Pope Benedict XVI’s third encyclical to be titled “Love in Truth”
Vatican City, Mar 15, 2008 (vaticans.org).- third encyclical will discuss Catholic social teaching, touching on issues as varied as poverty, peace, wars, international cooperation, energy sources, and globalization.
The encyclical will be titled “Caritas in Veritate,” “Love In Truth,” La Repubblica reports.
“Caritas in Veritate” will be Pope Benedict ’s third encyclical. His first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” examined the virtue of love while the second, “Spe Salvi,” focused upon the virtue of hope.
The four-chapter encyclical will no longer be published on May 1 as previously planned, but will be delayed so that translations, especially the Chinese translation, may be completed.
The decision to offer a Chinese version of the encyclical comes at a time when Pope Benedict is seeking to improve relations with the Chinese government.
Last June, he sent a letter offering dialogue with Chinese authorities. In September, Chinese priest Father Joseph Li Shan was installed as Bishop of Beijing with the approval of the Pope, an event that has not happened in fifty years.
Other Vatican-approved bishops are believed to have been installed in the official state church in China. China has an estimated eight to 12 million Catholics split between an ‘underground’ Church loyal to Rome and a state-run Catholic Patriotic Association cooperative with the government.
Source: CNA
Pope Benedict XVI asks youths to make room for Holy Spirit
Vatican City, Mar.14, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Yesterday afternoon in the Vatican Basilica Benedict XVI presided at a penitential liturgy with young people from Rome in preparation for the 23rd World Youth Day. The Day is due to be held in Sydney , Australia from 15 to 20 July on the theme: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses".
"At the roots of being Christian", the Holy Father told the young people, "is an encounter with an event, with a Person. This opens a new horizon and, with it, a decisive sense of direction". In order "to favour this encounter you are preparing to open your hearts to God, confessing your sins and - by the action of the Holy Spirit and through the ministry of the Church - receiving forgiveness and peace.
"Thus", he added, "we make room in ourselves for the presence of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity which is the 'soul' and the 'vital breath' of Christian life. The Spirit helps us to grow 'in an understanding of Jesus that becomes ever deeper and more joyful and, at the same time, to put the Gospel into practice'", he said.
On this subject, Pope Benedict recalled one of his own meditations on the Pentecost when he was archbishop of Munich and Freising, inspired by the film "Seelenwanderung" in which one of the characters sells his soul in exchange for worldly success. "From the moment he freed himself of his soul he no longer had any scruples or humanity", said the Pope, "providing striking evidence of how the facade of success often hides an empty life".
"A human being cannot throw away his own soul, because it is the soul that makes him human. ... Yet he does have the frightening possibility of being inhuman, of remaining a person but at the same time selling or losing his own humanity.
"The distance between the human person and the inhuman being is immense, yet it cannot be demonstrated; it is what is truly important, yet it is apparently without importance". Likewise, the Holy Spirit "cannot be seen with the eyes. Whether it enters into a person or not, it cannot be seen or demonstrated; but it changes and renews all the perspectives of human life. The Holy Spirit does not change the exterior situations of life, but the interior".
"Let us then", the Holy Father continued, "prepare ourselves, with a sincere examination of conscience, to present ourselves before the people to whom Christ entrusted the ministry of reconciliation. ... Thus will we experience true joy, the joy that derives from the mercy of God, flows into our hearts and reconciles us to Him. ... Be bearers of this joy, which comes from welcoming the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and witness its fruits in your own lives".
"Always remember that you are 'temples of the Spirit'. Allow Him to dwell in you and humbly obey His commands, in order to make your own contribution to the building of the Church and to discern the type of vocation to which the Lord calls you. ... Be generous, allow yourselves to be helped by using the Sacrament of Confession and by the practice of spiritual guidance".
Benedict XVI concluded his remarks by recalling how 25 years ago John Paul II inaugurated the San Lorenzo Youth Centre near the Vatican "to facilitate the welcome of young people, the sharing of experiences and the witness of faith and, above all, the prayer that helps us to discover the love of God".
On that 13 March 1983, John Paul II said: "Where can we go in this world, with sin and guilt, without the Cross? The Cross takes upon itself all the misery of the world, which is born of sin. It is the sign of grace. ... It encourages us to sacrifice ourselves for others".
"May this experience be renewed for you today", said Benedict XVI. "Look to the Cross now, and let us accept God's love which is given to us by the Cross, by the Holy Spirit which comes from the pierced side of the Lord and, as John Paul II said: 'Yourselves become redeemers of the young people of the world'".
During the ceremony, many of the thousands of young people present confessed with the Holy Father and with the hundreds of priests and penitentiaries from the four papal basilicas.
Source: VIS
Pope Benedict XVI's third enclyclical coming soon
Vatican City, Feb.29,2008 (vaticans.org) - Pope Benedict will soon finish his encyclical on social issues, the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has confirmed.
Catholic News Agency reports Cardinal Bertone said the Pope is working on a social encyclical, which he believes will have a "significant impact on the great social and economic problems in the contemporary world".
"Pope Benedict will address issues particularly related to the third and the fourth world," Cardinal Bertone said
The concept of the "fourth world" was coined by Pope John Paul II in his social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in reference to the poor and marginalized living in developed countries.
While Cardinal Bertone gave no clue as to when the document will be released, unnamed sources from the Vatican said the third encyclical of Pope Benedict would be signed on the feast of St Joseph on 19 March and released during Easter.
"The encyclical will focus on international social problems, with special attention to developing countries," he said.
Source:CN
We must not be discouraged, Pope Benedict advises religious orders
Vatican City, Feb 19, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the members of the executive committee of the International Union of Superiors General, telling them that “when communities have chosen to return to the origins and live in a way more in keeping with the spirit of the founder,” they see positive signs of renewal.
The religious superiors were gathered at the Vatican to discuss "some particularly relevant and important aspects of consecrated life."
The Holy Father launched into some of the most pressing problems for religious communities. "We are all aware how, in modern globalized society, it is becoming ever more difficult to announce and bear witness to the Gospel", he said. "The process of secularization which is advancing in contemporary culture does not, unfortunately, spare even religious communities.”
"Nonetheless", the Pontiff encouraged, "we must not be discouraged, because if (as has been said) many clouds are gathering on the horizon of religious life today, there also exist (indeed they are constantly growing) signs of a providential reawakening which gives rise to consolation and hope.
"The Holy Spirit blows powerfully throughout the Church, creating a new commitment to faithfulness, both in the historical institutes and, at the same time, in new forms of religious consecration that reflect the needs of the times. ... What characterizes these new forms of consecrated life is a shared desire ... for a radical form of evangelical poverty, for faithful love of the Church, and for generous dedication to the needy with particular attention to that spiritual poverty which so markedly characterizes the modern age," the Pope noted.
He also addressed the situation within "the orders and congregations with a long tradition in the Church," pointing to how they have suffered a "difficult crisis due to the ageing of members, a more or less accentuated fall in vocations and, sometimes, a spiritual and charismatic 'weariness'".
Although describing this crisis as "worrying", Benedict XVI highlighted certain positive signs, "especially when communities have chosen to return to the origins and live in a way more in keeping with the spirit of the founder. In almost all recent general chapters of religious institutes the recurring theme has been precisely that of rediscovering the original charism, to then incarnate it and renew it in the present."
In parting, the Holy Father explained to the religious superiors that returning to their roots "has helped give institutes a promising new ascetic, apostolic and missionary impulse" and that "It is along this road that we must continue, praying to the Lord to bring to full fruition the work He began."
Source:CNA
Pope Benedict XVI has revised the Good Friday liturgy prayer for the conversion of Jews
Vatican City, Feb. 6, 2008 (vaticans.org) - Pope Benedict XVI has revised the prayer in the traditional form of the Good Friday liturgy.
The February 6 edition of L'Osservatore Romano-- published, according to the custom with the Vatican newspaper, on the afternoon of February 5-- carries an announcement from the Secretariat of State, saying that the Holy Father has ordered a change in the text of the 1962 Roman Missal. The change applies to the "extraordinary form" of the liturgy; it does not alter the Good Friday prayers of the Novus Ordo.
Some Jewish leaders had urged the Pope to revise the text of the Good Friday prayer in the traditional liturgy, which had referred to the "blindness" of the Jewish people-- a reference that many Jews considered offensive. Some critics of the traditional prayer also called for the removal of an intercession for the conversion of the Jews.
The newly revised text eliminates the reference to blindness, but retains the prayer for the conversion of the Jews.
The prayer amended by Pope Benedict had previously been changed by Pope Pius XII and again by Pope John XXIII; the version approved by the latter Pontiff was still in use in Catholic churches using the 1962 Roman Missal.
The new version, published in L'Osservatore Romano, reads:
Oremus et pro Iudaeis. Ut Deus et Dominus noster illuminet corda eorum, ut agnoscant Iesum Christum salvatorem omnium hominum.
Oremus.
Flectamus genua.
Levate.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui vis ut omnes homines salvi fiant et ad agnitionem veritatis veniant, concede propitius, ut plenitudine gentium in Ecclesiam Tuam intrante omnis Israel salvus fiat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
This prayer would be used only in the Latin language, in the extraordinary form of the Latin liturgy. However it could be translated:
Let us also pray for the Jews: that God our Lord might enlighten their hearts, so that they might know Jesus Christ as the Savior of all mankind.
Let us pray.
Let us bend our knees (kneel).
Please rise.
Almighty and eternal God, whose desire it is that all men might be saved and come to the knowledge of truth, grant in your mercy that as the fullness of mankind enters into your Church, all Israel may be saved, through Christ our Lord. Amen.Source:cwnews
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