nicea. Fifty years later,
for the First Council of Constantinople, the Emperor invited St
Gregory of Nazianzus to take part in the Council. St Gregory
answered: "No. I will not come because I know these things, I know
that all Councils produce nothing but confusion and fighting so I
shall not be coming". And he did not go. Thus, in retrospect, today
is not as great a surprise as it would have been at the outset for
us all to digest the Council, its important message. To integrate it
in the Church's life, to accept it so that it may become the life of
the Church, to assimilate it in the various milieus of the Church,
means suffering. And it is only in suffering that growth is
achieved.
Growing always brings
suffering because it means emerging from one stage and moving on to
the next; and we must note that in the concrete post-conciliar
period there are two great historical caesurae. In the post-conciliar
period, we had the pause in 1968, the beginning or "explosion" -- I
would dare to call it -- of the great cultural crisis of the West.
The post-war generation had come to an end. This was the generation
that, after all the destruction and seeing the horrors of war and
fighting and noting the tragedy of the great ideologies which truly
led people to the brink of war, rediscovered the Christian roots of
Europe. And we had begun to rebuild Europe with these lofty
inspirations. However, once this generation had disappeared, all the
failures, the shortcomings in this reconstruction and the widespread
poverty in the world became visible. Thus, the crisis in Western
culture, I would call it a cultural revolution that wanted radical
change, burst out. It was saying: in 2,000 years of Christianity, we
have not created a better world. We must start again from zero in an
entirely new way. Marxism seems to be the scientific recipe for
creating a new world at last. And in this -- we said -- serious
clash between the new and healthy modernity desired by the Council
and the crisis of modernity, everything becomes difficult, just as
it was after the First Council of Nicea.
Some were of the opinion
that this cultural revolution was what the Council desired. They
identified this new Marxist cultural revolution with the Council's
intentions. This faction said: "This is the Council. Literally, the
texts are still somewhat antiquated but this is the spirit behind
the written words, this is the will of the Council, this is what we
have to do". On the other hand, however, was a reaction that said:
"This is the way to destroy the Church". This reaction -- let us say
-- was utterly opposed to the Council, the anti-conciliar approach
and -- let us say -- the timid, humble effort to achieve the true
spirit of the Council. And as a proverb says: "If a tree falls it
makes a great crash, but if a forest grows nothing can be heard for
a silent process is happening". Thus, in the din of an anti-Council
sentiment and erroneous progressivism, the journey of the Church
silently gathered momentum, with great suffering and great losses,
as she built up a new cultural process. Then came the second phase
in 1989 -- the collapse of the Communist regimes; but the response
was not a return to the faith as one might have expected. It was not
the rediscovery that the Church herself, with the authentic Council,
had come up with the answer. The response instead was the total
scepticism of so-called "post-modernity". It held that nothing is
true, that everyone must live as best he can. Materialism gained
ground, a pseudo-rationalist, blind scepticism that led to drugs and
ended in all the problems we know. Once again, it closed the ways to
faith because it was something so simple and so obvious. No, there
was nothing true about it. The truth is intolerant, we cannot take
this route. Here, in the contexts of these two cultural ruptures:
the first, the cultural revolution of 1968 and the second, the
collapse, we might call it, into nihilism after 1989, the Church
humbly set out among the afflictions of the world and the glory of
the Lord. On this path we must grow, patiently, and must now learn
in a new way what it means to give up triumphalism.
The Council had said
that triumphalism should be given up -- and was thinking of the
baroque, of all these great cultures of the Church. People said: Let
us begin in a new and modern way. But another triumphalism had
developed, that of thought: we now do things, we have found our way,
and on this path we will find the new world. Yet, the humility of
the Cross, of the Crucified One, excludes this same triumphalism. We
must renounce the triumphalism which holds that the great Church of
the future is now truly being born. Christ's Church is always humble
and in this very way is great and joyful. It seems to me very
important that our eyes are now open and can see all that is
positive which developed in the period subsequent to the Council: in
the renewal of the liturgy, in the Synods, the Roman Synods, the
universal Synods, the diocesan synods, the parish structures, in
collaboration, in the new responsibility of lay people, in the great
intercultural and intercontinental co-responsibility, in a new
experience of the Church's catholicity, of the unanimity that grows
in humility and yet is the true hope of the world. Thus, I think we
have to rediscover the Council's great legacy. It is not a spirit
reconstructed from texts but consists of the great Council texts
themselves, reinterpreted today with the experiences we have had
which have borne fruit in so many movements and so many new
religious communities. I went to Brazil knowing that the sects were
spreading and that the Catholic Church there seemed somewhat
fossilized; but once I arrived there, I saw that a new religious
community is born in Brazil almost every day, a new movement is
born. Not only are the sects growing, the Church is growing with new
situations full of vitality, not in order to complete the statistics
-- this is a false hope, statistics are not our god -- but these
situations are growing in souls and create the joy of faith, the
presence of the Gospel; consequently, they are also creating a true
development of the world and of society. It seems to me, therefore,
that we must combine the great humility of the Crucified One, of a
Church which is always humble and always opposed by the great
economic and military powers, etc., but with this humility we must
also learn the true triumphalism of catholicity that develops in all
the centuries. Today too, the presence of the Crucified and Risen
One, who has preserved his wounds, is increasing. He is wounded but
it is in this way that he renews the world and gives his breath
which also renews the Church, despite all our poverty. And I would
say that it is in this combination of the humility of the Cross and
the joy of the Risen Lord, who in the Council gave us a great
signpost for our journey, that we can go ahead joyously and full of
hope.
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Look at the One they
Pierced!
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
