Vatican
City, 5 September 2013 (VIS) – On 13 September, vigil of the Feast
of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Pope Francis will receive in
audience three thousand Dames and Knights of the Equestrian Order of
the Holy Sepulchre, on a pilgrimage to Rome on the occasion of the
Year of Faith. They will be accompanied by the American Cardinal
Edwin O'Brien, Grand Master of the Order, and the pilgrimage will be
preceded by an important event, the Consulta, which is convoked every
five years.
The
Order, of medieval origin and reconstituted by Blessed Pope Pius IX
in 1847, seeks to promote the spiritual growth of its members and to
support the Catholic Church in the Holy land, in its broadest sense
(Cyprus, Israel, the Palestinian Territory and Jordan). It has 30,000
members in 35 nations, organised in the form of Lieutenancies and
Delegations. Their commitment to the Church is accompanied by the
important financial support they provide, essentially destined for
the institutions and works of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
For example, their donations during the last decade totalled almost
100 million dollars, and were used for the construction and
restoration of churches, schools and hospitals, or the support of
artisanal and family businesses.
In
a press conference held in the Holy See Press Office this morning,
the programme of events accompanying the pilgrimage was presented by
Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the
Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization and Professors
Agostino Borromeo, governor general of the Order of the Holy
Sepulchre, and Ivan Rebernik, chancellor of the Order.
Cardinal
O'Brien, after offering a profile of the Order, recalled that the
members are “volunteers who, as such, receive no remuneration for
their work but rather, on the contrary, are obliged to give an annual
contribution to finance their charitable activities”, and
emphasised that during recent years the Order has promoted various
initiatives such as granting microcredit to small family businesses
and offering study bursaries, aimed at fostering better conditions of
life for Christians to encourage them not to leave their land of
origin”.
Archbishop
Fisichella remarked that the pilgrimage to Rome constitutes an
effective witness to faith inasmuch as it is the visible sign of
direct commitment to practical peace-building, especially in those
lands and among the many poor and innocent who, especially at the
present moment, are living in a situation of extraordinary tension
and fear due to the violence that looms over them and over the entire
world. … Faith does not distance itself from the responsibilities
that we are all called upon to assume in relation to the world at
large in our times, but on the contrary provokes and induces concrete
commitment to constructing a better society”.
Professor
Borromeo referred to the 2013 Consulta, which opens on 10 September
and lasts three days and will be attended by members of the Grand
Magisterium, the Lieutenancies and the Delegations of the 35
countries, representatives of the Secretary of States and the
Congregation for the Eastern Churches, will focus on the theme of the
revision of the Statute. “The current text, in its overall form and
in certain specific norms, no longer corresponds to the ecclesiology
that has developed following Vatican Council II and to the
sensibility of our times. The new draft text aims … to develop more
organically the spiritual commitment of the members, to more deeply
root the action of the 'peripheral structures' (the Lieutenancies and
Delegations) in the life of the local Churches, and to extend the
charitable activities of the Order to a broader area of the Middle
East than that in which it currently operates”.
“The
development of the work will lead to a new draft Statute which the
Cardinal Grand Master will submit to the Supreme Pontiff for
approval”, he concluded.
Finally,
Professor Rebernik confirmed that as well as the liturgical
celebrations in various churches in the centre of Rome and in the
Papal Basilicas scheduled during those days, a conference will be
held by the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New
Evangelization in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall, and a concert will take
place in the papal Basilica of St. John Lateran. The concluding Holy
Mass will be celebrated in the papal Basilica of St. Paul
Outside-the-Walls.
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