BISHOPS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SANCTITY OF CLERGY

VATICAN CITY, SEP 11, 1999 (VIS) - For the third consecutive day John Paul II received prelates who have just completed their quiquennial "ad limina" visit, welcoming the bishops of the Puerto Rican Episcopal Conference.

"In your mission as pastors of the people entrusted to your care," said the Pope, "you must be, above all, promoters and models of communion. ... Such union between bishops is particularly necessary in our times, given that pastoral initiatives take many forms and transcend the limits of individual dioceses. Furthermore, communion must be rendered concrete in pastoral cooperation and in common projects and programs."

The Holy Father confirmed that, even though most Puerto Ricans are Catholics, "at times they lack a solid and mature faith." For this reason, many seek to fill their interior emptiness "allowing themselves to be drawn in by hedonism and evading their responsibilities."

Faced with such a situation, the Holy Father continued, "united as an Episcopal Conference, do not cease to give teaching on the problems that concern your island, without supplanting the responsibility of politicians and lay people and while respecting Catholics' freedom of choice on the status and future of Puerto Rico."

The Pope went on to talk about the clergy and highlighted that "the grave responsibility that priests be saints falls above all on bishops; consequently they must take great care in overseeing the continual formation of the clergy."

After encouraging the prelates "to continue to promote intense vocational parochial care within parishes," he said: "You must dedicate your best attention and greatest energies to new candidates, forming them in communal fraternity and giving them a solid theological and cultural base, particularly ensuring that they be men of God." He added that "it is necessary to revitalize the seminaries of San Juan and Ponce, selecting suitable and saintly teachers, who steadily accompany the young as they follow Christ in the service of the Church."

The Pope highlighted the importance that lay people commit themselves in ecclesial and social life. "The Church, through an assiduous and profound formation of lay people at a spiritual, moral and human level, must help them to be evangelical leavening in modern society."

On the subject of the family, the Pope recalled the "growing number of divorces and the high percentage of children born outside matrimony. This makes clear the urgent necessity of promoting a catechesis that illustrates both the greatness and dignity of conjugal love in keeping with the divine plan, as well as its requirements for the good of the couple and the children."

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