TO RECENTLY ORDAINED BISHOPS: BE TEACHERS OF THE FAITH

VATICAN CITY, SEP 19, 2005 (VIS) - This morning, Benedict XVI received a group of bishops who have been ordained over the course of the last 12 months. In keeping with an annual tradition, they have been spending some days of prayer, reflection and study prior to facing the responsibilities and problems of their ministry.

  In his address to them, the Holy Father recalled how "this meeting is part of initiatives for the permanent formation of bishops. ... If many reasons call for a commitment to aggiornamento on the part of bishops, then it is all the more appropriate that they should have, at the very start of their mission, the opportunity to pass an adequate period of reflection upon the challenges and problems awaiting them."

  "Taking your first steps in your episcopal role, you have already become aware of the necessity for a humble trust in God and for the apostolic courage that is born of faith and of a bishop's sense of responsibility," said the Holy Father. "Among your duties, I would like to underline that of being teachers of the faith. The announcement of the Gospel lies at the origin of the Church and of her development in the world, as well as being at the roots of the expansion of faith among the faithful. ... As successors to the Apostles, you are 'doctores fidei,' true doctors who, with the same authority as Christ, announce to the people a faith in which to believe and which to live."

  The Pope went on: "Responding to God requires an interior journey that brings the believer to the meeting with the Lord. ... This calls for interior life, silence, and vigilance, attitudes that I invite you not only to experience in person, but also to propose to your faithful, organizing appropriate initiatives ... to help them discover the primacy of spiritual life."

  After recalling that during the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, he had presented the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a summary of the complete Catechism, he said: "Today, symbolically, I give each of you these two fundamental documents of the Church's faith, that they may be a point of reference in your teaching and a sign of our communion of faith."

  Benedict XVI went on to invite the prelates to remain close to the priests and catechists of their dioceses. Then, referring to the Year of the Eucharist that is now coming to an end, he exhorted them to ensure that it "leaves in the hearts of the faithful the desire to root their lives ever more in the Eucharist."

  "All bishops should take particular care over the participation of the faithful in Sunday Mass, in which the Word of life rings out, and where Christ Himself is present in the species of bread and wine. Moreover, Mass enables the faithful to nourish the community significance which is also part of the faith."

  "Dear brethren," the Holy Father concluded, "have great trust in grace, and know how to infuse this trust in your collaborators, that the precious pearl of faith may shine forth always, treasured, defended and transmitted in all its purity."
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