OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, JUN 8, 2005 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Msgr. Romuald Kaminski of the clergy of Warszawa-Praga, Poland, diocesan chancellor, as auxiliary of Elk (area 11,000, population 440,000, Catholics 425,000, priests 300, religious 202), Poland. The bishop-elect was born in Janowka, Poland, in 1955 and ordained to the priesthood in 1981.
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AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, JUN 8, 2005 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in separate audiences:

 - Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, apostolic nuncio to Indonesia and East Timor.

 - Archbishop Francois Bacque, apostolic nuncio to the Netherlands.

 - Archbishop Jean-Paul Gobel, apostolic nuncio to Nicaragua.

 - Archbishop Luigi Gatti, apostolic nuncio to Lebanon.

 - Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello, apostolic nuncio to Japan.
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POPE TO MEET HIGH LEVEL JEWISH GROUP TOMORROW IN VATICAN

VATICAN CITY, JUN 8, 2005 (VIS) - Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI will receive in private audience a group of 25 distinguished Jews who represent the world's major Jewish organizations, according to a communique from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, within which is the Holy See Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.

  Commission president and secretary, respectively Cardinal Walter Kasper and Fr. Norbert Hofmann, will accompany the Jewish guests to the papal audience. The delegation will be led by Rabbi Israel Singer, president of the International Jewish Committee on Inter-religious Consultations (IJCIC) of New York.

  The communique states that "the IJCIC is an international organization comprised of all Jewish agencies in the world involved in inter-religious dialogue. The Holy See Commission for Religious Relations with Jews has been meeting for the past 35 years with the IJCIC which, as a partner in dialogue, has shown itself to be very useful in a not-always easy context. ... There have been 18 periodic meetings of the Catholic-Jewish International Liaison Committee. The last such meeting was in Buenos Aires, Argentina in July 2004."

  Next October 27, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the Vatican Council II Declaration "Nostra Aetate,"  a high-level Jewish delegation will be present for this commemorative event.
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GENERAL AUDIENCE: THANKSGIVING TO THE LORD FOR HIS WORKS

VATICAN CITY, JUN 8, 2005 (VIS) - Psalm 110, "Great are the Works of the Lord," was the theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis during the general audience, which was held this morning in St. Peter's Square in the presence of 35,000 people.

  The Pope explained how "this hymn of praise and thanksgiving contains many terms defining God's attributes and His work of salvation. Words are used such as: 'gracious,' 'merciful,' 'power,' 'faithful,' 'uprightness,' 'trustworthy,' 'covenant,' 'wonderful works,' and even 'food'."

  The psalm opens with thanks to the Lord for His works "not only from the heart of the psalmist, but also from the entire liturgical assembly. The aim of this prayer ... is expressed in the word 'works,' meaning the Lord's salvific acts and expression of His 'justice,' a term that in biblical language refers primarily to the love that generates salvation."

  The Holy Father went on: "'Graciousness' is the divine grace that envelops and transfigures the faithful, while 'mercifulness' is expressed in the Hebrew original with a characteristic term evoking the Lord's maternal 'womb,' even more merciful than that of a mother."

  Benedict XVI said that "this bond of love includes the fundamental gift of food, and hence of life, which in the Christian interpretation will be identified with the Eucharist."

  The psalm closes "with the contemplation of the divine countenance, of the person of the Lord, expressed by His holy and transcendent 'name.' ... The psalmist invites all the faithful to cultivate 'fear of the Lord,' the beginning of true wisdom. This term does not conceal fear or terror, but sincere and serious respect, genuine and active adherence to the liberating God."

  "If the first word of the psalm was one of thanksgiving, the last is one of praise: the Lord's salvific justice is without end. Thus the psalmist's gratitude knows no pause, it resounds in his prayer that 'endures forever'."

  After reading a summary of his catechesis in other languages, the Holy Father greeted various groups of pilgrims, including Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, major archbishop of Lviv of the Ukrainians, and the Greek-Catholic bishops accompanying him.
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