PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES DO NOT REPLACE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

VATICAN CITY, MAR 31, 2001 (VIS) - This morning the Pope held his annual meeting with the members of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the penitentiary fathers of the patriarchal basilicas of the city, and the participants in the annual course on the internal forum.

In his discourse the Holy Father emphasized that "Jesus is the sole and necessary mediator of eternal salvation. ... From this derives the necessity, with regard to eternal salvation, of those means of grace, instituted by Jesus, which are the Sacraments. The pretense of regulating our accounts with God, apart from the Church and the sacramentary economy is therefore illusory and inauspicious."

The Pope affirmed that the great flow of the faithful to sacramental Confession during the Jubilee Year showed how such a theme "is always contemporary." Referring to the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance, the Holy Father confirmed the it "is always an act of the Church," from which it follows that "both for the validity and the licitness of the sacrament itself, the priest and the penitent must faithfully keep to what the Church teaches and prescribes."

"It is also necessary to remember the provision of canon 720 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches and canon 960 of the Code of Canon Law, according to which individual and complete confession and absolution are the only ordinary way that the member of the faithful aware of grave sin can reconcile himself with God and with the Church. For this reason collective absolution, without prior individual confession of sins, must be rigorously kept within the compulsory canonical norms."

John Paul II affirmed: "Nevertheless the Sacrament of reconciliation should not be confused with a psychotherapeutic technique. Psychological practices cannot replace the Sacrament of penance, nor much less be put in its place."

The Pope continued his speech, affirming that the confessor is obligated "to offer his time and understanding patience to the faithful with full availability." Even the priest not in direct pastoral care over souls "will provide generous and ready care."
He recalled that "the very condition of ministry 'in persona Christi' establishes the absolute obligation of sacramental seal for the priest concerning the matters confessed in the Sacrament, even at the cost, if necessary, of his life itself." The confessor, as such, cannot propose 'his' personal morality or ascetics, that is his private opinions or options, but must express that truth of which the Church is depository and guarantor in the authentic Magisterium."

The Holy Father concluded by exhorting the priests of the entire world to "be generous ministers of the Sacrament of penance in order that the wave of divine mercy may reach every soul in need of purification and comfort."

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POPE ADDRESSES BISHOPS OF JAPAN AT END OF "AD LIMINA" VISIT

VATICAN CITY, MAR 31, 2001 (VIS) - The Holy Father this morning welcomed the bishops of Japan, in Rome for their "ad limina" visit, and he spoke to them of the faith which has flourished in their land for centuries, the need for a new springtime of evangelization and inculturation of the faith, and the need for "careful and confident pastoral planning" as they face a series of challenges in their ministry.

Quoting his Apostolic Letter "Novo Millennio Ineunte," the Pope focussed on Jesus' words to the apostles: "Duc in altum!," urging the bishops to "put out into the deep," and have faith in the Lord. "We labor with all our might to make a catch; yet at times we are left feeling that we have caught little or nothing and that, for the time being at least, there is nothing to catch. Yet Jesus says: 'Put out your nets!' Faith assures us that the Lord knows our world better than we do."

Turning to the challenge of inculturation of the faith, John Paul II said: "The close bonds between religion, culture and society make it particularly difficult for the followers of Asia's great religions to be open to the mystery of the Incarnation and to conceive of Jesus as the one and only Savior." The truths of our faith must be translated "into categories more readily accessible to Asian sensibilities and the mentality of your people. The challenge is to present the 'Asian face of Jesus' in a way that is in perfect harmony with the Church's whole mystical, philosophical and theological tradition."

"The Good News of God's love manifested in Christ," he went on, "is good news for everyone. ... At a time when many are confused about the meaning of life or are searching for a light to clarify the many existential and moral questions which trouble them, the truth about our human condition is the essential basis for building a culture and society worthy of the image of God inherent in every man and woman."

He then turned to the problems brought about in society by affluence, and the resulting challenges for pastors. "While some enjoy the benefits of material progress, others are left on the margins. ... When a consumerist mentality takes hold, people are absorbed by the concern for 'having', to the detriment of 'being'. ... How many people, even among the affluent, are threatened by despair at the lack of meaning in their lives, by fear of abandonment in old age or sickness, by marginalization or social discrimination! Some of the ways in which people seek relief are extremely self-defeating and destructive to individuals and society: violence, drugs and suicide come immediately to mind." He told the bishops that "true pastoral charity" will enable them to "make generous efforts to bring the Gospel to bear more visibly and effectively on the situation in which you live."

He stated that this same charity would be needed "in parishes and communities which are being transformed by an influx of immigrants, many of whom are Catholic." The Church must be close to these people who are "often friendless, linguistically disadvantaged and culturally estranged. ... Every effort must be made to meet their legitimate needs and to make them feel welcome in the Catholic community."

"A new evangelization in Japan," concluded Pope John Paul, "will also mean a discerning but generous openness to the communities and movements which the Holy Spirit is raising up in the Church. ... It is often in such groups that people, especially the young, find the spiritual fervor and experience of community which leads them to a personal encounter with Christ and makes them in turn missionaries of the new millennium."

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CHRIST'S INVITATION TO TAKE UP DAILY CROSS AND FOLLOW HIM

VATICAN CITY, APR 1, 2001 (VIS) - Following his return to the Vatican from Our Lady of Suffrage and St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish in Rome, Pope John Paul, speaking from his study window overlooking St. Peter's Square, had his traditional weekly appointment with the faithful gathered to pray the noon angelus with him.

Before the prayer he reflected on Christ's "pressing invitation: ... 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me'." The Pope went on to say that "this demanding condition, which He asks of all who wish to follow him, must be the Christian's lifestyle, which Lent exhorts us to verify, renew and deepen. Jesus does not propose mortification as a means unto itself. In reality 'denying oneself' and 'taking up the cross' are the equivalent of assuming right up to the end one's own responsibility before God and one's neighbor."

Christ's invitation to follow Him and take up the daily cross, recalled the Holy Father, "is the theme of my Message for the 16th World Youth Day which will be celebrated in local dioceses worldwide next Sunday, Palm Sunday. ... Is it not perhaps the Cross which guides, for over 15 years now, the pilgrimage of young people on World Youth Days? This Cross, which has gone around the world, next Sunday, at the end of Mass in St. Peter's Square, will be given by Rome's youth to those of Toronto, the Canadian city which will host the next world encounter of young people in July 2002."

"To prepare ourselves for this evocative celebration," the Pope concluded, "I invite you, young people of Rome, to come here to St. Peter's Square, this coming Thursday afternoon" for "a moment of prayer, reflection and celebration."

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INTENSIFY ATTENTION FOR THOSE IN NEED

VATICAN CITY, APR 1, 2001 (VIS) - At 9:30 a.m. this morning, John Paul II made a pastoral visit to the Parish of Our Lady of Suffrage and St. Augustine of Canterbury, where he presided over the Eucharistic celebration.

Commenting upon today's Gospel, the Pope recalled that the Lord offers his pardon to the adulteress and leads her "to full human and spiritual dignity." In the same way, "on Calvary, with the supreme sacrifice of His life, the Messiah will seal for every man and woman the infinite gift of the pardon and mercy of God."

Following this, the Holy Father made reference to the problematic situations that pastors must face in this area, "from the phenomenon of drug dependency to usury, from prostitution to juvenile difficulties, from unemployment to the sometimes difficult integration of immigrants."

"Your community," he added, "is very active and seeks to give concrete answers to those who live in serious difficulties. Intensify, dear people, in this time of Lent, attention for those who are in need. Together with fasting and prayer, charity is one of the characteristic elements of the lenten program. Spread the good always more and more, therefore, and give attention to the 'last' of the main points of your pastoral action."

The Pope concluded his homily with words of thanks to the youth for having welcomed in the milieu of the parish, about 1,500 other youth from various parts of the world on the occasion of the last World Youth Day. He then invited them to participate together with all the youth of Rome, next Thursday in St. Peter's Square, in the meeting in preparation for the celebration of World Youth Day, on April 8th, Palm Sunday.

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HOMAGE TO JOHN PAUL II: "ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE POPE"

VATICAN CITY, MAR 31, 2001 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father received the members of Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, who offered a gift of the three volumes of the "Encyclopedia of the Popes" which he termed "one of the most significant cultural fruits of the Jubilee Year."

The Encyclopedia, produced by 137 collaborators from 12 different countries, offers an ample view of the two millennia of Christianity and "is destined to furnish a substantial contribution not only to the history of the Church, but to culture itself, at the dawn of the Third Millennium."

"Through the succession of many different Pontiffs, diverse in background, culture, and lifestyle, the papacy, though continually renewing itself, has maintained its essential identity in the historical development of its function."

John Paul II concluded his discourse affirming that "the 'Encyclopedia of the Popes' highlights the vital historical relationship which connects the papacy in a special way to Italy, in the fulfillment of a truly universal ministry, that which is Catholic."

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PRESENTATION OF POPE'S HOLY THURSDAY LETTER TO PRIESTS

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 2001 (VIS) - This morning in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos and Archbishop Csaba Ternyak presided at the official presentation of the "Letter of the Holy Father Pope John Paul II to Priests for Holy Thursday 2001."

Cardinal Castrillon, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, said he wished to underline three aspects of the Holy Father's Letter to priests. "In the first place," he began, "this is a Letter from a Father who is filled with affection for his sons. The Holy Father affirms that he intends his reflections as words 'of friendship and, I might say, of intimacy'. ... With moving words, he thanks all priests for the intense work they accomplished during the Jubilee Year in making Christ present and he also admires their humble and hidden, discreet and tenacious work."

The cardinal said "the second aspect consists in the 'Duc in altum!' in the divine invitation to cast out into the deep in the vast ocean of divine mercy! ... The Holy Father chooses the theme of sacramental Reconciliation, an instrument of divine mercy for all of mankind."

The third aspect of the Pope's Letter, he observes, "exhorts, in a practical and concrete way, all priests to approach the Sacrament of pardon and to offer, with the urgency of Christ's charity, the sublime gift of mercy to all those who request it when they hear them in sacramental confession."

For his part, Archbishop Ternyak, congregation secretary, underscored the "spiritual echoes" of the experiences of Reconciliation during the Jubilee Year 2000, including the Church's "humbly and solemnly celebrated request for pardon on March 12, 2000 in St. Peter's Basilica."

"The Holy Year," the archbishop went on, "was a fruitful period" and "a year of rediscovery of the Sacrament of Penance. ... Official reports from Rome's major basilicas indicate about 360,000 confessions during the year in St. Peter's Basilica and about 320,000 each at St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran and St. Paul's. And we cannot forget the 2,000 confessors who heard young people's confessions at the Circus Maximus during World Youth Day."

He noted that "the Holy Father encourages priests to not forget such an intense and promising experience, but rather to increase and facilitate to the greatest possible degree access to the Sacrament of Reconciliation."

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PAPAL GREETING TO KRAKOW'S CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 2001 (VIS) - Today at noon in the Clementine Hall the Pope received a delegation of 80 people from the City Council of Krakow, Poland.

"The image of a city," said the Pope in a brief greeting, "is not only given by the external beauty of the streets, squares and buildings, but is also, and above all, in the lifestyle of its inhabitants from both a material and spiritual point of view. Civil authorities therefore, in making decisions regarding a city or other locale, must bear in mind, above all, the good of the inhabitants - their needs, their expectations and the prospects for complete development. Today this is especially important."

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HOLY FATHER'S PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR APRIL

VATICAN CITY, APR 1, 2001 (VIS) - The Holy Father's general prayer intention for April is: "That consecrated people, answering the call of their particular vocation, may radiate the spirit of the Gospel beatitudes in the present-day world."

His missionary intention is: "That in Rwanda the recently celebrated centennial of the Church may reinforce Christian brotherhood and speed national reconciliation."

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AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 2001 (VIS) - The Holy Father received today in separate audiences:

- Jozef Migas, president of the parliament of the Slovak Republic, accompanied by an entourage.
- Five prelates of the Episcopal Conference of Paraguay, on the occasion of their "ad limina" visit.
- Auxiliary Bishop Ricardo Valenzuela Rios of Asuncion.
- Archbishop Jorge Adolfo Carlos Livieres Banks of Encarnacion.
- Bishop Mario Melanio Medina Salinas of San Juan Bautista de las Misiones.
- Bishop Eustaquio Pastor Cuquejo Verga, military ordinary.
- Cardinal James Francis Stafford, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, with Bishop Stanislaw Rylko, secretary; Prof. Guzman Carriquiry, under-secretary; and Fr. Francis Kohn, director of the Youth Section of the same Pontifical Council.

On Saturday, March 31, he received in separate audiences:

- Vitaly Litvin, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, representative of the Russian Federation to the Holy See, accompanied by his wife and an entourage.
- Archbishop Faustino Sainz Munoz, apostolic nuncio to the European Community.
- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
- Cardinal Edmund Casimir Szoka, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.

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VIA CRUCIS MEDITATIONS BY SERVANT OF GOD CARDINAL NEWMAN

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 2001 (VIS) - In response to questions by journalists, Holy See Press Office Director, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, has confirmed that the texts of the meditations for the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, which will be presided over by Pope John Paul on Good Friday, April 13, will be by Servant of God Cardinal John Henry Newman.

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TO PRIESTS: REDISCOVER THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 2001 (VIS) - Made public today was the Letter of The Holy Father Pope John Paul II to Priests for Holy Thursday, 2001, in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Polish.

The Pope begins the Letter by thanking each one of the priests for all that they did during the Jubilee Year "to ensure that the people entrusted to your care might experience more intensely the saving presence of the Risen Lord."

"Chosen to proclaim Christ," he affirms, "we are first of all invited to live in intimacy with him: we cannot give to others what we ourselves do not have! There is a thirst for Christ which, despite many appearances to the contrary, emerges even in contemporary society. ... This thirst for Christ ' whether conscious or not ' cannot be quenched with empty words. Only authentic witnesses can communicate in a credible way the word that saves."

The Holy Father emphasizes that in Rome "one of the most visible manifestations of the Jubilee was certainly the exceptional numbers of people receiving the Sacrament of mercy. Even non-religious observers were impressed by this."

He recalls that "in recent decades this Sacrament has passed through a certain crisis, for a number of reasons. Precisely in order to tackle this crisis, in 1984 a Synod was held, the conclusions of which were presented in the Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation 'Reconciliatio et paenitentia'." He then says: "It would be naive to think that the mere intensifying of the practice of the Sacrament of forgiveness during the Jubilee Year is proof of a definitive turnabout. It was nevertheless an encouraging sign."

The Pope goes on to say that Holy Thursday, "the special day of our vocation, calls us to reflect above all on 'who we are', and in particular on our journey to holiness. ... It is important, on this day of love par excellence, that we should feel the grace of the priesthood as a super-abundance of mercy."

"Let us then rediscover our vocation as a 'mystery of mercy'. In the Gospel we find that Peter receives his special ministry with precisely this spiritual attitude. ... And is it not within an experience of mercy that Paul's vocation too is born? No one experienced the gratuitousness of Christ's choice as vividly as he did."

John Paul II underscores the need to "rediscover the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a fundamental means of our sanctification. ... On this holy day, therefore, let us ask Christ to help us to rediscover, for ourselves, the full beauty of this Sacrament."

"Dear priests, let us make regular use of this Sacrament, that the Lord may constantly purify our hearts and make us less unworthy of the mysteries which we celebrate. ... The Sacrament of Reconciliation, essential for every Christian life, is especially a source of support, guidance and healing for the priestly life."

"The crisis of the Sacrament of Reconciliation ... is due to many factors from the diminished sense of sin to an inadequate realization of the sacramental economy of God's salvation. But perhaps we should also recognize that another factor sometimes working against the Sacrament has been a certain dwindling of our own enthusiasm and availability for the exercise of this delicate and demanding ministry.

"Conversely, now more than ever the People of God must be helped to rediscover the Sacrament. We need to declare with firmness and conviction that the Sacrament of Penance is the ordinary means of obtaining pardon and the remission of grave sins committed after Baptism. We ought to celebrate the Sacrament in the best possible way, according to the forms laid down by liturgical law, so that it may lose none of its character as the celebration of God's mercy."

The Holy Father affirms that a "source of renewed confidence in the revival of this Sacrament is not only the fact that, despite many incongruities, a new and urgent need for spirituality is becoming widespread in society. There is also a deeply-felt need for interpersonal contact, which is increasingly experienced as a reaction to the anonymous mass society which often leaves people interiorly isolated, even when it involves them in a flurry of purely functional relationships. Obviously sacramental confession is not to be confused with a support system or with psychotherapy."

The priest's ability "to be welcoming, to be a good listener and to engage in dialogue, together with his ready accessibility, is essential if the ministry of reconciliation is to be seen in all its value. ... The liturgical form of the Sacrament also needs to be given due attention. The Sacrament forms part of the structure of communion which is the mark of the Church."
"It is extremely important to help people recover this 'community' aspect of the Sacrament, also by means of community penance services which conclude with individual confession and absolution. This manner of celebration enables the faithful to appreciate better the two-fold dimension of reconciliation, and commits them more effectively to following the penitential path in all its revitalizing richness."

In concluding, the Holy Father refers to "the fundamental problem of catechetical teaching about the moral conscience and about sin, so that people can have a clearer idea of the radical demands of the Gospel. ... Evangelization in the third millennium must come to grips with the urgent need for a presentation of the Gospel message which is dynamic, complete and demanding."

After recalling that last year he wrote this annual Letter from the Cenacle "during my visit to the Holy Land," the Holy Father concludes: "How can I forget that touching moment? I re-live it today, not without sorrow for the tragic situation which persists in the land of Christ."

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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, APR 2, 2001 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Prof. Fabrizio Bisconti as "Magister" of the "Cultorum Martyrum" Pontifical Academy.

On Saturday, March 31, it was made public that he:

- Appointed Bishop Thomas George Doran of Rockford, U.S.A., as a member of the Congregation for Clergy.

- Accepted the resignation of Archbishop Franc Perko from the pastoral care of Belgrade, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in conformity with canon 401, para. 2, of the Code of Canon Law. He is succeeded by Coadjutor Archbishop Stanislaw Hocevar, S.D.B.

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