Vatican City, Sep 29, 2009 (CNA).
- Pope Benedict XVI plans to focus his message for the next World Day of Social Communications on the new media and how they can serve the spread of the Gospel. The papal message encourages priests especially to make use of the new means of communicating.
The full title of the Pope's theme for the January 24, 2010 celebration is, "The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word." The Day is observed every year on the Feast of St. Francis of Sales, patron saint of journalists.
A statement published on Tuesday by the Vatican said that the goal of the Pope's message is "to invite priests in particular, during this Year for Priests and in the wake of the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to consider the new communications media as a possible resource for their ministry at the service of the Word. Likewise, it aims to encourage them to face the challenges arising from the new digital culture."
The Holy Father will also use his message to touch on how the “new communications media, if adequately understood and exploited, can offer priests and all pastoral care workers a wealth of data which was difficult to access before, and facilitate forms of collaboration and increased communion that were previously unthinkable," the Vatican says.
The Vatican statment goes on to point out that if the new media are wisely used, enlisting the help of experts in technology and the communications culture, they “can become - for priests and for all pastoral care workers - a valid and effective instrument for authentic and profound evangelization and communion."
dinsdag 29 september 2009
Pope Benedict to promote using new media to evangelize
Priests’ work is irreplaceable, Pope Benedict tells gathering of clergy at Ars
Ars, France, Sep 29, 2009 (CNA).
- In a video message to an international spiritual retreat for priests at the French shrine of Ars, Pope Benedict XVI said that priests’ work is irreplaceable and that the Church’s recognition for their “unreserved” commitment is “immense.”
The retreat, marking the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, is scheduled for September 27 through October 3. Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, is the preacher of the retreat, whose theme is “The joy of being a priest, consecrated for the salvation of the world.”
In his video message to the priests, made public on Tuesday, Pope Benedict said that the priest is “called to serve human beings and to give them life in God… He is a man of the divine Word and of all things holy and, today more than ever, he must be a man of joy and hope. To those who cannot conceive that God is pure Love, he will affirm that life is worthy to be lived and that Christ gives it its full meaning because He loves all humankind.”
The Pope then turned to priests who serve a number of parishes, saying they commit themselves “unreservedly” and that the Church’s recognition for them is “immense.”
“Do not lose heart but continue to pray and to make others pray that many young people may accept the call of Christ, Who always wishes to see the number of His apostles increase,” he added.
Pope Benedict asked the audience to consider the extreme diversity of the ministries they perform, such as the large number of Masses they celebrate “each time making Christ truly present at the altar.”
“Think of the numerous absolutions you have given and will give, freeing sinners from their burdens. Thus you may perceive the infinite fruitfulness of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Your hands and lips become, for a single instant, the hands and lips of God,” he reflected.
Such thoughts should ensure “harmonious relations” among the clergy to help build up the body of Christ and consolidate them “in love.”
“The priest is the man of the future,” he said.
“What he does in this world is part of the order of things directed towards the final Goal. Mass is the only point of union between the means and the Goal because it enables us to contemplate, under the humble appearance of the bread and the wine, the Body and Blood of Him Whom we adore in eternity.”
“Nothing will ever replace the ministry of priests in the heart of the Church,” Pope Benedict’s message continued. He called priests “the living witnesses of God's power at work in the weakness of human beings, consecrated for the salvation of the world, chosen by Christ Himself to be, thanks to Him, salt of the earth and light of the world.”
Benedict XVI announces second book on Jesus could be completed in 2010
Pope Benedict XVI said this past weekend that while he has not yet fully recovered from the broken wrist he suffered over the summer, he has been working on the second part of his book on Jesus and that he could complete it by the Spring of 2010.
During a press conference on the way to Prague, the Holy Father told reporters, “The right hand works, and I can do the essential things: I can eat, and above all, I can write. My thought is developed mainly through writing; so for me it was really a burden, a school of patience, not to be able to write for six weeks.”
However, he continued, “I was able to work, to read, to do other things, and I also made a little bit of progress with the book. But I still have much to do. I think that, with the bibliography and everything that is still to be done, 'Deo adjuvante,' it could be finished next spring. But this is a hope!”
Caritas in Veritate
Responding to a question about the impact of his latest encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” Pope Benedict XVI said, “I am very content that this serious discussion is taking place. This was the aim: to provide incentives and reasons for a discussion on these problems, not to leave things be as they are, but to find new models for a responsible economy, both in individual countries and for the totality of humanity as a whole.”
“It seems to me,” he went on, “that it has really become clear today that ethics is not something outside of the economy, which could work mechanically on its own, but is an inner principle of the economy, which does not work if it does not take into account the human values of solidarity, of reciprocal responsibilities, if it does not integrate ethics into the construction of the economy itself: this is the great challenge of this moment.”
The Holy Father said he was confident that the encyclical “contributed to this challenge.”
“The debate underway seems encouraging to me. Of course, we want to continue to respond to the challenges of the moment, and to help make the sense of responsibility stronger than the desire for profit, responsibility toward others stronger than egoism; in this sense, we want to contribute to a humane economy in the future as well,” Pope Benedict said.
Catholic public figures who scandalize faithful must repent publicly, Archbishop Burke says
Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, delivered a speech on September 8 discussing how to advance the culture of life in the U.S. and how to rectify the “scandal” of publicly known Catholics who confuse and distort Church teaching.
At the 14th Annual Partnership Dinner of InsideCatholic.com, Archbishop Burke said that those who have publicly espoused and cooperated in gravely sinful acts lead people into confusion and error about “fundamental questions.” Just as their dissent was public, their repentance must also be public.
“The person in question bears a heavy responsibility for the grave scandal which he has caused. The responsibility is especially heavy for political leaders,” the archbishop added.
Repairing the damage done by such scandal “begins with the public acknowledgment of his own error and the public declaration of his adherence to the moral law. The soul which recognizes the gravity of what he has done will, in fact, understand immediately the need to make public reparation,” Archbishop Burke said.
Particular harm is done by those who profess Christianity but promote policies and laws which “permit the destruction of innocent and defenseless human life” and “violate the integrity of marriage in the family,” he said.
The result of these actions is that citizens are confused and “led into error” about basic moral tenets.
Catholics who contribute to that confusion cause the “gravest harm” to their Christian brethren and also to the whole nation, Burke added.
“In our time, there is a great hesitation to speak about scandal, as if, in some way, it is only a phenomenon among persons of small or unenlightened mind, and, therefore, a tool of such persons to condemn others rashly and wrongly,” he observed.
In the archbishop’s view, it is ironic that those who experience scandal at the “gravely sinful” public actions of a fellow Catholic are accused of “a lack of charity” and of causing division within the Church.
“Lying or failing to tell the truth, however, is never a sign of charity. A unity which is not founded on the truth of the moral law is not the unity of the Church. The Church's unity is founded on speaking the truth with love,” he remarked.
The contrary attitude is characteristic of a society governed by the “tyranny of relativism,” one in which “political correctness and human respect” are the ultimate criteria, he said, warning that Catholics’ consciences have become “dulled to the gravity of certain moral issues.”
Archbishop Burke explained that the disciplines of the Church are not a judgment on the eternal salvation of someone’s soul but are “simply the acknowledgment of an objective truth… that the public actions of the soul are in violation of the moral law, to his own grave harm and to the grave harm of all who are confused or led into error by his actions.
For the archbishop, it seemed clear that the inspiration for the founding of the United States came from “a declared faith in God and in the inalienable rights with which He has endowed man.”
“To deny the Christian foundation of the life of our nation is to deny our very history,” he added, later saying that it is a “false notion” that a Christian or any person of faith must “bracket his faith life from his political life” in order to be a true American citizen.
This habit is not true to the founding principles of the U.S. government, the archbishop stated.
“What kind of government would require that its citizens and political leaders act without reference to the fundamental requirements of the moral law?” he asked rhetorically.
When Christians fail to articulate and uphold the “natural moral law,” Archbishop Burke added, they fail in their fundamental patriotic duty to love their country by serving the common good.
“Christian love does not have its foundation in blind tolerance of others and of what they think and say and do, but rather in the profound knowledge of others and their beliefs, and the honest acknowledgment of differences of belief, especially in what may compromise the life of the nation.”
