VATICAN CITY, MAY 11, 2007 (VIS) - The cathedral of "da Se" (an abbreviation of "episcopal see") in Sao Paulo was the stage for Benedict XVI's meeting today with bishops of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil. The monumental neo-Gothic building, dedicated to Our Lady of the Annunciation, is one of the largest in the world and can accommodate up to 8,000 people. It stands exactly upon the Tropic of Capricorn on the same site as the old cathedral of 1745. In the crypt is the tomb of Chief Tibirica, the first indigenous Brazilian to be catechized, by Fr. Jose de Anchieta in the 16th century.
The Holy Father arrived at the cathedral shortly before 4 p.m. local time and greeted the 430 bishops gathered there, expressing his joy at meeting such "a prestigious episcopate, which presides over one of the largest Catholic populations of the world."
"The mission entrusted to us as masters of the faith," he said in his homily, "consists in recalling that our Savior 'desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.' ... From here comes the commandment to evangelize, ... the obligation to preach the truth of faith, the importance of sacramental life, the promise of Christ's continual help for His Church."
"Wherever God and His will are unknown, wherever there is no faith in Jesus Christ and in His presence in the sacramental rites, there the essential element for solving urgent social and political problems is also missing. Faithfulness to the primacy of God and of His will, known and lived in communion with Jesus Christ, is the essential gift that we bishops and priests must offer to our people."
Benedict XVI then went on to consider some of the difficulties currently facing the Brazilian Church. "Social life," he said, "is going through periods of worrying disorientation. The sanctity of marriage and the family is attacked with impunity, primarily by making concessions to pressures that can have a negative influence on legislative processes. Certain crimes against life are being justified in the name of the right to individual freedom; the dignity of human beings is attacked; the scourge of divorce and of extra-marital unions is increasingly widespread.
"Moreover," he added, "when, in the bosom of the Church, doubts are raised concerning the value of priestly commitment as total dedication to God through apostolic celibacy and as complete willingness to serve souls, and preference is accorded to ideological and political questions, even party questions, then the structure of total consecration to God begins to lose its most profound meaning."
The Pope then turned to consider "the question of Catholics who abandon ecclesial life," identifying the principal cause of this phenomenon in "the lack of a form of evangelization in which Christ and His Church are at the core of all explanations. ... The people most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytism of sects ... are, in general, the baptized who have not been sufficiently evangelized, easily influenced because they have a fragile and, at times, confused faith, vacillating and ingenuous, even if they do conserve an inborn religiosity."
Quoting his own Encyclical "Deus caritas est," the Holy Father said: "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." It is therefore necessary, he continued, for the Church in Brazil "to undertake apostolic activity as a true mission, ... promoting methodical and capillary evangelization with a view to [encouraging] individual and community adherence to Christ."
"In this evangelizing effort, the ecclesial community must promote pastoral initiatives, sending lay and religious missionaries above all to the city outskirts and to the interior, seeking to establish dialogue with everyone in a spirit of understanding and thoughtful charity. ... If people are living in situations of poverty, it is necessary to help them as the first Christian communities did, practicing solidarity so that they truly feel they are loved. The poor ... need to feel the proximity of the Church, in terms of assistance for their most pressing needs, defense of their rights and the joint promotion of a society founded on justice and peace."
The Pope then remarked upon the importance of sacramental life, referring specifically to the Sacrament of Penance and calling on the bishops to ensure "that the confession and absolution of sins remains, normally, individual, just as sin itself is a profoundly personal act." Bishops, he went on, "are primarily responsible for diocesan catechesis," and hence must "surround themselves with competent and trustworthy collaborators. ... Faith is a journey led by the Holy Spirit that can be summed up in two words: conversion and discipleship." Apart from indicating that "faith in Christ entails a way of living founded on the twofold commandment to love God and neighbor," these two words also "express the social dimension of life."
"Precisely because faith, life, and the celebration of the sacred liturgy ... are inseparable, there is need for a more correct implementation of the liturgical principles as indicated by Vatican Council II ... so as to restore to the liturgy its sacred character. ... 'Liturgy is never anyone's private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated'."
The Pope then reminded the bishops of their task to be "faithful servants of the Word, eschewing any reductive or mistaken vision of the mission entrusted to us. It is not enough to look at reality solely from the viewpoint of personal faith; we must work with the Gospel in our hands and anchor ourselves in the authentic heritage of the Apostolic Tradition, free from any interpretations motivated by rationalistic ideologies. ... The duty to preserve the deposit of faith and safeguard its unity calls for strict vigilance so that the faith may be 'preserved and handed down with fidelity and so that particular insights are clearly integrated into the one Gospel of Christ'."
"Ecumenism - or the search for unity among Christians - has become in our time an increasingly urgent task for the Catholic Church. ... The greatest area of common ground for collaboration should be the defense of fundamental moral values -transmitted by the biblical tradition - against the relativistic and consumerist cultural forces that seek to destroy them. Another such area is faith in God the Creator and in Jesus Christ His incarnate Son."
In closing, Benedict XVI mentioned "the vast cross-section of Brazilians living in need and the great inequalities in income, even at the highest levels of society. ... A vision of the economy and social problems from the perspective of the Church's social teaching should always bring us to consider things from the viewpoint of human dignity, which transcends the simple interplay of economic factors."
"There is a need to form a genuine spirit of truthfulness and honesty among the political and commercial classes. Those who take on leadership roles in society must try to foresee the social consequences .... of their own decisions, always acting according to the criteria that will maximize the common good, rather than merely seeking personal profit."
PV-BRAZIL/BISHOPS/SAO PAULO VIS 20070512 (1210)
