February 26, 2008
Pope's
Q-and-A Session With Roman Clergy, Part 7
On Sharing the Gift of the Gospel
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 18, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Following a Lenten
tradition, Benedict XVI met Feb. 7 with parish priests and
clergy of the Diocese of Rome. During the meeting, the
participants asked the Pope questions. Here is a translation of
one of the questions and the Holy Father's answer.
ZENIT began this series of questions-and-answers Feb. 11.
* * *
[Father Paul Chungat, Parochial Vicar at the Parish of San
Giuseppe Cottolengo:]
My name is Father Chungat. I am from India and I am currently
the parochial vicar at the Parish of San Giuseppe in Valle
Aurelia. I would like to thank you for the opportunity that you
have given me to serve for three years in the Diocese of Rome.
This has been a great help for me, for my studies, as I believe
that it has been for the priests who are studying in Rome.
The time has come to return to my diocese in India, where
Catholics are only one percent of the population and the other
99%is non-Christian. The situation of evangelization in my
homeland has been something I have been thinking a lot about in
recent days. In the recent note of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith there are some words that are difficult to
understand in the field of interreligious dialogue. For example
in section 10 of the document the words "fullness of salvation"
are written, and in the introduction one reads of the necessity
of "formal incorporation in the Church."
These are things that it will be difficult to explain when I
bring them to India and I must speak to my Hindu friends and to
the faithful of other religions. My question is: Is "fullness of
salvation" to be understood in a qualitative or in a
quantitative sense? If it is to be understood in a quantitative
sense, there is a bit of a difficulty. The Second Vatican
Council says that there is a glimmer of light in other faiths.
If in a qualitative sense, other than the historicity and the
fullness of the faith, what are the other things that show the
unicity of our faith in regard to interreligious dialogue?
[Benedict XVI:]
Thank you for this intervention. You know well that your
questions are big ones and an entire semester of theology would
be necessary! I will try to be brief. You know theology; there
are great masters and many books. First of all, thank you for
your testimony -- you say that you are happy to be able to work
in Rome even if you are Indian. For me this is a marvelous
phenomenon of catholicity.
At present it is not only the case that missionaries travel from
the West to other continents, but there is an exchange of gifts:
Indians, Africans, South Americans work among us and we travel
to other continents. It is a giving and a receiving on all
sides; this is precisely the vitality of catholicity, where we
are all debtors of the gifts of the Lord, and then we can give
to each other. It is in this reciprocity of gifts, of giving and
receiving, that the Catholic Church lives. You can learn from
these Western environments and experiences and we no less from
you. I see that this spirit of religiosity that exists in Asia,
as in Africa, surprises Europeans, who are often a little cold
in faith. And thus this vivacity, at least of the religious
spirit that exists on these continents, is a great gift for all
of us, above all for us bishops of the Western world and in
particular in those countries in which the phenomenon of
immigration is most apparent, from the Philippines, from India,
etc. Our cold Catholicism is revived by this fervor that comes
from you. Catholicity, then, is a great gift.
Let us come to the questions that you posed to me. I do not have
the exact words of the document of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith before me at this moment; but in any case,
I would like to say two things. On one hand, dialogue, getting
to know each other, respecting each other and trying to
cooperate in every possible way for the great purposes of
humanity, or for its great needs, to overcome fanaticisms and to
create a spirit of peace and of love -- all of this is
absolutely necessary. And this is also in the spirit of the
Gospel, whose meaning is precisely that the spirit of love that
we have learned from Jesus, the peace of Jesus that he has given
us through the cross, become universally present in the world.
In this sense dialogue must be true dialogue, in respecting the
other and in the acceptance of his alterity; but it must also be
evangelical, in the sense that its fundamental purpose is to
help men to live in love and to make it the case that this love
expand throughout the world.
But this dimension of dialogue, which is so necessary, that is,
the respect of the other, of tolerance, of cooperation, does not
exclude the other dimension, that is that the Gospel is a great
gift, the gift of great love, of great truth, that we cannot
only keep for ourselves, but that we must offer to others,
considering that God gives them the necessary freedom and light
to find the truth. This is the truth. And this, then, is also my
road. Mission is not imposition, but an offering of the gift of
God, letting his goodness enlighten people so that the gift of
concrete friendship with God be extended and acquire a human
face. For this reason we want and we must always bear witness to
this faith and the love that lives in our faith. We will have
neglected a true human and divine duty if we have left others to
their own devices and kept the faith we have only for ourselves.
We would be unfaithful even to ourselves if we were not to offer
this faith to the world, while always respecting the freedom of
others. The presence of faith in the world is a positive
element, even if no one is converted; it is a point of
reference.
Exponents of non-Christian religions have told me: The presence
of Christianity is a point of reference that helps us, even if
we do not convert. Let us think of the great figure of Mahatma
Gandhi: Despite being firmly committed to his religion, for him
the Sermon on the Mount was a fundamental point of reference
that formed his whole life. And thus the ferment of the faith,
although it did not convert him to Christianity, entered into
his life. And it seems to me that this ferment of Christian love
that shows through the Gospel is -- beyond the missionary work
that seeks to enlarge the spaces of faith -- a service that we
render to humanity.
Let us think about St. Paul. A short time ago I reflected again
on his missionary motivation. I also spoke about it to the Curia
on the occasion of the end of the year meeting. He was moved by
the word of the Lord in his eschatological sermon. Before every
event, before the return of the Son of Man, the Gospel must be
preached to all nations. The condition for the world reaching
its perfection, the condition for its opening up to paradise, is
that the Gospel be proclaimed to all. All of his missionary zeal
is directed at bringing the Gospel to all, possibly in his own
time, to respond to the Lord's command "that it be proclaimed to
all nations." His desire was not so much to baptize all nations,
as it was that the Gospel [be] present in the world and thus the
completion of history as such [also be present in the world].
It seems to me that today, seeing how history has gone, one can
better understand that this presence of the word of God, that
this proclamation that comes to all as a ferment, is necessary
for the world to truly arrive at its purpose. In this sense,
indeed we desire the conversion of all, but let us allow the
Lord to be the one who acts. It is important that those who wish
to convert have the possibility of doing so and that there
appear in the world for all this light of the Lord as a point of
reference and as a light that helps, without which the world
cannot find itself. I do not know if I have made myself clear:
dialogue and mission not only do not exclude each other, but the
one requires the other.
*************************
Pope's
Q-and-A Session With Roman Clergy, Part 8
On Large Celebrations of the Mass
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Following a Lenten
tradition, Benedict XVI met Feb. 7 with parish priests and
clergy of the Diocese of Rome. During the meeting, the
participants asked the Pope questions. Here is a translation of
one of the questions and the Holy Father's answer.
ZENIT began this series of questions-and-answers Feb. 11.
* * *
[Father Alberto Orlando, Parochial Vicar of Santa Maria Madre
della Provvidenza:]
My name is Father Alberto Orlando, assistant pastor of the
Parish of Santa Maria Madre della Provvidenza. I would like to
present to you a difficulty that I experienced with the young
people at Loreto last year. We had a beautiful day at Loreto,
but among the many nice things we noted a certain distance
between you and the young people. We arrived in the afternoon.
We were not able to see or hear. […]
The second thing that caused us some difficulty was the liturgy
the next day, a little heavy, above all in regard to the songs
and music. […] Here are the two questions: Why this distance
between you and them; and then how does one reconcile the
treasure of the liturgy in all its solemnity with the sentiment,
affection, emotiveness that nourishes young people and of which
they have much need?
I would also like some advice: How do we regulate between
solemnity and emotiveness. Also because we are ourselves priests
and we often ask ourselves how much we priests are able to live
emotion and sentiment with simplicity. And being ministers of
the sacrament we would like to be able to orient sentiment and
emotiveness toward this just equilibrium.
[Benedict XVI:]
The first point that was proposed to me is connected with the
situation of the organization [of the meeting at Loreto]: I
found it as it was, so I do not know whether it was possible
perhaps to organize it in a different way. Considering the
thousands of people who were there, it was impossible, I
believe, to make it so everyone could be close in the same way.
Indeed, because of this we used a car to get closer to
individual people. But we will take this into account and see if
in the future, in other meetings with thousands and thousands of
people, it will ever be possible to do something different.
Nevertheless, it seems important to me that the feeling of
interior nearness grow, that the bridge that unites us even if
we are physically distant be found. But liturgies in which
masses of people participate are a great problem.
I remember in 1960, during the great Eucharistic Congress in
Munich, there was an attempt to give a new physiognomy to
Eucharistic congresses, which until that time were only acts of
adoration. There was a desire to put at the center the
celebration of the Eucharist as an act of the presence of the
mystery that was celebrated. But immediately the question arose
as to how it would be possible. Adoration, it was said, is
possible even at a distance; but to celebrate, a limited
community that interacts with the mystery is necessary; thus a
community that must be an assembly around the celebration of the
mystery. There were many who were against the celebration of the
Eucharist in public with 100,000 people. They said that it was
not possible precisely because of the structure itself of the
Eucharist, which demands community for communion.
There were even great, very respectable personalities who were
against this solution. Then Professor Jungmann, the great
liturgist, one of the great architects of the liturgical reform,
created the concept of “statio orbis,” that is, he returned to
the “statio Romae,” where precisely in the time of Lent the
faithful gathered at one point, the statio: There they are
stationed like soldiers for Christ; they then go to the
Eucharist together. If this, he said, was the statio of the city
of Rome, where the city of Rome gathers, then this is the
“statio orbis.” And from that moment on we had Eucharistic
celebrations with the participation of the masses.
For me, I must say, it remains a problem, because concrete
communion in the celebration is fundamental and so I do not find
that the definitive answer has been truly found. I also had this
question brought up at the last synod, but it did not find an
answer. I also had another question brought up, about
concelebration “en masse”: Because if, for example, thousands of
priests concelebrate, one does not know if this is still the
structure desired by the Lord. But in any case they are
questions. And so the problem of celebration in large numbers in
which not all can be equally involved was presented to you. A
certain style must therefore be chosen to conserve that dignity
that is always necessary for the Eucharist and then the
community is not uniform and the experience of participation in
the event is diverse; for some it is certainly insufficient. But
it did not depend on me, rather it depended on those who made
the preparations.
One must reflect hard, therefore, about what to do in these
situations, how to respond to the challenges of this situation.
If I am not mistaken, it was an orchestra of handicapped persons
who performed the music and perhaps the idea was precisely that
of showing that the handicapped can be animators of the sacred
celebration and indeed they must not be excluded as primary
agents. And so everyone, loving them, did not want them to feel
excluded but, on the contrary, involved. It seems to me to be a
very respectable view and I share it. Naturally, however, the
basic problem remains.
But it seems to me that here too, knowing what the Eucharist is,
even if one is not able to participate externally as one would
wish so as to feel involved, one enters into it with one’s
heart, as the ancient imperative of the Church says -- perhaps
created for those who are standing in back in the basilica --
“Lift up your hearts! Now let us all go out of ourselves, in
this way we are all with the Lord and we are together.” As I
said, I do not deny the problem, but if we really follow this
word, “Lift up your hearts,” we will all find, even in difficult
and sometimes questionable situations, the true active
participation.
************************
Pope's
Q-and-A Session With Roman Clergy, Part 9
On the Christian Identity
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Following a Lenten
tradition, Benedict XVI met Feb. 7 with parish priests and
clergy of the Diocese of Rome. During the meeting, the
participants asked the Pope questions. Here is a translation of
the last two questions and the Holy Father's answers.
ZENIT began this series of questions-and-answers Feb. 11.
* * *
[Monsignor Renzo Martinelli, Delegate of the Pontificia
Accademia dell'Immacolata:]
Holy Father, […] returning to the problem of the educational
emergency, the question is this: Recently you said to the
Slovenian bishops, “If, for example, man is understood in an
individualistic way -- which is a widespread tendency today --
how can the effort to build a just and solidary society be
justified?” How can one propose to young people that on which
you have always insisted, namely, that the Christian “I”, once
it puts on Christ, is no longer “I”? The Christian’s identity,
you said at Verona very profoundly, is the “I” no longer “I”
because there is the communal subject who is Christ. How does
one propose, Your Holiness, this conversion, this new modality,
this Christian originality of being a communion that effectively
proposes the newness of the Christian experience?
[Benedict XVI:]
It is the great question that every priest who is responsible
for others poses every day. Even for himself, naturally. It is
true that in the 20th century there was the tendency toward an
individualistic piety, to save one’s own soul above all and
create merits that were even calculatable, that one could, on
certain lists, also indicate with numbers. And certainly the
whole movement of the Second Vatican Council aimed at overcoming
this individualism.
I do not wish now to judge these previous generations, who in
their way, nevertheless, sought thus to serve others. But there
was a danger there that one wanted above all to save one’s own
soul; from this followed an extrinsicism of piety that in the
end found faith to be a burden and not a liberation. It is
certainly the basic will of the new pastoral approach indicated
by Vatican II to get away from this overly narrow Christianity
and to discover that I save my soul by giving it, as the Lord
told us today in the Gospel; only freeing myself from me, going
out of myself; as God did in the Son, God going out of himself
to save us. And we enter into this movement of the Son, we try
to leave ourselves because we know where we are going. And we do
not fall into a void, but we leave ourselves behind, abandoning
ourselves to God, going out, putting ourselves at his service,
as he wills and not as we will.
This is true Christian obedience, which is freedom: not as I
wish, with my plan for life for myself, but putting myself in
his service, that he may do with me as he pleases. And putting
myself into his hands I am free. But it is a great leap that is
never definitively accomplished. I think here of St. Augustine,
who told us this so many times. Initially after his conversion
he thought that he had arrived at the top and was living in the
paradise of the novelty of being a Christian. But then he
discovered that the difficult road of life continued -- although
from that moment always in the light of God -- and that every
day it was again necessary to make this leap out of oneself; to
give this “I” so that it die and be renewed in the great “I” of
Christ, an “I” that is in a certain way more true, the “I” that
is common to us all, our “we.”
But I would say that we ourselves must precisely in the
celebration of the Eucharist -- which is this great and profound
meeting with the Lord where I let myself fall into his hands --
take this great step. The more we ourselves learn to do it the
more we can also express it to others and make it
comprehensible, accessible to others. Only going along with the
Lord, abandoning ourselves in the communion of the Church to
this openness, not living for myself -- neither for a worldly
life nor for personal beatitude -- but making myself an
instrument of his peace, I live well and I learn this courage in
the face of daily challenges, always new and grave, often
impossible. I leave myself behind because you wish it and I am
certain that in this way I will move forward well. We can only
implore the Lord that he help us to follow this road every day,
to help, to enlighten others in this way, to move them so that
they too can be thus liberated and redeemed.
[Father Umberto Fanfarillo, Pastor of Santa Dorotea in
Trastevere:]
Holy Father, I am the pastor of Santa Dorotea in Trastevere,
Father Umberto Fanfarillo, a Conventual Franciscan. Together
with the Christian community of the area of the parish, I would
like to indicate a conspicuous even if not a profound presence
of other religious contexts, which we encounter every day with
reciprocal esteem, in conscientious and also in a respectful
coexistence.
In this substantial positivity of intentions I can also include
the commitment of the Accademia dei Lincei and the nearby
American university of John Cabot, with more than 800 students
from about 60 countries and with religious affiliations that
range from Catholic to Lutheran, from Jewish to Muslim. It was
indeed these young people who gathered in prayer at our church
when John Paul II died. Some of them, coming to our parish,
express respect and serenity before our religious symbols, such
as the crucifix and the images of Mary, of the saints and the
Pope. In the confines of the parish the Peter Pan House welcomes
children who are sick with tumors and is connected with the
Bambino Gesù Hospital.
Even here there are exceptional moments of charity in
interreligiosity and religious attention to the sick and needy
brother. At Regina Coeli Prison, which is also in the confines
of the parish, there are analogous realities and respectful
encounter among expressions of religiosity. Recently, in the
climate of respect and witness, two young Anglicans who became
Catholic received the sacrament of Confirmation. I believe that
these things are also continually met in the lodging places that
characterize the Trastevere quarter of Rome.
Holy Father, we are all looking for new and more balanced
attitudes of conscientiousness and respect. We have always
appreciated your interventions marked by respect and dialogue in
the search for truth. Help us once more with your word.
[Benedict XVI:]
Thank you for this testimony of a parish that is truly
multidimensional and multicultural. It seems to me that you have
somewhat concretized what we discussed earlier with our Indian
confrere: this ensemble of a dialogue, of a respectful
coexistence, respecting each other, accepting each other as they
are in their alterity, in their communion. And at the same time
there is the presence of Christianity, of Christian faith as a
point of reference upon which focus their attention, as a
ferment that in the respect for freedom is nevertheless a light
for all and that brings us together precisely in respect for
differences. Let us hope that the Lord will always help us in
this sense to accept the other in his alterity, to respect him
and to make Christ present in the gesture of love, which is the
true expression of his presence and of his word. And may the
Lord help us thus to truly be servants of Christ and of his
salvation for the world. Thank you.
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