Benedict XVI formally
opens the Year of Faith
Libretto cover: The Most Holy Trinity and the Twelve Disciples, Fresco, School of Perugino, Raphael Rooms, Vatican Apostolic Palace.
Once again, the English service of Vatican Radio has not seen fit to post an online report of the Opening Mass for the Year of Faith. For this purpose, I have used the AP report (as defective as it is) posted after the Pope's homily, which obviously should have pride of place.
THE HOLY FATHER'S HOMILY
Here is the Vatican's English translation of the Pope's homily:
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear brothers and sisters!
Today, fifty years from the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, we begin with great joy the Year of Faith.
I am delighted to greet all of you, particularly His Holiness Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, and His Grace Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.
A special greeting goes to the Patriarchs and Major Archbishops of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences.
In order to evoke the Council, which some present had the grace to experience for themselves - and I greet them with particular affection - this celebration has been enriched by several special signs: the opening procession, intended to recall the memorable one of the Council Fathers when they entered this Basilica; the enthronement of a copy of the Book of the Gospels used at the Council; the consignment of the seven final Messages of the Council, and of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I will do before the final blessing.
These signs help us not only to remember, they also offer us the possibility of going beyond commemorating. They invite us to enter more deeply into the spiritual movement which characterized Vatican II, to make it ours and to develop it according to its true meaning.
And its true meaning was and remains faith in Christ, the apostolic faith, animated by the inner desire to communicate Christ to individuals and all people, in the Church’s pilgrimage along the pathways of history.
The Year of Faith which we launch today is linked harmoniously with the Church’s whole path over the last fifty years: from the Council, through the Magisterium of the Servant of God Paul VI, who proclaimed a Year of Faith in 1967, up to the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, with which Blessed John Paul II re-proposed to all humanity Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, yesterday, today and forever.
Between these two Popes, Paul VI and John Paul II, there was a deep and profound convergence, precisely upon Christ as the centre of the cosmos and of history, and upon the apostolic eagerness to announce him to the world. Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith.
The Christian believes in God whose face was revealed by Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the Scriptures and their definitive interpreter. Jesus Christ is not only the object of the faith but, as it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, he is “the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith” (12:2).
Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus Christ, consecrated by the Father in the Holy Spirit, is the true and perennial subject of evangelization. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18).
This mission of Christ, this movement of his continues in space and time, over centuries and continents. It is a movement which starts with the Father and, in the power of the Spirit, goes forth to bring the good news to the poor, in both a material and a spiritual sense.
The Church is the first and necessary instrument of this work of Christ because it is united to him as a body to its head. “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20:21), says the Risen One to his disciples, and breathing upon them, adds, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v.22).
Through Christ, God is the principal subject of evangelization in the world; but Christ himself wished to pass on his own mission to the Church; he did so, and continues to do so, until the end of time pouring out his Spirit upon the disciples, the same Spirit who came upon him and remained in him during all his earthly life, giving him the strength “to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” and “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk 4:18-19).
The Second Vatican Council did not wish to deal with the theme of faith in one specific document. It was, however, animated by a desire, as it were, to immerse itself anew in the Christian mystery so as to re-propose it fruitfully to contemporary man.
The Servant of God Paul VI, two years after the end of the Council sessions, expressed it in this way: “Even if the Council does not deal expressly with the faith, it talks about it on every page, it recognizes its vital and supernatural character, it assumes it to be whole and strong, and it builds upon its teachings. We need only recall some of the Council’s statements in order to realize the essential importance that the Council, consistent with the doctrinal tradition of the Church, attributes to the faith, the true faith, which has Christ for its source and the Church’s Magisterium for its channel” (General Audience, 8 March 1967). Thus said Paul VI.
We now turn to the one who convoked the Second Vatican Council and inaugurated it: Blessed John XXIII. In his opening speech, he presented the principal purpose of the Council in this way: “What above all concerns the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be safeguarded and taught more effectively […] Therefore, the principal purpose of this Council is not the discussion of this or that doctrinal theme… a Council is not required for that… [but] this certain and immutable doctrine, which is to be faithfully respected, needs to be explored and presented in a way which responds to the needs of our time” (AAS 54 [1962], 790,791-792).
In the light of these words, we can understand what I myself felt at the time: During the Council there was an emotional tension as we faced the common task of making the truth and beauty of the faith shine out in our time, without sacrificing it to the demands of the present or leaving it tied to the past: the eternal presence of God resounds in the faith, transcending time, yet it can only be welcomed by us in our own unrepeatable today.
Therefore I believe that the most important thing, especially on such a significant occasion as this, is to revive in the whole Church that positive tension, that yearning to announce Christ again to contemporary man.
But, so that this interior thrust towards the new evangelization neither remain just an idea nor be lost in confusion, it needs to be built on a concrete and precise basis, and this basis is the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the place where it found expression.
This is why I have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the “letter” of the Council – that is to its texts – to draw from them its authentic spirit, and why I have repeated that the true legacy of Vatican II is to be found in them.
Reference to the documents saves us from extremes of anachronistic nostalgia and running too far ahead, and allows what is new to be welcomed in a context of continuity. The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient. Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change.
If we place ourselves in harmony with the authentic approach which Blessed John XXIII wished to give to Vatican II, we will be able to realize it during this Year of Faith, following the same path of the Church as she continuously endeavours to deepen the deposit of faith entrusted to her by Christ.
The Council Fathers wished to present the faith in a meaningful way; and if they opened themselves trustingly to dialogue with the modern world it is because they were certain of their faith, of the solid rock on which they stood.
In the years following, however, many embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to accept as truths.
If today the Church proposes a new Year of Faith and a new evangelization, it is not to honour an anniversary, but because there is more need of it, even more than there was fifty years ago!
And the reply to be given to this need is the one desired by the Popes, by the Council Fathers and contained in its documents. Even the initiative to create a Pontifical Council for the promotion of the new evangelization, which I thank for its special effort for the Year of Faith, is to be understood in this context.
Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread.
But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life.
And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelizing means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path.
The first reading spoke to us of the wisdom of the wayfarer (cf. Sir 34:9-13): the journey is a metaphor for life, and the wise wayfarer is one who has learned the art of living, and can share it with his brethren – as happens to pilgrims along the Way of Saint James or similar routes which, not by chance, have again become popular in recent years.
How come so many people today feel the need to make these journeys? Is it not because they find there, or at least intuit, the meaning of our existence in the world?
This, then, is how we can picture the Year of Faith: a pilgrimage in the deserts of today’s world, taking with us only what is necessary: neither staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, nor two tunics – as the Lord said to those he was sending out on mission (cf. Lk 9:3), but the Gospel and the faith of the Church, of which the Council documents are a luminous expression, as is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published twenty years ago.
Venerable and dear Brothers, 11 October 1962 was the Feast of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God* Let us entrust to her the Year of Faith, as I did last week when I went on pilgrimage to Loreto. [*After the Council, the date for this Solemnity was transferred to January 1.]
May the Virgin Mary always shine out as a star along the way of the new evangelization. May she help us to put into practice the Apostle Paul’s exhortation, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom […] And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”(Col 3:16-17). Amen.
NB: The construction wall and scaffolding in the background are due to the ongoing restoration of the Bernini colonnades as they were when erected in the 17th century.
Pope Benedict XVI marks
50th anniversary of Vatican II
Vatican City, Oct. 11 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council; -the church meetings he attended as a young priest that brought the Catholic Church into the modern world but whose true meaning is still hotly debated.
Pope Benedict celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Square, attended by patriarchs, cardinals, bishops and a dozen elderly churchmen who participated in the council, and later will greet the faithful re-enacting the great procession into St. Peter's that launched the council in 1962.
In his homily, Pope Benedict urged the faithful to return to the "letter" and "authentic spirit" of the council found in the Vatican II documents themselves, rather than rely on the distorted spirit promoted by those who saw in Vatican II
a radical reform away from the Church's tradition.
[The AP might at least have done the basic research of quoting what John XXIII said precisely about this in his opening address to the Council, which is really the primary context for looking at Vatican II.]
"The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient," the Pope said from the steps of St. Peter's. "Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change."
The anniversary comes as the Church is fighting what it sees as a wave of secularism erasing the Christian heritage of the West and competition for souls from rival evangelical churches in Latin America and Africa.
Clerical sex abuse scandals, debates over celibacy for priests, open dissent among some priests in Europe, and a recent
Vatican crackdown on liberal nuns in the United States have also contributed
to erode the Church's place in the world.
The Pope has spent much of his pontificate seeking to correct what he considers the misinterpretation of Vatican II, insisting that it wasn't a revolutionary break from the past, as liberal Catholics paint it, but rather a renewal and reawakening of the best traditions of the ancient church.
[As the Conciliar Popes John XXIII and Paul VI and the post-Conciliar John Paul II and Benedict XVI have always said!]
In that vein, he decided to mark the 50th anniversary of the Council with the launch of a "Year of Faith," precisely to remind Christians of what the Council truly taught and seek to "re-evangelize" those Catholics who have fallen away from their faith in the decades since.
He lamented on Thursday that a "spiritual desertification" had advanced where people think they can live without God.
"In the Council's time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us," he said, referring to the totalitarian, atheistic regimes of the 20th century.
"But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women."
Pope Benedict was the Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, a young priest and theological consultant to German Cardinal Joseph Frings when Vatican II began, and he has recently reminisced about what the council sought to accomplish, where it succeeded and where it erred.
"It was a splendid day on 11 October, 1962," Pope Benedict wrote in a forward to a commemorative book about the anniversary published this week by the Vatican newspaper. "It was a moment of extraordinary expectation. Great things were about to happen."
Indeed, by its conclusion in 1965, the Council had approved documents allowing for the celebration of Mass in the vernacular rather than Latin, and revolutionizing the Church's relations with Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths. {Shows you the AP writer's absolute lack of historic sense and appreciation of Church history in reducing the achievements of Vatican II to two peripheral issues!.]
Yet as great as that document on relations with other faiths was, Pope Benedict wrote, a "weakness" has emerged in the ensuing years in that "it speaks of religion solely in a positive way and it disregards the sick and distorted forms of religion" that have become all too apparent.
Even worse, the AP devotes half of its article on the Council Golden Jubilee and the Year of Faith to Hans Kueng - equiparating him, in effect, in significance to those major Church events!
Mr Ratzinger was joined at Vatican II by another young theologian, Hans Kueng, who subsequently brought him to Tuebingen University in southern Germany as professor of dogmatic theology, helping promote an academic career that resulted in a papacy. {Excuse me, the academic career was already well under way at the time, and Prof. Ratzinger had already taught at the universities in Munich, Bonn and Muenster before going to Tuebingen.]
In the years since, Mr Kueng has become one of Benedict's greatest critics, complaining that there has been no progress in reforming the Church since Vatican II and calling for a grassroots revolt against the Church hierarchy to carry it out.
"The Council was unable to guarantee that the reforms would be implemented," primarily because the Vatican bureaucracy was and still is opposed, he said in an interview with German news website ntv-de this week.
Mr Kueng, who lost his official license to teach Catholic theology in 1969 but continues to teach, has opposed Pope Benedict's outreach to traditionalist Catholics and his reintroduction of the old, pre-Vatican II Latin Mass.
"Mr Ratzinger and his peers spiritually live in the Middle Ages," Mr Kueng told n-tv.
A similar complaint was made recently by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, one of the last liberals in the College of Cardinals, who died on August 31. Mr Martini was quoted as saying in his final interview that the church was in need of radical reform and was "200 years behind the times."
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/10/2012 00:29]