The Weekly Benedict

Introduction

The Weekly Benedict is a compilation of documents, speeches, and other texts brought into an ebook format.

The Weekly Benedict was inspired by Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin who came up with the idea to create a weekly link page to the words of the Holy Father.

All texts are © Copyright 2012 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Considering the increasing prevalence of electronic book readers and their ease in reading textual documents this provides an ideal format in making available the wonderful and insightful words of Pope Benedict XVI. This ebook compilation is provided as a public service with no associated fees.

Jeff Miller The Curt Jester blog

Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin's blog can be found at JimmyAkin.org

While this ebook publication take it's cue from Jimmy Akin's weekly post with links, it is done without association and any copyright problems or formatting mistakes are entirely my own.

Index of Source Links

List of direct document links on Vatican.va used.

Angelus

- 27 January 2013

General Audiences

- 23 January 2013

- 30 January 2013

Homilies

- 2 February 2013 - Celebration of Mass on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the 17th Day of Consecrated Life

Letters

- 23 January 2013 - Words of condolences for the death of Card. Jozef Glemp

- 1 February 2013 - Letter to the new Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans for the concession of the Ecclesiastica Communio

Motu Proprio

- 16 January 2013 - Apostolic Letter Issued Motu Proprio “Fides per Doctrinam” whereby the Apostolic Constitution “Pastor Bonus” is modified and competence for catechesis is transferred from the Congregation for the Clergy to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization

- 16 January 2013 - Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio “Ministrorum Institutio” whereby the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus is modified and responsibility for seminaries is transferred from the Congregation for Catholic Education to the Congregation for the Clergy

Messages

- 1 February 2013 - Message for Lent 2013

Speeches

- 26 January 2013 - To Prelate Auditors, Officials and Advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the inauguration of the Judicial Year

- 9 February 2013 - To the members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Tweets

- https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/296577248880889856

- https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/297661258897977344

- https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/297676609769578496

- https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/298028307423830016

- https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/299113209552572416

- https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/300562757705678848

Angelus

Angelus, 3 February 2013 - Benedict XVI

BENEDICT XVI

ANGELUS

Saint Peter's Square

Sunday, 3 February 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s Gospel — taken from chapter four of St Luke — is the continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel. Once again we find ourselves in the Synagogue of Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up, where every knew him and his family. Then, after a period of absence, he returned there in a new way: during the Sabbath liturgy he read a prophecy on the Messiah by Isaiah and announced its fulfilment, making it clear that this word referred to him, that Isaiah had spoken about him. The event puzzled the Nazarenes: on the one hand they “all spoke well of him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Lk 4:22).

St Mark reported what many were saying: “Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him?” (6:2). On the other hand, however, his fellow villagers knew him too well: “He is one like us”, they say, “His claim can only be a presumption (cf. The Infancy Narratives, English edition, p. 3). “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Lk 4:22), as if to say “what can a carpenter from Nazareth aspire to?”.

Well-acquainted with this imperviousness which confirms the proverb: “no prophet is acceptable in his own country”, to the people in the synagogue Jesus addressed words that resonate like a provocation. He cited two miracles wrought by the great prophets Elijah and Elisha for men who were not Israelites in order to demonstrate that faith is sometimes stronger outside Israel. At this point there was a unanimous reaction. All the people got to their feet and drove him away; and they even tried to push him off a precipice. However, passing through the midst of the angry mob with supreme calmness he went away. At this point it comes naturally to wonder: why ever did Jesus want to stir up this antagonism? At the outset the people admired him and he might perhaps have been able to obtain a certain consensus.... But this is exactly the point: Jesus did not come to seek the agreement of men and women but rather — as he was to say to Pilate in the end — “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). The true prophet does not obey others as he does God, and puts himself at the service of the truth, ready to pay in person. It is true that Jesus was a prophet of love, but love has a truth of its own. Indeed, love and truth are two names of the same reality, two names of God.

In today’s liturgy these words of St Paul also ring out: “Love is not... boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right” (1 Cor 13:43-6). Believing in God means giving up our own prejudices and accepting the actual face in which he revealed himself: Jesus of Nazareth the man. And this process also leads to recognizing him and to serving him in others.

On this path Mary’s attitude is enlightening. Who could be more closely acquainted than her with the humanity of Jesus? Yet she was never shocked by him as were his fellow Nazarenes. She cherished this mystery in her heart and was always and ever better able to accept it on the journey of faith, even to the night of the Cross and the full brilliance of the Resurrection. May Mary also always help us to continue faithfully and joyfully on this journey.

After the Angelus:

Dear brothers and sisters, “The World Day for Life” is celebrated in Italy on the first Sunday of February. I join the Italian bishops who in their message extend the invitation to invest in life and in the family, also as an effective response to the current crisis. I greet the Pro-Life Movement, and I wish every success to the initiative called “Uno di noi” [One of Us], so that Europe may always be a place where the dignity of every human being is protected. I greet the representatives of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Rome, and especially the teachers of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, accompanied by the Cardinal Vicar, and I encourage them to train health-care workers in the culture of life.

I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today’s Angelus. In the Gospel of today’s liturgy, Jesus reminds us that being a prophet is no easy task, even among those nearest to us. Let us ask the Lord to give each of us a spirit of courage and wisdom, so that in our words and actions we may proclaim the saving truth of God’s love with boldness, humility and coherence. God bless each of you!

I wish you all a good Sunday. Thank you. Have a good Sunday!

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

General Audiences

General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, 23 January 2013

BENEDICT XVI

GENERAL AUDIENCE

Paul VI Audience Hall

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

“I believe in God”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In this Year of Faith, today I would like to begin to reflect with you on the “Creed”, that is, on the solemn profession of faith that accompanies our life as believers. The opening words of the “Creed” are: “I believe in God”. It is a fundamental affirmation, seemingly simple in its essence, but it opens on to the infinite world of the relationship with the Lord and with his mystery. Believing in God entails adherence to him, the acceptance of his word and joyful obedience to his revelation. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Faith is a personal act — the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself” (n. 166). The ability to say one believes in God is therefore both a gift — God reveals himself, he comes to meet us — and a commitment, it is divine grace and human responsibility in an experience of conversation with God who, out of love, “addresses men as his friends” (Dei Verbum, n. 2) speaks to us, so that, in faith and with faith, we are able to enter into communion with him.

Where can we listen to God and to his word? Sacred Scripture, in which the word of God becomes audible to us and nourishes our life as “friends” of God, is fundamental. The entire Bible narrates God’s revelation of himself to humanity. The entire Bible speaks of faith and teaches us faith by narrating a history in which God carries out his plan of redemption and makes himself close to people, through an array of shining figures who believe in him and entrust themselves to him, to the fullness of revelation in the Lord Jesus.

Chapter 11 of the Letter to the Hebrews that we have just heard is very beautiful in this regard. Here faith is discussed and light is shed on the great biblical figures who lived it, becoming models for all believers. In the first verse the text says: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1). The eyes of faith are thus able to see the invisible and the believer’s heart can hope beyond all hope, exactly like Abraham, of whom Paul says in the Letter to the Romans: “in hope he believed against hope” (4:18).

And it is on Abraham himself that I wish to reflect and to focus our attention, since he is the first great figure and reference for speaking of faith in God: Abraham the great patriarch, an exemplary model, father of all believers (cf. Rom 4:11-12). The Letter to the Hebrews presents it in this way: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents like Isaac and Jacob had, heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city which has sound foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (11:8-10).

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews is referring here to the call of Abraham, recounted in the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. What did God ask of this patriarch? He asked him to set out, leave his own country to journey to the land that he would show him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1).

How would we have responded to such an invitation? In fact it meant setting out with no directions, no knowledge of where God would lead him; it was a journey that demanded radical obedience and trust, to which faith alone gives access. Yet the dark unknown — to which Abraham had to go — was lit by the light of a promise; God added to his order a reassuring word that unfolded to Abraham a future, life in fullness: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great… and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen 12:2, 3).

In Sacred Scripture, the blessing is primarily linked to the gift of life that comes from God and is revealed first of all in fertility, in a life that is multiplied, passing from one generation to the next. And also linked to the blessing is the experience of the possession of a land, a permanent place in which to live and to develop in freedom and safety, fearing God and building a society of people faithful to the Covenant, “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (cf. Ex 19:6).

Therefore in the divine plan Abraham was destined to become “the father of a multitude of nations” (Gen 17:5; cf. Rom 4:17-18), and to enter a new land in which to dwell. Yet Sarah, his wife, was barren, she was unable to bear children; and the land to which God was leading him was far from the land of his birth, it was already inhabited by other peoples and would never really belong to him. The biblical narrator emphasizes this, although with great discretion. When Abraham arrives in the place of God’s promise: “at that time the Canaanites were in the land” (Gen 12:6). The land that God gave Abraham did not belong to him, he was a foreigner and would always remain such, with all that this implies: having no ambition to possess, ever aware of his poverty, seeing everything as a gift. This is also the spiritual condition of those who agree to follow the Lord, who decide to set out in response to his call, under the banner of his invisible but powerful blessing. And Abraham, “father of believers”, accepted this call in faith. St Paul wrote in the Letter to the Romans: “in hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, ‘so shall your descendants be’. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Rom 4:18-21).

Faith led Abraham to take a paradoxical path. He was blessed but without the visible signs of blessing: he received the promise that he would become a great people, but with a life marked by the barrenness of his wife Sarah; he was led to a new homeland but had to live there as a foreigner; and the only land he was permitted to possess was a lot in which to bury Sarah (cf. Gen 23:1-20) Abraham was blessed because in faith he was able to discern the divine blessing, going beyond appearances and trusting in God’s presence even when God’s paths seemed mysterious to him.

What does this mean to us? When we affirm “I believe in God”, we are saying, like Abraham, “I trust in you, I entrust myself to you, O Lord”, but not as to Someone to turn to solely in times of difficulty or to whom to devote a few moments of the day or week. Saying “I believe in God” means founding my life on him, letting his Word guide it every day, in practical decisions, without fear of losing some part of myself. When, in the Rite of Baptism, the question is asked three times: “Do you believe?” — in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit — the holy Catholic Church and the other truths of the faith, the triple response is in the singular: “I do”, because it is my own life that with the gift of faith must be given a turning point, it is my life that must change, that must be converted. Every time we take part in a Baptism we should ask ourselves how we ourselves live daily the great gift of faith.

Abraham the believer teaches us faith and, as a stranger on this earth, points out to us the true homeland. Faith makes us pilgrims on earth, integrated into the world and into history, but bound for the heavenly homeland. Believing in God thus makes us harbingers of values that often do not coincide with the fashion and opinion of the moment. It requires us to adopt criteria and assume forms of conduct that are not part of the common mindset. Christians must not be afraid to go “against the current” in order to live their faith, resisting the temptation to “conform”. In many of our societies God has become the “great absent One” and many idols have supplanted him, multiform idols, especially possession and the autonomous “I”. And even the major and positive breakthroughs of science and technology have instilled in people an illusion of omnipotence and self-sufficiency, and an increasing egotism which has created many imbalances in interpersonal relations and social behaviour.

Nevertheless the thirst for God (cf. Ps 63[62]:1-2) has not been quenched and the Gospel message continues to resonate in the words and deeds of numerous men and women of faith. Abraham, the father of believers, continues to be a father of many children who agree to walk in his footsteps and set out in obedience to the divine call, trusting in the benevolent presence of the Lord and receiving his blessing in order to become themselves a blessing for all. It is the blessed world of faith to which we are all called, in order to walk fearlessly, following the Lord Jesus Christ. And at times it is a difficult journey that also undergoes trial and death, but that opens to life in a radical transformation of reality that only the eyes of faith can perceive and enjoy to the full.

Affirming “I believe in God” impels us, therefore, to set out, to come out of ourselves, exactly as Abraham did, to bring to the daily situation in which we live the certainty that comes to us from faith: namely, the certainty of God’s presence in history today too; a presence that brings life and salvation and opens us to a future with him for a fullness of life that will know no end.

To special groups:

During this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I offer a warm welcome to the faculty and students of the Bossey Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies, with cordial good wishes for their studies. I also greet the military chaplains from the United Kingdom recently returned from Afghanistan. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Audience, including the pilgrim and student groups from the United States, I invoke God’s blessings of joy and peace.

I am following with concern the news from Indonesia, where a great flood has devastated Jakarta, the capital, claiming a heavy toll of victims, thousands of evacuees and causing extensive damage. I wish to express my closeness to the peoples hit by this natural disaster, as I assure them of my prayers, encouraging solidarity to ensure that no one lacks the necessary assistance.

I hope that in every community the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will encourage the commitment to ask the Lord insistently for the gift of unity and to live in fraternal communion.

Lastly, an affectionate thought for the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. Next Friday we shall be celebrating the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. Dear young people, may the Apostle Paul be for you a model of life in integrity and radical faith. Dear sick people, offer up your sufferings for the cause of the unity of Christ’s Church. And you, dear newlyweds, draw inspiration from the life of the Apostle to the Gentiles, recognizing the primacy of God and his love for your family life. Thanks and best wishes to you all.

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, 30 January 2013

BENEDICT XVI

GENERAL AUDIENCE

Paul VI Audience Hall

Wednesday, 30 January 2013

I believe in God: the almighty Father

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In last Wednesday’s Catechesis we reflected on the opening words of the Creed: “I believe in one God”. But the profession of faith specifies this affirmation: God is the almighty Father, Creator of heaven and earth. Thus I would like to reflect with you now on the first and fundamental definition of God which the Creed presents to us: he is Father.

It is not always easy today to talk about fatherhood, especially in the Western world. Families are broken, the workplace is ever more absorbing, families worry and often struggle to make ends meet and the distracting invasion of the media invades our daily life: these are some of the many factors that can stand in the way of a calm and constructive relationship between father and child. At times communication becomes difficult, trust is lacking and the relationship with the father figure can become problematic; moreover, in this way even imagining God as a father becomes problematic without credible models of reference. It is not easy for those who have experienced an excessively authoritarian and inflexible father or one who was indifferent and lacking in affection, or even absent, to think serenely of God and to entrust themselves to him with confidence.

Yet the revelation in the Bible helps us to overcome these difficulties by speaking to us of a God who shows us what it really means to be “father”; and it is the Gospel, especially, which reveals to us this face of God as a Father who loves, even to the point of giving his own Son for humanity’s salvation. The reference to the father figure thus helps us to understand something of the love of God, which is nevertheless infinitely greater, more faithful, and more total than the love of any man.

“What man of you”, Jesus asks in order to show the disciples the Father’s face, “will give his son a stone if he asks for bread? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt 7:9-11; cf. Lk 11:11-13). God is our Father because he blessed us and chose us before the creation of the world (cf. Eph 1:3-6), he has really made us his children in Jesus (cf. 1 Jn 3:1). And as Father, God accompanies our lives with love, giving us his Word, his teaching, his grace and his Spirit.

As Jesus revealed — he is the Father who feeds the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap, and arrays the flowers of the field in marvellous colours, in robes more beautiful than those of Solomon himself (cf. Mt 6:26-32; Lk 12:24-28); and we, Jesus added, are worth far more than the flowers and the birds of the air! And if he is so good that he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” Mt 5:45), we shall always be able, without fear and with total confidence, to entrust ourselves to his forgiveness as Father whenever we err. God is a good Father who welcomes and embraces his lost but repentant son (cf. Lk 15:11ff.), who gives freely to those who ask him (cf. Mt 18:19; Mk 11:24; Jn 16:23), and offers the bread of heaven and the living water that wells up to eternal life (cf. Jn 6:32, 51, 58).

Thus, although the person praying in Psalm 27 [26] is surrounded by enemies and assailed by evildoers and slanderers, while seeking the Lord’s help he invokes him. The witness he bears is full of faith, as he states: “My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up” (v. 10).

God is a Father who never abandons his children, a loving Father who supports, helps, welcomes, pardons and saves with a faithfulness that surpasses by far that of men and women, opening onto dimensions of eternity. “For his steadfast love endures for ever”, as Psalm 136 [135] repeats in every verse, as in a litany, retracing the history of salvation. The love of God the Father never fails, he does not tire of us; it is a love that gives to the end, even to the sacrifice of his Son. Faith gives us this certainty which becomes a firm rock in the construction of our life: we can face all the moments of difficulty and danger, the experience of the darkness of despair in times of crisis and suffering, sustained by our trust that God does not forsake us and is always close in order to save us and lead us to eternal life.

It is in the Lord Jesus that the benevolent face of the Father, who is in heaven, is fully revealed. It is in knowing him that we may also know the Father (cf. Jn 8:19; 14:7). It is in seeing him that we can see the Father, because he is in the Father and the Father is in him (cf. Jn 14:9,11). He is “the image of the invisible God” and as the hymn of the Letter to the Colossians describes him, he is: “the first-born of all creation... the first-born from the dead”, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” and the reconciliation of all things, “whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:13-20).

Faith in God the Father asks for belief in the Son, under the action of the Spirit, recognizing in the Cross that saves the definitive revelation of divine love. God is our Father, giving us his Son; God is our Father, pardoning our sin and bringing us to joy in everlasting life; God is our Father, giving us the Spirit that makes us sons and enables us to call him, in truth “Abba, Father!” (cf. Rom 8:15). It is for this reason that Jesus, teaching us to pray, invites us to say “Our Father” (Mt 6:9-13; cf. Lk 11:2-4).

Consequently God’s fatherhood is infinite love, tenderness that bends over us, frail children, in need of everything. Psalm 103 [102], the great hymn of divine mercy, proclaims: “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (vv. 13-14). It is our smallness, our frail human nature that becomes an appeal to the Lord’s mercy, that he may show his greatness and tenderness as a Father, helping, forgiving us and saving us.

And God responded to our plea by sending his Son who died and rose for us; he entered our frailty and did what man on his own could never have done: as an innocent lamb he took upon himself the sin of the world and reopened our path to communion with God, making us true children of God. It is there, in the Paschal Mystery, that the definitive face of the Father is revealed in its full splendour. And it is there, on the glorious Cross, that God’s omnipotence as the “almighty Father” is fully manifested.

However, let us ask ourselves: how is it possible to think of an omnipotent God while looking at the Cross of Christ? At this power of evil which went so far as to kill the Son of God? Naturally, what we would like would be a divine mightiness that fitted our own mindset and wishes: an “omnipotent” God who solves problems, who intervenes to prevent us from encountering difficulties, who overcomes adverse powers, changes the course of events and eliminates suffering. Thus today various theologians say that God cannot be omnipotent, for otherwise there would not be so much suffering, so much evil in the world. In fact, in the face of evil and suffering, for many, for us, it becomes problematic, difficult, to believe in a God who is Father and to believe that he is omnipotent; some seek refuge in idols, succumbing to the temptation to seek an answer in a presumed “magic” omnipotence and its illusory promises.

Nevertheless faith in almighty God impels us to have a very different approach: to learn to know that God’s thought is different from our own, that God’s ways are different from ours (cf. Is 55:8) and that his omnipotence is also different. It is not expressed as an automatic or arbitrary force but is marked by a loving and paternal freedom. In fact by creating free creatures, by giving us freedom, God renounced some of his power, allowing for the power of our freedom. Thus he loves and respects the free response of love to his call. As Father, God wishes us to become his children and to live as such in his Son, in communion, in full familiarity with him. His omnipotence is not expressed in violence, it is not expressed in the destruction of every adverse power as we might like; rather it is expressed in love, in mercy, in forgiveness, in accepting our freedom and in the tireless call for conversion of heart, in an attitude only seemingly weak — God seems weak if we think of Jesus Christ who prays, who lets himself be killed. This apparently weak attitude consists of patience, meekness and love, it shows that this is the real way to be powerful! This is God’s power! And this power will win! The sage of the Book of Wisdom addressed God in these words: “For you are merciful to all, for you can do all things, and you overlook men’s sins, that they may repent. For you love all things that exist.... You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord who loves the living” (11:23-24a, 26).

Only those who are truly powerful can tolerate evil and show compassion; only those who are truly powerful can fully exercise the force of love. And God, to whom all things belong because all things were made by him, shows his power by loving everything and everyone, patiently waiting for the conversion of us human beings, whom he wants to be his children.

God waits for our conversion. God’s omnipotent love knows no bounds, to the extent that he “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom 8:32). The omnipotence of love is not that of worldly power, but is that of the total gift, and Jesus, the Son of God reveals to the world the true omnipotence of the Father by giving his life for us sinners.

This is the true, authentic and perfect divine power: to respond to evil not with evil but with good, to insults with forgiveness, to homicidal hatred with life-giving love. Thus evil is truly vanquished because it is cleansed by God’s love; thus death is defeated once and for all because it is transformed into a gift of life. God the Father raises the Son: death, the great enemy (cf. 1 Cor 15:26), is engulfed and deprived of its sting (cf. 1 Cor 15:54-55), and we, delivered from sin, can have access to our reality as children of God.

Therefore, when we say “I believe in God the Father almighty”, we express our faith in the power of the love of God who, in his Son who died and was raised, triumphs over hatred, evil and sin and unfolds before us the path to eternal life, as children who want to dwell for ever in their “Father’s House”. Saying “I believe in one God the Father almighty”, in his power, in his way of being Father, is always an act of faith, of conversion, of the transformation of our thought, of the whole of our affection, of the whole of our way of life.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us ask the Lord to sustain our faith, to help us find true faith and to give us the strength to proclaim the crucified and risen Christ and to witness to him in love of God and of neighbour. And may God grant that we accept the gift of our sonship, in order to live in fullness the reality of the Creed, in trusting abandonment to the love of the Father and to his merciful omnipotence which is the true omnipotence and saves.

To special groups:

I offer a warm welcome to the priests taking part in the Institute for Continuing Theological Education at the Pontifical North American College. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today’s Audience, including those from the Republic of Korea, Canada and the United States of America, I invoke God’s blessings of joy and peace.

The presence at this meeting of the Civil Authorities of Basilicata, to whom I address a respectful greeting, gives me the opportunity to express my deep gratitude to all those who worked on the evocative Crib set up in this Square, which has been admired by countless pilgrims and also by me, with great joy, as an expression of the art of Lucania.

Lastly, I address the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. Tomorrow is the liturgical Memorial of St John Bosco, a priest and educator. Look to him, dear young people, as to an authentic teacher of life. May you, dear sick people, learn from his spiritual experience to trust in every circumstance in the crucified Christ. And may you, dear newlyweds, have recourse to his intercession in order to live with generous commitment your mission as husband and wife. Many thanks.

© Copyright 2013 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Homilies

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, 17th Day of Consecrated Life, 2 February 2013, Homily of Benedict XVI

HOLY MASS WITH MEMBERS

OF THE INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE

AND SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE

ON THE FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD

ON THE OCCASION OF THE 17th DAY OF CONSECRATED LIFE

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

St. Peter's Basilica

Saturday, 2 February 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In his account of the infancy of Jesus St Luke emphasizes how faithful Mary and Joseph were to the Law of the Lord. They fulfilled with profound devotion all the prescriptions prescribed following the birth of a firstborn male. Two of them were very ancient prescriptions: one concerns the mother and the other the newborn child. The woman was required to abstain from ritual practices for forty days, after which she was to offer a double sacrifice: a lamb as a burnt offering and a turtle-dove as a sin offering; but if she were poor, she could offer a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons (cf. Lev 12:1-8).

St Luke explained that Mary and Joseph offer the sacrifice of the poor (cf. 2:24) in order to emphasize that Jesus was born into a family of simple people, lowly but of steadfast faith: a family that belonged to the poor of Israel who form the true People of God. For the first-born male who, according to Mosaic Law, was set apart for God, redemption was prescribed instead, established as an offering of five shekels to be paid to a priest in any place. This was in everlasting memory of the fact that in the time of Herod God saved the firstborn of the Jews (cf. Ex 13:11-16).

It is important to note that these two acts — the purification of the mother and the redemption of the son — did not require a visit to the Temple. However, Mary and Joseph wished to fulfil all the prescriptions in Jerusalem, and St Luke shows us how the entire scene converges on the Temple and thus focuses on Jesus who enters it. And it is here, precisely through the prescriptions of the Law, that the principal event is transformed, namely, it becomes the “presentation” of Jesus in the Temple of God, which means the act of offering the Son of the Most High to the Father who sent him (cf. Lk 1:32, 35).

The Evangelist’s account is confirmed by the words of the Prophet Malachi which we heard at the beginning of the First Reading: “Behold”, says the Lord, “I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming... he will purify the sons of Levi.... Then the offering... will be pleasing to the Lord” (3:1, 3, 4).

These words clearly make no mention of a child and yet they are fulfilled in Jesus because, thanks to the faith of his parents, he was taken to the Temple “immediately”; and in the act of his “presentation”, that is, the “offering” of him in person to God the Father, the themes of sacrifice and of the priesthood clearly transpire, as in the passage from the prophet. The Child Jesus, who is immediately presented in the Temple, is the same person who, as an adult, would purify the Temple (cf. Jn 2:13-22; Mk 11:15, 19ff). Above all he would make himself the sacrifice and the High Priest of the new Covenant.

This is also the perspective of the Letter to the Hebrews, a passage of which was proclaimed in the Second Reading, to strengthen the theme of the new priesthood: a priesthood — inaugurated by Jesus — which is existential: “For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb 2:18). So it is that we also discover the topic of suffering, very pronounced in the Gospel passage in which Simeon imparts his prophecy concerning both the Child and the Mother: “Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and, [to Mary], a sword will pierce through your own soul also)” (Lk 2:34-35).

The “salvation” that Jesus brought to his people, and which he embodies in himself, passed through the Cross, through the violent death that he was to vanquish and to transform with the sacrifice of his life through love. This sacrifice was already foretold in the act of the Presentation in the Temple, an act without any doubt motivated by the traditions of the old Covenant, but that was deeply enlivened by the fullness of faith and love, which correspond to the fullness of time, to the presence of God and of his Holy Spirit in Jesus. Indeed, the Spirit moved over the whole scene of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple and in particular over Simeon, but also over Anna.

The Spirit “Paraclete” brings consolation to Israel and motivates the steps and moves the hearts of those who await him. He is the Spirit who prompted the prophetic words of Simeon and Anna, words of blessing and praise of God, of faith in his Annointed One, of thanksgiving, for at last our eyes could see and our arms embrace “your salvation” (cf. 2:30).

“A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (2:32). With these words Simeon describes the Messiah of the Lord, at the end of his hymn of blessing. The topic of light, that reechoes the first and second songs of the Servant of the Lord in the Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Is 42:6; 49:6), is vividly present in this liturgy. It was in fact opened by an evocative procession, in which the Superiors and General Superiors of the Institutes of consecrated life represented here took part and carried lit candles. This sign, specific to the liturgical tradition of this Feast, is deeply expressive. It shows the beauty and value of the consecrated life as a reflection of Christ’s light; a sign that recalls Mary’s entry into the Temple. The Virgin Mary, the Consecrated Woman par excellence, carried in her arms the Light himself, the Incarnate Word who came to dispel the darkness of the world with God’s love.

Dear consecrated brothers and sisters, you were all represented in that symbolic pilgrimage, which in the Year of Faith expresses even better your gathering together in the Church to be strengthened in faith and to renew the offering of yourselves to God. I address my most cordial greetings with affection to each one of you and to your Institutes and I thank you for coming. In the light of Christ, with the many charisms of contemplative and apostolic life, you cooperate in the Church’s life and mission in the world.

In this spirit of gratitude and communion I would like to address three invitations to you, so that you may fully enter through that “door of faith” which is always open to us (Apostolic Letter, Porta Fidei, n. 1).

I invite you in the first place to nourish a faith that can illuminate your vocation. For this I urge you to treasure, as on an inner pilgrimage, the memory of the “first love” with which the Lord Jesus Christ warmed your hearts, not out of nostalgia but in order to feed that flame. And for this it is necessary to be with him, in the silence of adoration; and thereby reawaken the wish to share — and the joy of sharing — in his life, his decisions, the obedience of faith, the blessedness of the poor and the radical nature of love. Starting ever anew from this encounter of love, you leave everything to be with him and like him, to put yourselves at the service of God and your brothers and sisters (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, n. 1).

In the second place I invite you to have a faith that can recognize the wisdom of weakness. In the joys and afflictions of the present time, when the harshness and weight of the cross make themselves felt, do not doubt that the kenosis of Christ is already a paschal victory. Precisely in our limitations and weaknesses as human beings we are called to live conformation with Christ in an all-encompassing commitment which anticipates the eschatological perfection, to the extent that this is possible in time (ibid., n. 16). In a society of efficiency and success, your life, marked by the “humility” and frailty of the lowly, of empathy with those who have no voice, becomes an evangelical sign of contradiction.

Lastly, I invite you to renew the faith that makes you pilgrims bound for the future. By its nature the consecrated life is a pilgrimage of the spirit in quest of a Face that is sometimes revealed and sometimes veiled: “Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram” (Ps 27[26]:8). May this be the constant yearning of your heart, the fundamental criterion that guides you on your journey, both in small daily steps and in the most important decisions.

Do not join the ranks of the prophets of doom who proclaim the end or meaninglessness of the consecrated life in the Church in our day; rather, clothe yourselves in Jesus Christ and put on the armour of light — as St Paul urged (cf. Rom 13:11-14) — keeping awake and watchful. St Chromatius of Aquileia wrote: “Distance this peril from us so that we are never overcome by the heavy slumber of infidelity. Rather may he grant us his grace and his mercy, that we may watch, ever faithful to him. In fact our fidelity can watch in Christ (Sermon 32, 4).

Dear brothers and sisters, the joy of consecrated life necessarily passes through participation in the cross of Christ. This is how it ways for Mary Most Holy. Hers is the suffering of the heart that is one with the Heart of the Son of God, pierced by love. From this wound God’s light flows and also from the suffering, sacrifice and self-giving of consecrated people who live through their love for God and for others, that shines the very light that evangelizes nations. On this feast I express in a special way to you, consecrated people, the hope that your lives may always have the flavour of evangelical parresia, so that in you the Good News may be lived, witnessed to, and proclaimed and may shine out as a word of truth (cf. Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei, n. 6). Amen.

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Letters

Words of condolences for the death of Card. Jozef Glemp, Benedict XVI, 24 January 2013

WORDS OF CONDOLENCES OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

FOR THE DEATH OF CARD. JOZEF GLEMP

To Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz

Archbishop of Warsaw

I learned with sorrow of the death of Cardinal Józef Glemp, Archbishop emeritus of Gniezno and of Warsaw, Primate of Poland. I join you, dear Brother, the Presbyterate and the faithful of the Church in Poland in the prayers of thanksgiving for the life and pastoral ministry of this praiseworthy minister of the Gospel.

His episcopal motto, Caritati in iustitia — for charity in justice — accompanied him throughout his life and directed his way of thinking, evaluating, making choices, taking decisions and offering guidelines for pastoral action. He was a “just” man in the spirit of St Joseph, his Patron and the Patron of all those who in the biblical tradition could hear the voice of God addressing his call not only to them personally, but also to the communities to which they had been sent. This justice, full of humble adherence to God’s will, formed the basis of his deep love for God and for people. It was his light, inspiration and strength in the demanding ministry of steering the Church through an epoch in which important social and political transformations affected both Poland and Europe. Love of God and love of the Church, concern for the life and dignity of every man and woman made him an apostle of unity against division, of concord in the face of conflict. Thus the common construction of a happy future is founded on its joyful and painful experiences of the Church and of the people.

In pursuing the work of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński he was in constant communion and spiritually bound to Pope John Paul II, and he resolved numerous issues and problems in the political, social and religious life of Poles, with great prudence. Trusting in divine Providence, he looked with optimism to the new millennium into which he was granted to usher the community of believers in Poland.

In the last stage of his life he was tried by suffering that he bore serenely. In this trial too, he continued to witness to his entrustment to the goodness and love of Almighty God.

I always appreciated his sincere kindness, his simplicity, his openness and his cordial dedication to the cause of the Church in Poland and throughout the world. Thus in my memory and in my prayers he will live on. May the Lord receive him into his glory!

I warmly impart my blessing to you, Venerable Brother, to the Polish Cardinals and Bishops, to the relatives of the late Cardinal, to those attending his funeral and to all Poles; in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

From the Vatican, 24 January 2013.

BENEDICT PP. XVI

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Letter to the newly elected Patriarch of Babylon for Chaldeans for the concession of the Ecclesiastica Communio, 1st February 2013 - Benedict XVI

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

TO THE NEWLY ELECTED PATRIARCH OF BABYLON

OF THE CHALDEANS FOR THE CONCESSION

OF THE ECCLESIASTICA COMMUNIO

To His Beatitude Louis Raphaël I Sako,

Patriarch of Babylon for Chaldeans

I learned with deep joy of the news of your election, Your Beatitude, to the Patriarchal See of Babylon for Chaldeans.

I thank God the Father and, as I very willingly accept the request you have addressed to me in accordance with the Sacred Canons, I grant the Ecclesiastica Communio, which is accompanied by my brotherly love in Christ.

As I offer you my warm congratulations, I implore the Lord to bestow upon you every grace and blessing. May he enlighten you in tirelessly proclaiming the Gospel in the living Tradition which dates back to the St Thomas the Apostle. May the Good and Eternal Shepherd sustain you in the faith of the Fathers and grant to you the ardour of the martyrs of yesterday and today so that you may safeguard the spiritual and liturgical patrimony of the venerable Chaldean Church, as her Pater et Caput. May your ministry comfort not only the Chaldean faithful in the Motherland and in the diaspora, but also the entire community of Catholics and Christians who live in the land of Abraham, as an incentive to reconciliation, to mutual acceptance and to peace for the whole Iraqi population.

As I entrust you to the Most Holy Mother of God, I warmly impart the Apostolic Blessing to you, extending it to your venerable predecessor, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, to the Bishops, to the priests, to the consecrated people and to all the beloved sons and daughters of the Chaldean Church.

From the Vatican, 1 February 2013

BENEDICT XVI

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Messages

Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2013

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS

BENEDICT XVI

FOR LENT 2013

"Believing in charity calls forth charity"

“We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The celebration of Lent, in the context of the Year of Faith, offers us a valuable opportunity to meditate on the relationship between faith and charity: between believing in God – the God of Jesus Christ – and love, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and which guides us on the path of devotion to God and others.

1. Faith as a response to the love of God

In my first Encyclical, I offered some thoughts on the close relationship between the theological virtues of faith and charity. Setting out from Saint John’s fundamental assertion: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16), I observed that “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction … Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere ‘command’; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us” (Deus Caritas Est, 1). Faith is this personal adherence – which involves all our faculties – to the revelation of God’s gratuitous and “passionate” love for us, fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The encounter with God who is Love engages not only the heart but also the intellect: “Acknowledgement of the living God is one path towards love, and the ‘yes’ of our will to his will unites our intellect, will and sentiments in the all-embracing act of love. But this process is always open-ended; love is never ‘finished’ and complete” (ibid., 17). Hence, for all Christians, and especially for “charity workers”, there is a need for faith, for “that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others. As a result, love of neighbour will no longer be for them a commandment imposed, so to speak, from without, but a consequence deriving from their faith, a faith which becomes active through love” (ibid., 31a). Christians are people who have been conquered by Christ’s love and accordingly, under the influence of that love – “Caritas Christi urget nos” (2 Cor 5:14) – they are profoundly open to loving their neighbour in concrete ways (cf. ibid., 33). This attitude arises primarily from the consciousness of being loved, forgiven, and even served by the Lord, who bends down to wash the feet of the Apostles and offers himself on the Cross to draw humanity into God’s love.

“Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! … Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light – and in the end, the only light – that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working” (ibid., 39). All this helps us to understand that the principal distinguishing mark of Christians is precisely “love grounded in and shaped by faith” (ibid., 7).

2. Charity as life in faith

The entire Christian life is a response to God’s love. The first response is precisely faith as the acceptance, filled with wonder and gratitude, of the unprecedented divine initiative that precedes us and summons us. And the “yes” of faith marks the beginning of a radiant story of friendship with the Lord, which fills and gives full meaning to our whole life. But it is not enough for God that we simply accept his gratuitous love. Not only does he love us, but he wants to draw us to himself, to transform us in such a profound way as to bring us to say with Saint Paul: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (cf. Gal 2:20).

When we make room for the love of God, then we become like him, sharing in his own charity. If we open ourselves to his love, we allow him to live in us and to bring us to love with him, in him and like him; only then does our faith become truly “active through love” (Gal 5:6); only then does he abide in us (cf. 1 Jn 4:12).

Faith is knowing the truth and adhering to it (cf. 1 Tim 2:4); charity is “walking” in the truth (cf. Eph 4:15). Through faith we enter into friendship with the Lord, through charity this friendship is lived and cultivated (cf. Jn 15:14ff). Faith causes us to embrace the commandment of our Lord and Master; charity gives us the happiness of putting it into practice (cf. Jn 13:13-17). In faith we are begotten as children of God (cf. Jn 1:12ff); charity causes us to persevere concretely in our divine sonship, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:22). Faith enables us to recognize the gifts that the good and generous God has entrusted to us; charity makes them fruitful (cf. Mt 25:14-30).

3. The indissoluble interrelation of faith and charity

In light of the above, it is clear that we can never separate, let alone oppose, faith and charity. These two theological virtues are intimately linked, and it is misleading to posit a contrast or “dialectic” between them. On the one hand, it would be too one-sided to place a strong emphasis on the priority and decisiveness of faith and to undervalue and almost despise concrete works of charity, reducing them to a vague humanitarianism. On the other hand, though, it is equally unhelpful to overstate the primacy of charity and the activity it generates, as if works could take the place of faith. For a healthy spiritual life, it is necessary to avoid both fideism and moral activism.

The Christian life consists in continuously scaling the mountain to meet God and then coming back down, bearing the love and strength drawn from him, so as to serve our brothers and sisters with God’s own love. In sacred Scripture, we see how the zeal of the Apostles to proclaim the Gospel and awaken people’s faith is closely related to their charitable concern to be of service to the poor (cf. Acts 6:1-4). In the Church, contemplation and action, symbolized in some way by the Gospel figures of Mary and Martha, have to coexist and complement each other (cf. Lk 10:38-42). The relationship with God must always be the priority, and any true sharing of goods, in the spirit of the Gospel, must be rooted in faith (cf. General Audience, 25 April 2012). Sometimes we tend, in fact, to reduce the term “charity” to solidarity or simply humanitarian aid. It is important, however, to remember that the greatest work of charity is evangelization, which is the “ministry of the word”. There is no action more beneficial – and therefore more charitable – towards one’s neighbour than to break the bread of the word of God, to share with him the Good News of the Gospel, to introduce him to a relationship with God: evangelization is the highest and the most integral promotion of the human person. As the Servant of God Pope Paul VI wrote in the Encyclical Populorum Progressio, the proclamation of Christ is the first and principal contributor to development (cf. n. 16). It is the primordial truth of the love of God for us, lived and proclaimed, that opens our lives to receive this love and makes possible the integral development of humanity and of every man (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 8).

Essentially, everything proceeds from Love and tends towards Love. God’s gratuitous love is made known to us through the proclamation of the Gospel. If we welcome it with faith, we receive the first and indispensable contact with the Divine, capable of making us “fall in love with Love”, and then we dwell within this Love, we grow in it and we joyfully communicate it to others.

Concerning the relationship between faith and works of charity, there is a passage in the Letter to the Ephesians which provides perhaps the best account of the link between the two: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God; not because of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:8-10). It can be seen here that the entire redemptive initiative comes from God, from his grace, from his forgiveness received in faith; but this initiative, far from limiting our freedom and our responsibility, is actually what makes them authentic and directs them towards works of charity. These are not primarily the result of human effort, in which to take pride, but they are born of faith and they flow from the grace that God gives in abundance. Faith without works is like a tree without fruit: the two virtues imply one another. Lent invites us, through the traditional practices of the Christian life, to nourish our faith by careful and extended listening to the word of God and by receiving the sacraments, and at the same time to grow in charity and in love for God and neighbour, not least through the specific practices of fasting, penance and almsgiving.

4. Priority of faith, primacy of charity

Like any gift of God, faith and charity have their origin in the action of one and the same Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 13), the Spirit within us that cries out “Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6), and makes us say: “Jesus is Lord!” (1 Cor 12:3) and “Maranatha!” (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20).

Faith, as gift and response, causes us to know the truth of Christ as Love incarnate and crucified, as full and perfect obedience to the Father’s will and infinite divine mercy towards neighbour; faith implants in hearts and minds the firm conviction that only this Love is able to conquer evil and death. Faith invites us to look towards the future with the virtue of hope, in the confident expectation that the victory of Christ’s love will come to its fullness. For its part, charity ushers us into the love of God manifested in Christ and joins us in a personal and existential way to the total and unconditional self-giving of Jesus to the Father and to his brothers and sisters. By filling our hearts with his love, the Holy Spirit makes us sharers in Jesus’ filial devotion to God and fraternal devotion to every man (cf. Rom 5:5).

The relationship between these two virtues resembles that between the two fundamental sacraments of the Church: Baptism and Eucharist. Baptism (sacramentum fidei) precedes the Eucharist (sacramentum caritatis), but is ordered to it, the Eucharist being the fullness of the Christian journey. In a similar way, faith precedes charity, but faith is genuine only if crowned by charity. Everything begins from the humble acceptance of faith (“knowing that one is loved by God”), but has to arrive at the truth of charity (“knowing how to love God and neighbour”), which remains for ever, as the fulfilment of all the virtues (cf. 1 Cor 13:13).

Dear brothers and sisters, in this season of Lent, as we prepare to celebrate the event of the Cross and Resurrection – in which the love of God redeemed the world and shone its light upon history – I express my wish that all of you may spend this precious time rekindling your faith in Jesus Christ, so as to enter with him into the dynamic of love for the Father and for every brother and sister that we encounter in our lives. For this intention, I raise my prayer to God, and I invoke the Lord’s blessing upon each individual and upon every community!

From the Vatican, 15 October 2012

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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Motu Proprio

Apostolic Letter Issued Motu Proprio Fides per Doctrinam, 16 January 2013

APOSTOLIC LETTER

ISSUED MOTU PROPRIO

FIDES PER DOCTRINAM

WHEREBY THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION "PASTOR BONUS"

IS MODIFIED AND COMPETENCE FOR CATECHESIS IS TRANSFERRED

FROM THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY

TO THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PROMOTING THE NEW EVANGELIZATION

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Faith needs to be strengthened through teaching, so that it can enlighten the minds and hearts of believers. The particular moment of history in which we are living, marked as it is by a dramatic crisis of faith, calls for an ability to meet the great expectations present in the hearts of believers for a response to the new questions being directed both at the world and at the Church. The understanding of the faith constantly demands that its contents be expressed in a new language capable of presenting, to all who ask, the reason for the hope present in those who believe (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).

It is a particular responsibility of the whole Church to keep the message of Christ ever fresh and effective, also through clear teaching which must nourish faith in the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God who for our sake became man, died and rose again for our salvation. She must do so tirelessly by appropriate ways and means, so that all those who accept the Gospel message and believe, may be born to new life through baptism.

In this year which marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, as the Church meditates upon the rich teaching contained in those documents and finds new ways to implement it, we can acknowledge the great catechetical progress that has been made in these decades. The period after the Council, however, was not without errors, some quite grave, of method and content, which led in turn to deeper reflection and the preparation of a number of post-conciliar documents which have enriched the field of catechesis.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, the Venerable Servant of God Paul VI stated that “a means of evangelization that must not be neglected is that of catechetical instruction. The intelligence, especially that of children and young people, needs to learn through systematic religious instruction the fundamental teachings, the living content of the truth which God has wished to convey to us and which the Church has sought to express in an ever richer fashion during the course of her long history” (n. 44: AAS 68 [1976], 34).

Blessed John Paul II, concluding the Synod of Bishops devoted to catechesis, also wrote that “within the whole process of evangelization, the aim of catechesis is to be the teaching and maturation stage, that is to say, the period in which the Christian, having accepted by faith the person of Jesus Christ as the one Lord and having given him complete adherence by sincere conversion of heart, endeavours to know better this Jesus to whom he has entrusted himself” (Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae, 20: AAS 71 [1979], 1294).

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, my blessed Predecessor announced another Synod of Bishops, during which the Synod Fathers expressed their fervent desire that a Catechism be prepared in order to provide the universal Church with a synthetic summary of doctrine and morality in accordance with the Council’s indications. With the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, issued on 11 October 1992, Blessed John Paul II promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I myself, with a Motu Proprio dated 28 June 2005, approved and promulgated the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

We cannot forget other significant moments in defining the nature, method and ends of catechesis in the process of evangelization. In 1971 the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy issued the General Catechetical Directory, as a first synthesis of the progress made in the various local Churches in their own work of catechesis. In 1997, following the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Congregation for the Clergy issued the General Directory for Catechesis, confirming the Church’s desire that the first step in catechesis should normally be aimed at conversion (cf. n. 62).

The teaching of the Council and the subsequent magisterium, reflecting the Church’s great tradition in this regard, closely linked catechesis to the process of evangelization. Catechesis has a prominent place in the Church’s daily life and her tireless efforts to proclaim the word of God to all and to teach believers in Christ to build up his body, the Church (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 4).

With the Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio Ubicumque et Semper of 21 September 2010, I established the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, which pursues its own ends “both by encouraging reflection on topics of the new evangelization, and by identifying and promoting suitable ways and means to accomplish it” (Art. 1 § 2: AAS 102 [2010], 791). In a particular way I wished to grant the new Dicastery the task of promoting “the use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as an essential and complete formulation of the content of the faith for the people of our time” (Art. 3, 5°: AAS 102 [2010], 792).

Taking all these things into account, I consider it right that this same Dicastery should assume as one of its institutional duties the task of vigilance, to be exercised in the name of the Supreme Pontiff, over that instrument of evangelization which is the Church’s catechesis, as well as over the various aspects of catechetical instruction, for the sake of a more organic and effective pastoral activity. This new Pontifical Council can offer suitable help in this regard to the particular Churches and to diocesan bishops.

Therefore, accepting the joint proposal of the Heads of the Dicasteries involved, I have determined that the responsibilities for catechesis, which the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus of 28 June 1988 had entrusted to the Congregation for the Clergy, will be transferred to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, with the same jurisdiction which the former Congregation has hitherto exercised in this area and which is called for in canon law.

Consequently, in light of the above observations and after carefully pondering the matter and having sought the counsel of experts, I establish and decree the following:

Art. 1

Article 94 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus is abolished and the competence for catechesis hitherto enjoyed by the Congregation for Clergy is entirely transferred to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.

Art. 2

The International Council for Catechesis established by the Venerable Servant of God Paul VI with a Letter dated 7 June 1973, is likewise transferred to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. The President of the Pontifical Council will become the president of this Council and the Secretary of the same Dicastery will be a member ex officio.

Art. 3

In virtue of the competences granted it by this Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio, the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization:

§ 1. Is concerned with promoting the religious formation of the faithful of every age and condition;

§ 2. Has the faculty to issue norms meant to ensure that catechetical instruction is suitably imparted in accordance with the Church’s constant tradition;

§ 3. Has the task of ensuring that catechetical formation is properly carried out with regard to its methods and aims, in accordance with the directives of the Church’s magisterium;

§ 4. Grants the necessary approval of the Apostolic See for catechisms and other writings pertaining to catechetical instruction, with the consent of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;

§ 5. Assists the Offices for catechetics within Episcopal Conferences, follows their initiatives pertaining to religious formation which are of an international nature; coordinates their activities and, in certain cases, provides necessary assistance.

What I have established with this Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio, I wish to be observed fully, now and in the future, anything to the contrary notwithstanding, even if worthy of special mention, and I order it to be promulgated by publication in the daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, taking effect fifteen days after promulgation.

Given in Rome, at St Peter’s, on 16 January in the year of our Lord 2013, the eighth of my Pontificate.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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Apostolic Letter Issued Motu Proprio Ministrorum institutio, 16 January 2013

APOSTOLIC LETTER

ISSUED MOTU PROPRIO

MINISTRORUM INSTITUTIO

WHEREBY THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION PASTOR BONUS

IS MODIFIED AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR SEMINARIES IS TRANSFERRED

FROM THE CONGREGATION FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATION

TO THE CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

The training of sacred ministers was one of the chief concerns of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, who stated: “The Council is fully aware that the desired renewal of the whole Church depends in great part upon a priestly ministry animated by the spirit of Christ, and it solemnly affirms the critical importance of priestly training” (Decree on the Training of Priests Optatam Totius, n. 1). In this context, canon 232 of the Code of Canon Law claims for the Church “the proper and exclusive right” to train those destined for the sacred ministries, a training which ordinarily takes place in seminaries. These are institutions called for by the Council of Trent, which decreed that a seminarium perpetuum be set up in all dioceses (Session XXIII [15 July 1563], can. XVIII), so that the bishop might “alere et religiose educare et ecclesiasticis disciplinis instituere” candidates for the priesthood.

The first institute of a universal character charged with providing for the establishment, governance and administration of seminaries, “to which the destiny of the Church is closely bound” (Leo XIII, Ep. Paternae Providaeque [18 September 1899]: ASS 32 [1899-1900], 214), was the Congregatio Seminariorum established by Benedict XIII with the Constitution Creditae Nobis (9 May 1725: Bullarium Romanum XI, 2, pp. 409-412). With the passage of time this ceased to exist, yet seminaries continued to be the object of particular concern on the part of the Holy See through the Sacred Congregation of the Council (now the Congregation for the Clergy) and the Sacred Congregation for Bishops and Regulars, and, after 1906, through the latter alone. Saint Pius X, with the Apostolic Constitution Sapienti Consilio (29 June 1908: AAS 1 [1909], 7-19), reserved jurisdiction over seminaries to the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, in which a specific office was established (cf. AAS 1 [1909] 9-10, 2°, 3).

Benedict XV, with the Motu Proprio Seminaria Clericorum (4 November 1915: AAS 7 [1915], 493-495), combined the office for seminaries at the Sacred Consistorial Congregation with the Sacred Congregation for Studies in order to create a new dicastery called Sacra Congregatio de Seminariis et Studiorum Universitatibus. As a reason for his decision, the Holy Father mentioned his concern for the increasing number of matters to be dealt with and the importance of the office itself: “Verum cum apud hanc Sacram Congregationem negotiorum moles praeter modum excreverit, et Seminariorum cum maiorem in dies operam postulet, visum est Nobis ad omnem eorum disciplinam moderandam novum aliquod consilium inire” (AAS 7 [1915], 494).

The new dicastery, namely, the Sacra Congregatio de Seminariis et Studiorum Universitatibus, was included in the 1917 Codex Iuris Canonici under canon 256 and the formation of clerics was inserted in the same Code under Title XXI, De Seminariis, in Part IV, De Magisterio Ecclesiastico, of Book III, De Rebus.

It is noteworthy that at the time of the preparation of the new Code there was some question about the appropriateness of maintaining this same arrangement. In the end, however, it seemed more suitable to put the entire body of norms at the beginning of the section dealing with clerics. Consequently the norms and directives on seminaries were inserted in Book II, Part I, Title III, Chapter i, with the appropriate title “The Formation of Clerics” (cf. cann. 232-264 cic). The new arrangement is clearly significant and its title (De Clericorum Institutione) is particularly fitting because it now embraces the complete training to be imparted to future ministers of the Lord: a training meant not to be simply doctrinal but also human, spiritual, ascetic, liturgical and pastoral.

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council also states that “major seminaries are necessary for priestly training” (Decree on the Training of Priests Optatam Totius, n. 4) and that the formation imparted in the major seminary is specifically priestly, that is, ordered spiritually and pastorally to the sacred ministry: “the whole training of the students should have as its object to make them true shepherds of souls after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, Teacher, Priest and Shepherd” (ibid.).

Specifically: “young men who intend to enter the priesthood are to be provided with a suitable spiritual formation and prepared for their proper duties in a major seminary throughout the entire time of formation or, if in the judgment of the diocesan bishop circumstances demand it, for at least four years” (can. 235, §1 CIC).

According to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the 1983 Code of Canon Law, then, seminaries are included in the context of “the formation of clerics”. If this formation is to be truly effective, it must link ongoing formation to seminary training, since “ongoing formation is a continuation of the formation received in the seminary”, as my venerable Predecessor Blessed John Paul II affirmed in his Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (25 March 1992): “The ongoing formation of priests... is the natural and absolutely necessary continuation of the process of building priestly personality which began and developed in the seminary... with the training program which aimed at ordination. It is particularly important to be aware of and to respect the intrinsic link between formation before ordination to the priesthood and formation after ordination. Should there be a break in continuity, or worse, a complete difference between these two phases of formation, there would be serious and immediate repercussions on pastoral work and fraternal communion among priests, especially those in different age groups. Ongoing formation is not a repetition of the formation acquired in the seminary, simply reviewed or expanded with new and practical suggestions. Ongoing formation involves relatively new content and especially methods; it develops as a harmonious and vital process which — rooted in the formation received in the seminary — calls for adaptations, updating and modifications, but without sharp breaks in continuity. On the other hand, long-term preparation for ongoing formation should take place in the major seminary, where encouragement needs to be given to future priests to look forward to it, seeing its necessity, its advantages and the spirit in which it should be undertaken, and appropriate conditions for its realization need to be ensured” (No. 71: AAS 84 [1992], 782-783).

I therefore consider it fitting to assign to the Congregation for the Clergy the promotion and governance of all that concerns the training, life and ministry of priests and deacons: from the pastoral care of vocations and the selection of candidates for Holy Orders, including their human, spiritual, doctrinal and pastoral training in seminaries and in special centres for permanent deacons (cf. can. 236, §1° CIC), to their continuing formation, including their living conditions and ways of exercising the ministry, as well as their insurance and social assistance.

In the light of the above, after carefully examining all these matters and having sought the opinion of experts, I establish and decree the following:

Art. 1

The Congregatio de Institutione Catholica (de Seminariis atque Studiorum Institutis) takes the name of Congregatio de Institutione Catholica (de Studiorum Institutis).

Art. 2

Art. 112 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus is replaced by the following text: “The Congregation gives practical expression to the concern of the Apostolic See for the promotion and organization of Catholic education”.

Art. 3

Art. 113 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus is abrogated.

Art. 4

Art. 93 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus is replaced by the following text:

“§ 1. Without prejudice to the rights of bishops and their conferences, the Congregation examines matters concerning priests and deacons of the secular clergy with regard to their persons and their pastoral ministry, as well as the resources they require for the exercise of this ministry, and in all these matters the Congregation offers appropriate assistance to bishops.

§ 2. The Congregation gives practical expression to the concern of the Apostolic See for the formation of those called to Holy Orders”.

Art. 5

The text of Art. 94 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus is replaced by the following:

§ 1. It assists bishops in ensuring that in their Churches vocations to the sacred ministries are fostered with all possible diligence and that students are suitably educated in seminaries — to be established and directed in accordance with law — and provided with a sound human, spiritual, doctrinal and pastoral formation.

§ 2. It exercises careful vigilance to ensure that the community life and governance of seminaries fully correspond to the requirements of priestly training and that the superiors and instructors contribute as best they can to the personal formation of sacred ministers by the example of their own lives and sound teaching.

§ 3. The Congregation is also competent to establish interdiocesan seminaries and to approve their statutes”.

Art. 6

The Congregation for Catholic Education is competent to structure the academic curricula of philosophy and theology, after consultation with the Congregation for the Clergy in areas of its respective competence.

Art. 7

The Pontifical Work of Priestly Vocations (cf. Motu Proprio of Pius XII [4 November 1941]) is transferred to the Congregation for the Clergy.

Art. 8

By virtue of the matters treated, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy is ex officio President of the Permanent Interdicasterial Commission for the formation of candidates for Holy Orders, established in conformity with the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, Art. 21, §2, of which the Secretary is also a member.

Art. 9

The Interdicasterial Commission for a more equitable distribution of priests in the world is suppressed.

Art. 10

On the day these norms take effect, proceedings pending at the Congregation for Catholic Education involving matters transferred from its competence are to be forwarded to the Congregation for the Clergy for resolution.

I order that all that I have decided in this Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio is to be fully observed, anything to the contrary notwithstanding, albeit deserving of special mention, and I decree that it is to be promulgated by publication in the daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and to take effect fifteen days after promulgation.

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 16 January in the year of our Lord 2013, the eighth of my Pontificate.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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Speeches

Inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Benedict XVI, 26 January 2013

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE JUDICIAL YEAR

OF THE TRIBUNAL OF THE ROMAN ROTA

Clementine Hall

Saturday, 26 January 2013

Dear Members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota,

It gives me great joy to meet you on the occasion of the opening of the judicial year. I thank Mons. Pio Vito Pinto, your Dean, for the sentiments he has expressed on behalf of you all, which I warmly reciprocate. This meeting gives me the opportunity to reaffirm my esteem and respect for your lofty service to the Successor of Peter and to the whole Church, while for you it is an incentive to ever greater commitment in a context that is indeed arduous, but invaluable for the salvation of souls. The principle that the salus animarum is the supreme law in the Church (cf. CIC, can. 1752) must indeed be borne in mind and every day must find in your work the strict respect that it merits.

1. In the context of the Year of Faith, I would like to reflect in particular on several aspects of the relationship between faith and marriage, noting that the current crisis of faith, which is affecting various parts of the world, brings with it a crisis of the conjugal society with the whole burden of suffering and hardship that this entails, also for the offspring. We can take as a starting point the linguistic root that the Latin terms fides and foedus have in common. Foedus is a word with which the Code of Canon Law designates the natural reality of matrimony as an irrevocable covenant between a man and a woman (cf. can. 1055 § 1). Mutual entrustment is in fact the indispensable basis for any pact or covenant.

At the theological level, the relationship between faith and marriage acquires an even deeper meaning. Indeed, although the spousal bond is a natural reality, it has been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized (cf. ibid.).

The indissoluble pact between a man and a woman does not, for the purposes of the sacrament, require of those engaged to be married, their personal faith; what it does require, as a necessary minimal condition, is the intention to do what the Church does. However, if it is important not to confuse the problem of the intention with that of the personal faith of those contracting marriage, it is nonetheless impossible to separate them completely. As the International Theological Commission observed in a Document of 1977: “Where there is no trace of faith (in the sense of the term ‘belief’ — being disposed to believe), and no desire for grace or salvation is found, then a real doubt arises as to whether there is the above-mentioned and truly sacramental intention and whether in fact the contracted marriage is validly contracted or not” (La dottrina cattolica sul sacramento del matrimonio [Propositions on the Doctrine of Christian Marriage] [1977], 2.3: Documenti 1969-2004, Vol. 13, Bologna 2006, p. 145).

However Blessed John Paul II, addressing this Tribunal 10 years ago, pointed out that “an attitude on the part of those getting married that does not take into account the supernatural dimension of marriage can render it null and void only if it undermines its validity on the natural level on which the sacramental sign itself takes place” (John Paul II, Address to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, 30 January 2003). With regard to this problem it will be necessary, especially in today’s context, to promote further reflection.

2. Contemporary culture, marked by accentuated subjectivism and ethical and religious relativism, places the person and the family before pressing challenges. Firstly, it is faced with the question about the capacity of the human being to bind him or herself, and about whether a bond that lasts a lifetime really is possible and corresponds with human nature or whether, rather, it contradicts man’s freedom and self-fulfilment. In fact, the very idea that a person fulfills him or herself living an “autonomous” existence and only entering into a relationship with the other when it can be broken off at any time forms part of a widespread mindset (cf. Discourse to the Roman Curia, 21 December 2012).

It escapes no one that the basic decision of each person to enter into a lifetime bond, influences the basic view of each one according to whether or not he or she is anchored to a merely human level or is open to the light of faith in the Lord. It is only in opening oneself to God’s truth, in fact, that it is possible to understand and achieve in the concrete reality of both conjugal and family life the truth of men and women as his children, regenerated by Baptism. “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). This is what Jesus taught his disciples, reminding them of the human being’s essential inability to do what is necessary for achieving his true good alone. The rejection of the divine proposal, in fact, leads to a profound imbalance in all human relations (cf. Discourse to the International Theological Commission, 7 December 2012), including matrimonial relations, and facilitates an erroneous understanding of liberty and of self-fulfilment which, together with flight from the patient tolerance of suffering, condemns people to withdraw into selfish egocentricity.

The acceptance of faith, on the contrary, makes the person capable of self-giving, in which “only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family… by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity” (Address to the Roman Curia, 21 December 2012).

Faith in God, sustained by divine grace, is thus a very important element for living mutual dedication and conjugal fidelity (Catechesis, General Audience. 8 June 2011). In saying this, there is no intention to affirm that fidelity and likewise the other properties are not possible in natural marriage, contracted between people who have not been baptized. Indeed, natural marriage does not lack the goods that “come from God the Creator and are included in a certain inchoate way in the marital love that unites Christ with his Church” (International Theological Commission, La dottrina cattolica sul sacramento del matrimonio [Catholic doctrine on the sacrament of matrimony] [1977], 3, 4: Documenti 1969-2004, Vol. 13, Bologna 2006, p. 147). Yet, closure to God or the rejection of the sacred dimension of the conjugal union and of its value in the order of grace certainly makes arduous the practical embodiment of the most lofty model of marriage conceived by the Church according to God’s plan and can even undermine the actual validity of the pact, should it be expressed — as the consolidated jurisprudence of this Tribunal assumes — in a rejection of the principle of the conjugal obligation of fidelity itself, that is, of the other essential elements or properties of matrimony.

Speaking of conjugal life marked by faith, Tertullian wrote in his famous Letter to His Wife that Christian spouses “are truly two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit too. Together they pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their fasts; mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining” (Ad Uxorem Libri Duo, II, IX: PL 1, 1415b-1417a).

St Clement of Alexandria expressed himself in similar terms: “For if the God of both is one, the Instructor — Christ — of both is also one, one Church, one wisdom, one modesty; their food is common, marriage an equal yoke.... And those whose life is common have common graces and a common salvation; common to them are love and training” (Paedagogus, I, IV, 10.1: PG 8, 259b).

Those saints who lived the matrimonial and family union in the Christian perspective succeeded in triumphing over even the most adverse situations, at times achieving the sanctification of their spouse and of their children with a love that was always strengthened by solid trust in God, by sincere religious devotion and by an intense sacramental life. These very experiences, marked by faith, make us understand that the sacrifice offered by the abandoned spouse or the spouse who has suffered divorce, is still precious today, if — recognizing the indissolubility of the valid matrimonial bond — they refrain from “becoming involved in a new union…. In such cases their example of fidelity and Christian consistency takes on particular value as a witness before the world and the Church” (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio [22 November 1981], n. 83).

3. Lastly I would like to reflect briefly on the bonum coniugum. Faith is important in the realization of the authentic good of the couple, which consists simply in always and constantly desiring the good of the other, in terms of a true and indissoluble consortium vitae. In truth, there is in the resolve of Christian spouses to live a real communio coniugalis a dynamism proper to faith, for which the confessio, the sincere personal response to the announcement of salvation, involves the believer in the impetus of God’s love. “Confessio” and “caritas” are “the two ways in which God involves us, makes us act with him, in him and for humanity, for his creation.… ‘Confessio’ is not an abstract thing, it is ‘caritas’, it is love. Only in this way is it really the reflection of divine truth, which as truth is also, inseparably, love” (Meditation during the First General Congregation of the 13th General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, 8 October 2012).

It is only through the flame of charity that the presence of the Gospel is no longer only a word, but reality lived. In other words, if it is true that “Faith without charity bears no fruit, while charity without faith would be a sentiment constantly at the mercy of doubt”, it must be concluded that “faith and charity each require the other, in such a way that each allows the other to set out along its respective path” (Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei, n. 14, 11 October 2011).

If this true in the broad context of community life, it is even truer in the matrimonial union. It is in the latter, in fact, that faith makes the love of the spouses grow and brings it to fruition, making room for the presence of God the Trinity and making married life itself, lived in this way, “good news” in the eyes of the world.

I recognize the difficulties, from a juridical and practical viewpoint, of clarifying the essential element of the bonum coniugum, so far understood mainly in relation to the hypothesis of incapacity (cf. CIC, can. 1095). The bonum coniugum also assumes importance in the context of the simulation of consent.

Of course, in the cases submitted to your judgement, it will be the investigation in facto that will ascertain the possible grounds for this reason for annulment, prevalent or co-existent with another reason of the three Augustinian “goods” of marriage: procreativity, exclusiveness and permanence. One must not, therefore, disregard the consideration that can arise in the cases in which, precisely because of the absence of faith, the good of the spouses is jeopardized, that is, excluded from the consent itself; for example, in the hypothesis of subversion on the part of one of them, because of an erroneous conception of the nuptial bond, of the principle of equality, or in the event of the refusal of the conjugal union that distinguishes the marriage bond, together with the possibly concomitant exclusion of fidelity and of the practice of conjugal relations in humano modo, a truly human manner.

With these reflections, I certainly do not intend to suggest any facile automatism between the lack of faith and the invalidity of the matrimonial union, but rather to highlight how such a lack may, although not necessarily, also damage the goods of the marriage, since the reference to the natural order desired by God is inherent in the conjugal pact (cf. Gen 2:24).

Dear Brothers, I invoke God’s help upon you and upon all those in the Church who strive to safeguard truth and justice with regard to the sacred bond of marriage and, for this very reason, the Christian family. I entrust you to the protection of Mary Most Holy, Mother of Christ, and of St Joseph, Custodian of the Family of Nazareth, silent and obedient executor of the divine plan of salvation, as I gladly impart the Apostolic Blessing to you and to your loved ones.

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Addresso to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Benedict XVI, 9 February 2013

ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

Vatican Basilica

Saturday, 9 February 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

I am happy to welcome and to greet each one of you, Knights and Dames, chaplains and volunteers, of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. I greet in a special way the Grand Master, His Most Eminent Highness Fra’ Matthew Festing, and I thank him for his kind words addressed to me in the name of all of you; I also thank you for the gift you wished to offer me, which I will dedicate to a work of charity. My affectionate thoughts go to the Cardinals and to my brother bishops and priests, in particular to my Secretary of State, who has just presided at the Eucharist, and to Cardinal Paolo Sardi, Patron of the Order, whom I thank for the care with which he strives to strengthen the special bond that joins you to the Catholic Church and most particularly to the Holy See. With gratitude, I greet Archbishop Angelo Acerbi, your Prelate. A final word of greeting goes to the diplomats and to all the high dignitaries and authorities who are present.

The occasion that brings us together is the ninth centenary of the solemn privilege Pie Postulatio Voluntatis of 15 February 1113, by which Pope Paschal II placed the newly created “hospitaller fraternity” of Jerusalem, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, under the protection of the Church, and gave it sovereign status, constituting it as an Order in church law, with the faculty freely to elect its superiors without interference from other lay or religious authorities. This important event takes on a special meaning in the context of the Year of Faith, during which the Church is called to renew the joy and the commitment of believing in Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world. In this regard, you too are called to welcome this time of grace, so as to deepen your knowledge of the Lord and to cause the truth and beauty of the faith to shine forth, through the witness of your lives and your service, in this present time.

Your Order, from its earliest days, has been marked by fidelity to the Church and to the Successor of Peter, and also for its unrenounceable spiritual identity, characterized by high religious ideals.  Continue to walk along this path, bearing concrete witness to the transforming power of faith. By faith the Apostles left everything to follow Jesus, and then went out to the whole world, in fulfilment of his command to bring the Gospel to every creature; fearlessly they proclaimed to all people the power of the cross and the joy of the resurrection of Christ, which they had witnessed directly. By faith, the martyrs gave their lives, demonstrating the truth of the Gospel which had transformed them and made them capable of attaining to the highest gift, the fruit of love: that of forgiving their persecutors.  And by faith, down the centuries, the members of your Order have given themselves completely, firstly in the care of the sick in Jerusalem and then in aid to pilgrims in the Holy Land who were exposed to grave dangers: their lives have added radiant pages to the annals of Christian charity and protection of Christianity. In the nineteenth century, the Order opened up to new and more ample forms of apostolate in the area of charitable assistance and service of the sick and the poor, but without ever abandoning the original ideals, especially that of the intense spiritual life of individual members.  In this sense, your commitment must continue with a very particular attention to the religious consecration – of the professed members – which constitutes the heart of the Order. You must never forget your roots, when Blessed Gérard and his companions consecrated themselves with vows to the service of the poor, and their vocation was sanctioned by the privilege Pie Postulatio Voluntatis. The members of the newly created institute were thus configured with the features of religious life: commitment to attain Christian perfection by profession of the three vows, the charism for which they were consecrated, and fraternity among the members.  The vocation of the professed members, still today, must be the object of great attention, combined with attention to the spiritual life of all.

In this sense, your Order, compared with other organizations that are committed in the international arena to the care of the sick, to solidarity and to human promotion, is distinguished by the Christian inspiration that must constantly direct the social engagement of its members. Be sure to preserve and cultivate this your qualifying characteristic and work with renewed apostolic ardour, maintaining an attitude of profound harmony with the Magisterium of the Church. Your esteemed and beneficent activity, carried out in a variety of fields and in different parts of the world, and particularly focused on care of the sick through hospitals and health-care institutes, is not mere philanthropy, but an effective expression and a living testimony of evangelical love.

In Sacred Scripture, the summons to love of neighbour is tied to the commandment to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our strength (cf Mk 12:29-31).  Thus, love of neighbour – if based on a true love for God – corresponds to the commandment and the example of Christ. It is possible, then, for the Christian, through his or her dedication, to bring others to experience the bountiful tenderness of our heavenly Father, through an ever deeper conformation to Christ. In order to offer love to our brothers and sisters, we must be afire with it from the furnace of divine charity: through prayer, constant listening to the word of God, and a life centred on the Eucharist. Your daily life must be imbued with the presence of Jesus, under whose gaze you are called to place the sufferings of the sick, the loneliness of the elderly, the difficulties of the disabled. In reaching out to these people, you are serving Christ: “as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40), says the Lord.

Dear friends, continue working in society and in the world along the elevated paths indicated by the Gospel – faith and charity, for the renewal of hope: faith, as testimony of adherence to Christ and of commitment to the Gospel mission, which inspires you to an ever more vital presence in the ecclesial community and to an ever more conscious membership of the people of God; charity, as an expression of fraternity in Christ, through works of mercy for the sick, the poor, those in need of love, comfort and assistance, those who are afflicted by loneliness, by a sense of bewilderment and by new material and spiritual forms of poverty. These ideals are aptly expressed in your motto: “Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum”. These words summarize well the charism of your Order which, as a subject of international law, aims not to exercise power and influence of a worldly character, but in complete freedom to accomplish its own mission for the integral good of man, spirit and body, both individually and collectively, with special regard to those whose need of hope and love is greater.

May the Holy Virgin, Our Lady of Philermos, support your plans and projects with her maternal protection; may your heavenly protector Saint John the Baptist and Blessed Gérard, as well as the saints and blesseds of the Order, accompany you with their intercession. For my part, I promise to pray for all those present here, for all the members of the Order, as well as the numerous worthy volunteers, including a significant number of children, and for all who work alongside you. Affectionately, I impart to you a special Apostolic Blessing, which I willingly extend to your families. Thank you.

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Papal Tweets

Every human being is loved by God the Father. No one need feel forgotten, for every name is written in the Lord's loving Heart.

@pontifex, 30 January 2013

Today I have a special though for every religious: may they always follow Christ faithfully in poverty, chastity and obedience.

@pontifex, 2 February 2013

Today I have a special thought for every religious: may they always follow Christ faithfully in poverty, chastity and obedience.

@pontifex, 2 February 2013

Let us imitate the Virgin Mary in welcoming and guarding the word of Jesus, in order to recognize him as Lord in our lives

@pontifex, 3 February 2013

Everything is a gift from God: it is only by recognizing this crucial dependence on the Creator that we will find freedom and peace.

@pontifex, 6 February 2013

We must trust in the mighty power of God’s mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new.

@pontifex, 10 February 2013

Table of Contents

Introduction

Index of Source Links

Angelus

Angelus, 3 February 2013 - Benedict XVI

General Audiences

General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, 23 January 2013

General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, 30 January 2013

Homilies

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, 17th Day of Consecrated Life, 2 February 2013, Homily of Benedict XVI

Letters

Words of condolences for the death of Card. Jozef Glemp, Benedict XVI, 24 January 2013

Letter to the newly elected Patriarch of Babylon for Chaldeans for the concession of the Ecclesiastica Communio, 1st February 2013 - Benedict XVI

Messages

Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2013

Motu Proprio

Apostolic Letter Issued Motu Proprio Fides per Doctrinam, 16 January 2013

Apostolic Letter Issued Motu Proprio Ministrorum institutio, 16 January 2013

Speeches

Inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Benedict XVI, 26 January 2013

Addresso to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Benedict XVI, 9 February 2013

Papal Tweets