CONCILIAR TEACHING REQUIRES EVER DEEPER KNOWLEDGE

VATICAN CITY, FEB 27, 2000 (VIS) - After praying the angelus with the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Pope went to the Synod Hall where he met participants in the international congress on the implementation of the measures of Vatican Council II.

In his closing speech to the congress, which was held in the Vatican from February 25 to 27, John Paul II stated that "it is only in the perspective of faith that the council opens before our eyes as a gift from which we must know how to draw the wealth that still remains concealed."

The Holy Father indicated that conciliar teaching "requires ever deeper knowledge, ... (as well as the) overcoming of prejudiced and partial interpretations that have prevented the novelty of the conciliar magisterium being fully expressed."

After recalling the Dogmatic Constitution "Lumen gentium" that was, he said, "a true song of praise to the beauty of the Spouse of Christ," he added: "The 'communio' is the foundation on which the reality of the Church stands. A 'koinonia' whose source is the very mystery of the Triune God and which extends to all the baptized who, as a consequence, are called to full unity in Christ."

"The fact will have escaped no one that, with great vitality, Vatican Council II made this 'ecumenical' longing its own. The movement of encounter and clarification that has begun between all baptized brothers and sisters, is irreversible. ... The communion that the Church lives with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is a sign of how brothers and sisters are called to live together."

John Paul II concluded: "A new season opens before us. It is the time to study conciliar teaching in depth, the time to reap what was sowed by the council fathers and anticipated by the present generation. Vatican Ecumenical Council II was a true prophecy for Church life. It will continue to be so for many years of this third millennium that has just begun."

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