Bishop of Avila to request Pope
for 2015 Jubilee Year and visit
on fifth centenary of St. Teresa's birth
Madrid, Spain, Oct 16, 2009 (CNA) - Bishop Jesus Garcia Burillo of Avila, Spain, announced this week that he will be sending an invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit the diocese in 2015 to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Teresa.
The bishop added that he will also ask the Holy See to “declare a Jubilee Year” to celebrate the occasion.
Although he acknowledged that it may be difficult for the Pope to grant his request, Bishop Burillo said he would nonetheless extend a formal invitation to the Holy Father requesting “the inestimable grace of his presence among us.”
The bishop expressed his “deepest desire that His Holiness the Pope visit Avila for this centenary, as did his predecessor John Paul II in 1982 on the occasion of the closing of the 400th anniversary of the death of St. Teresa.”
Regarding the request for a Jubilee Year, Bishop Burillo said it would be a time “in which the Church would grant singular spiritual graces to the faithful to mark the anniversary of the birth of this Doctor of the Church.”
St. Teresa was proclaimed the first female Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI on September 27, 1970.
The bishop also invited the faithful of his diocese to enthusiastically join with the Carmelite Order, founded by the saint in 1562, in preparing for the celebrations.
It's very strange, but as early as 1617, the Spanish Parliament named Teresa of Avila Patroness of Spain, though she was not canonized till 1622 - but for some reason, the Church of Spain apparently never formally named her Patroness of Spain! In Sandro Magister's list of European patron saints [see post in CHURCH&VATICAN thread], only the Immaculate Conception and St. James are listed. So I reviewed the four Teresian addresses John Paul II gave during his remarkable 10-day visit to Spain in 1982 (he visited both Avila where she was born, and Alba de Tormes, where she died), and true enough, he does not once refer to her as a Patroness of Spain;