VATICAN CITY, MAY 13, 2007 (VIS) - This afternoon in the conference hall of the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, the Holy Father presided at the inaugural session of the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean. The conference is due to last until May 31 and has as its theme: "Disciples and missionaries in Jesus Christ, that in Him our peoples may have life ('I am the Way and the Truth and the Life')"
The event - which took place during the celebration of Vespers on this sixth Sunday of Easter - began with greetings from Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, archbishop of Santiago de Chile and president of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM).
The Holy Father began his talk by giving thanks to God for "the great gift of the Christian faith to the peoples of this continent."
"Faith in God," he said, "has animated the life and culture of these nations for more than five centuries. ... Yet what did the acceptance of the Christian faith mean for the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean? For them, it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions. Christ is the Savior for Whom they were silently longing."
"In effect, the proclamation of Jesus and of His Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture. Authentic cultures are not closed in upon themselves, nor are they set in stone at a particular point in history, ... they are seeking an encounter with other cultures, hoping to reach universality through encounter and dialogue with other ways of life and with elements that can lead to a new synthesis, in which the diversity of expressions is always respected as well as the diversity of their particular cultural embodiment."
"The wisdom of the indigenous peoples fortunately led them to form a synthesis between their cultures and the Christian faith which the missionaries were offering them. Hence the rich and profound popular religiosity, in which we see the soul of the Latin American peoples."
Benedict XVI then considered the question of globalization saying that, although "from certain points of view this benefits the great family of humanity, ... it also undoubtedly brings with it the risk of vast monopolies and of treating profit as the supreme value."
"In Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in other regions, there has been notable progress towards democracy, although there are grounds for concern in the face of authoritarian forms of government and regimes wedded to certain ideologies that we thought had been superseded, and which do not correspond to the Christian vision of man and society as taught by the Social Doctrine of the Church. On the other side of the coin, the liberal economy of some Latin American countries must take account of equity, because of the ever increasing sectors of society that find themselves oppressed by immense poverty or even despoiled of their own natural resources."
The Pope noted the "notable degree of maturity in faith" among many lay people and catechists. "Yet it is true," he added, "that one can detect a certain weakening of Christian life in society overall and of participation in the life of the Catholic Church, due to secularism, hedonism, indifference and proselytism by numerous sects, animist religions and new pseudo-religious phenomena. ... The faithful are looking to this fifth conference for ... new paths and creative pastoral plans, ... capable of instilling a firm hope for living out the faith joyfully and responsibly, and thus spreading it in one's own surroundings."
"In the face of the priority of faith in Christ and of life 'in Him' - as formulated in the title of this fifth conference - a further question could arise: could this priority not perhaps be a flight towards emotionalism, towards religious individualism, an abandonment of the urgent reality of the great economic, social and political problems of Latin America and the world, and a flight from reality towards a spiritual world?"
"The first basic point to affirm," the Holy Father continued, "is the following: only those who recognize God know reality and are able to respond to it adequately and in a truly human manner. The truth of this thesis becomes evident in the face of the collapse of all the systems that marginalize God."
At the beginning of this new phase for the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean, starting with this fifth general conference in Aparecida, "an indispensable pre-condition is profound knowledge of the Word of God. To achieve this, we must train people to read and meditate on the Word of God through catechesis using the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its abridged version, the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
"In this area," the Pope added, "we must not limit ourselves solely to homilies, lectures, Bible courses or theology courses, but we must have recourse also to the communications media: press, radio and television, websites, forums and many other methods for effectively communicating the message of Christ to a large number of people."
There will also be need, he went on, for "social catechesis and a sufficient formation in the social teaching of the Church, for which a very useful tool is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Christian life is not expressed solely in personal virtues, but also in social and political virtues."
"The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have the right to a full life, proper to the children of God, under conditions that are more human: free from the threat of hunger and from every form of violence." In this context, Benedict XVI recalled Paul VI's Encyclical "Populorum Progressio," which was promulgated 40 years ago this year and which emphasizes that "authentic development must be integral, that is, directed to the promotion of the whole person and of all people, and it invites all to overcome grave social inequalities and the enormous differences in access to goods."
"In order to form disciples and sustain missionaries in their great task, the Church offers them in addition to the bread of the Word, the bread of the Eucharist. ... Hence the need to give priority in pastoral programs to appreciation of the importance of Sunday Mass" which "must be the center of Christian life."
"Christians should be aware that they are not following a character from past history, but the living Christ, present in the 'today' and the 'now' of their lives. ... The encounter with Christ in the Eucharist calls forth a commitment to evangelization and an impulse towards solidarity; it awakens in the Christian a strong desire to proclaim the Gospel and to bear witness to it in the world so as to build a more just and humane society. ... Only from the Eucharist will the civilization of love spring forth which will transform Latin America and the Caribbean, making them not only the continent of hope, but also the continent of love!"
"How," the Pope went on to ask, "can the Church contribute to the solution of urgent social and political problems, and respond to the great challenge of poverty and destitution? ... In this context, we inevitably speak of the problem of structures, especially those which create injustice.
"In truth," he added, "just structures are a condition without which a just order in society is not possible. But how do they arise? How do they function? Both capitalism and Marxism promised to point out the path for the creation of just structures, and they declared that these, once established, would function by themselves; ... that not only would they have no need of any prior individual morality, but that they would promote a communal morality.
"And this ideological promise has been proved false. The facts have clearly demonstrated it. The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit. And we can also see the same thing happening in the West, where the distance between rich and poor is growing constantly, and giving rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness.
"Just structures," the Holy Father explained, "neither arise nor function without a moral consensus in society on fundamental values, and on the need to live these values with the necessary sacrifices, even if this goes against personal interest. Where God is absent - God with the human face of Jesus Christ - these values fail to show themselves with their full force, nor does a consensus arise concerning them.
"I do not mean that non-believers cannot live a lofty and exemplary morality; I am only saying that a society in which God is absent will not find the necessary consensus on moral values or the strength to live according to the model of these values, even when they are in conflict with private interests.
"On the other hand, just structures must be sought and elaborated in the light of fundamental values, with the full engagement of political, economic and social reasoning. ... This political task is not the immediate competence of the Church," because "respect for a healthy secularity - including the pluralism of political opinions - is essential in the authentic Christian tradition.
"If the Church were to start transforming herself into a directly political subject, she would do less, not more, for the poor and for justice, because she would lose her independence and her moral authority, identifying herself with a single political path and with debatable partisan positions. ... Only by remaining independent can she teach the great criteria and inalienable values, guide consciences and offer a life choice that goes beyond the political sphere."
The Holy Father expressed the view that, Latin America "being a continent of baptized Christians, it is time to overcome the notable absence - in the political sphere, in the world of the media and in the universities - of the voices and initiatives of Catholic leaders," and "to remind the laity of their responsibility and their mission to bring the light of the Gospel into public life, into culture, economics and politics."
The Pope then considered other priority areas for the renewal of the Church in Latin America, beginning with the family which is a "patrimony of humanity and constitutes one of the most important treasures of Latin American countries." However, "it is currently suffering a degree of adversity caused by secularism and by ethical relativism, by movements of population internally and externally, by poverty, by social instability and by civil legislation opposed to marriage."
"In some families in Latin America there still unfortunately persists a chauvinist mentality that ignores the 'newness' of Christianity, in which the equal dignity and responsibility of women relative to men is acknowledged and affirmed."
"Consequently there has to be intense and vigorous pastoral care of families. Moreover, it is indispensable to promote authentic family policies corresponding to the rights of the family as an essential subject in society."
The Holy Father then encouraged priests "to accomplish their exalted calling," to which end they must possess "a solid spiritual formation" and a life "imbued with faith, hope and charity." At the same time they "must be attentive to their cultural and intellectual preparation."
"Latin American and Caribbean society needs your witness," he told religious men and women and consecrated persons. "In a world that so often gives priority to seeking well-being, wealth and pleasure as the goal of life, ... you are witnesses that there is another meaningful way to live."
"I remind the lay faithful," he said, "that they too are the Church, the assembly called together by Christ so as to bring His witness to the whole world," and that "they must consider themselves jointly responsible for building society according to the criteria of the Gospel, with enthusiasm and boldness, in communion with their pastors."
Pope Benedict noted the fact that "in Latin America the majority of the population is made up of young people. ... Young people are not afraid of sacrifice, but of a meaningless life. ... They must also commit themselves to a constant renewal of the world in the light of God. More still, they must oppose the facile illusions of instant happiness and the deceptive paradise offered by drugs, pleasure, and alcohol; and they must oppose every form of violence."
"The deliberations of this fifth general conference lead us to make the plea of the disciples on the road to Emmaus our own: 'Stay with us, for it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent'," said the Pope as he reached the conclusion of his address.
"Stay with us, because ... discouragement is eating its way into our hearts: make them burn with the certainty of Easter. ... Stay with us, Lord, when mists of doubt, weariness or difficulty rise up around our Catholic faith."
"You are Life itself: remain in our homes, so that they may continue to be nests where human life is generously born, where life is welcomed, loved and respected from conception to natural death.
"Remain, Lord, with those in our societies who are most vulnerable; remain with the poor and the lowly, with indigenous peoples and Afro-Americans, who have not always found space and support to express the richness of their culture and the wisdom of their identity. Remain, Lord, with our children and with our young people, who are the hope and the treasure of our continent. ... O Good Shepherd, remain with our elderly and with our sick. Strengthen them all in faith, so that they may be Your disciples and missionaries!"
PV-BRAZIL/CELAM CONFERENCE/APARECIDA VIS 20070514 (2330)
