Faith and the apostles
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from
the 6/30-7/1 issue of
For the feast of the holy patrons of Rome, Benedict XVI addressed all Catholics with words that deserve to be heard even beyond the visible confines of the Church and which will live on as a reflection on what is essential: the truth.
That truth which Peter and Paul preached until they had to shed their own blood under Nero, rendering to Christ the ultimate testimony (
martyrion, in Greek) in the capital of the Roman empire.
The martyrdom of the two Apostles founded the Church of Rome, as millions upon millions of faithful have acknowledged over the centuries, kneeling before their tombs identified at least 18 centuries ago by pious Christians in a tradition visibly supported by history.
As stated by Pius XII and Paul VI in the case of St. Peter, and now, as their present successor does for St. Paul.
Speaking of the ex-persecutor of Christians who was converted on the road to Damascus, the Pope recalled that with Christ came a new way of adoring God, a personal and profoundly true worship because it is affirmed with one's life. With that interior self-renewal which is the only way to change the world without conforming to it. A change into a new way of thinking and of being, not as children but as adults.
And certainly not in the sense, rather juvenile in fact, with which the term 'adult faith' has come to be turned on its head, by those who consider themselves mature and courageous to the point of opposing the Magisterium of the Church itself.
With dry irony, Benedict XVI points out that it does not take much courage to do that in a society that is de-Christianized! Rather, faith is truly adult and mature when it is able to commit itself - and the Pope cites examples - to the inviolability of human life from the moment of conception, and to the natural and Christian order of an indissoluble marriage.
Faith is adult and mature when, in the name of truth - which cannot be separated from love - it opposes lies and falsehood. The commitment to truth that refers itself back to Christ is profound: "We need reason illuminated by the heart so we can learn to act according to truth in love", as Benedict summed it up.
Even during his studies and in his youthful writings, Joseph Ratzinger, steeped in the Christian tradition, took on himself the task of explaining 'the alphabet of the faith' for our time, and he continues to carry out this service - which is both theological and pastoral - as the Successor of Peter.
Trough the first of the Apostles, he spoke of Christ as the 'bishop of souls' at the solemn liturgy of the imposition of the pallium on Monday to new metropolitan archbishops - this in itself a visible expression of Catholic communion.
Benedict XVI went deep into the truth that the apostles bore witness to and repeated that, notwithstanding conformism in the world and notwithstanding the enemies of the Church, for whom he used the evangelical term 'wolves', it is the mission of bishops and priests above all to open the hearts and souls of their flock to God - following the example of Peter and Paul, and of saints like Francis of Assisi, the Curate of Ars and Padre Pio.
Only this way, he stressed, is it possible to make God present in the world and thus to change it.