INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CONGRESS ON 11 AND 12 MARCH

VATICAN CITY, 9 FEB 2010 (VIS) - An international theological congress is due to be held on 11 and 12 March on the theme "Faithfulness of Christ, faithfulness of Priests". The initiative, which will take place at the Pontifical Lateran University, has been organised to mark the current Year for Priests.

  According to a communique from the Congregation for the Clergy, which is promoting the event, "invitees to the congress principally include bishops who preside commissions for the clergy, supreme moderators of clerical institutes and associations, formators of the clergy, and priests themselves who are primarily responsible for their own permanent formation".

  The congress be divided into three sessions, two focusing on priestly identity and its relationship with modern culture, and one on liturgy and celibacy. Apart from Cardinal Claudio Hummes O.F.M. and Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, respectively prefect and secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, also participating in the event will be Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Franc Rode C.M., prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

  Contributions to the congress will also be forthcoming from Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, Italy; Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; Archbishop Leo Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; Archbishop Willem Eijk of Utrecht and primate of Holland; Bishop Filippo Santoro of Petropolis, Brazil; Bishop Gerhard Muller of Regensburg, Germany, and Bishop Francesco Moraglia of La Spezia-Sarzana-Brugnato, Italy.

  Benedict XVI is scheduled to receive the congress participants in audience on Friday 12 March.
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COMMUNIQUE FROM THE SECRETARIAT OF STATE

VATICAN CITY, 9 FEB 2010 (VIS) - Given below is the complete text of a communique released today by the Secretariat of State:

  "Since 23 January an increasing number of news items and reconstructions have been appearing, especially in many Italian news media, concerning the events surrounding the resignation of the editor of the Italian Catholic daily 'Avvenire', with the evident intention of demonstrating the involvement of the editor of the 'Osservatore Romano' in the affair, even going so far as to insinuate the responsibility of the Cardinal Secretary of State. These news items and reconstructions have no basis whatsoever in fact.

  "Specifically, it is false that officers of the Vatican Gendarmerie or the editor of the 'Osservatore Romano' passed on the documents which lay behind the resignation of the editor of 'Avvenire' on 3 September last year; it is false that the editor of the 'Osservatore Romano' gave - or in any way transmitted or endorsed - information about these documents; and it is false that he wrote under a pseudonym, or inspired, articles in other publications.

  "It seems clear from the proliferation of the most incredible assertions and hypotheses - repeated by the media with truly remarkable consonance - that everything rests on unfounded convictions, with the intention of gratuitously and calumniously attributing to the editor of 'Osservatore Romano' an unmotivated, unreasonable and malicious action. This is giving rise to a defamatory campaign against the Holy See, which even involves the Roman Pontiff.

  "The Holy Father Benedict XVI, who has been kept constantly informed, deplores these unjust and injurious attacks, renews his complete faith in his collaborators, and prays that those who truly have the good of the Church to heart may work with all means to ensure that truth and justice triumph".
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