Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) –
Yesterday the Pontifical Academies held their 21 st public session,
organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture, which coordinates
these institutions. The theme of the session this year was: “Ad
limina Petri: monumental traces of pilgrimage in the first centuries
of Christianity”. During the event Cardinal Secretary of State
Pietro Parolin, on behalf of the Holy Father, awarded the Pontifical
Academies Award to young experts, artists and institutions
distinguished in the course of the year in the promotion of Christian
humanism.
Pope Francis sent the participants a
message in which he recalls how in the Bull to convoke the Jubilee of
Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, he underlined the importance of
pilgrimage as a distinctive sign of the Holy Year as “it is the
icon of the path that every person must walk in his or her existence.
Life is a pilgrimage and the human being a viator, a pilgrim who
follows a road up to the intended goal. Even to reach the Holy Door
in Rome too, or in any other place, each person must carry out,
according to his or her strengths, a pilgrimage. It will be a sign of
the fact that mercy too is an objective to be reached and which
requires commitment and sacrifice. Pilgrimage, therefore, may be a
stimulus to conversion: by passing through the Holy Door we will let
ourselves be embraced by God's mercy and we will endeavour to be
merciful with others as the Father is with us”.
He goes on to refer to the theme of the
Session, noting that since the first centuries of the Christian age
the itineraries of pilgrims, both ecclesiastics and laypeople, have
been well documented by various sources, “including the graffiti
left in the places they visited, by the side of the tombs of martyrs.
From this evidence there emerges the genuine and generous faith of
those who journey with great courage and also with many sacrifices,
to encounter, and indeed to touch with their hands, the witnesses of
faith and their memories, so as to draw new enthusiasm and inner
strength to live their own faith increasingly deeply and coherently”.
He remarks that pilgrimage, as is shown
by those who have walked part of the ancient itineraries,
rediscovered and retraced in our times, “is also an experience of
mercy, sharing and solidarity with those who take the same road, as
well as welcome and generosity on the part of those who host and
assist pilgrims. Among the works of corporal mercy, that I have
wished to re-propose as one of the signs characterising the Holy
Year, welcome to strangers stands out. A glance at Christian
antiquity and the traces left by pilgrims reminds us of the
commitment to welcome and sharing, that in the experience of
pilgrimage becomes a conscious itinerary of conversion and joyful
daily practice”.
Finally, the Pope announces the names
of this year's winners of the prize that “awards a valuable
contribution to archaeological study and relates to the worship of
martyrs”. The winners are, ex aequo, the Portuguese association
“Campo Arqueologico di Mertola”, whose referent is Professor
Virgilio Lopes, for the archaeological campaigns carried out in
recent years and for the extraordinary results obtained; and to
Matteo Braconi for his excellent doctoral thesis on “The mosaic of
the apse of the Basilica of St. Pudenziana in Rome. History,
restoration, interpretations”, defended at the Rome Tre University.
As a sign of encouragement for research
in the fields of history and religion, the Pope awarded the
Pontifical Medal to the Spanish Almudena Alba Lopez for her
publication “Political theology and anti-Arian polemics”
(University of Salamanca).
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