MAKING GOD KNOWN IN OUR WORLD

VATICAN CITY, 10 NOV 2009 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message from the Holy Father addressed to participants in the sixtieth general assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), which is being held this week in the Italian town of Assisi.

  Reiterating the theme of the "urgent task of education", about which he had spoken to the Italian prelates last May, the Pope explains that this "concerns all sectors of the Church and means that the great questions of the modern age must be faced with decision: the question concerning the nature of man and his dignity (a decisive element in the complete formation of the person), and the 'question of God' which seems ever more pressing in our own times".

  Benedict XVI also repeats words he pronounced this summer in the cathedral of Aosta, Italy: "If our fundamental relationship with God is not living, if it is not lived, then none of our other relationships can take their correct form. ... If we do without God, if God is absent, we lack the compass ... to show us the path, the direction we must follow. God! We must bring the truth of God back into the world, make Him known, make Him present".

  The Holy Father goes on: "In order for this to happen we, first and foremost and with all our being, must become living adoration, a gift that changes the world and restores it to God. This is the profound message of the Year for Priests".

  Turning then to consider the question of southern Italy, one of the themes due to be examined during the course of the assembly, the Pope notes how the prelates "felt the need to give voice and support to the needs of the country, which cannot hope to develop unless it is united. The Church's presence in the south is a seed for personal and social renewal, and for integral development", he says.

  The Pope also dwells on another of the items on the agenda of the general assembly, that of the new Italian edition of the funeral rites. In this context, he concludes his Message by noting how "the funeral is an important moment in which to announce the Gospel of hope and to reveal the maternity of the Church. ... In a culture that tends to remove the idea of death - when, indeed, it does not seek to exorcise it by reducing it to a spectacle or transforming it into a right - it is the task of believers to shine the light of Christian revelation on that mystery".
MESS/.../CEI PLENARY ASSEMBLY                        VIS 20091110 (440)

PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: SEMINAR ON ASTROBIOLOGY

VATICAN CITY, 10 NOV 2009 (VIS) - The conclusions of a study week on astrobiology, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Vatican Observatory, were presented this morning in the Holy See Press Office.

  Participating in the press conference were Fr. Jose Funes S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory; Jonathan Lunine, professor at the department of physics in Rome's Tor Vergata University; Chris Impey, professor at the department of astronomy in the University of Arizona and the Steward Observatory, Tucson, U.S.A., and Athena Coustenis, professor at the "Observatoire de Paris-Meudon", LESIA/CNRS, France.

  "Why is the Vatican involved in astrobiology?" asked Fr. Funes in his remarks, going on to explain that "although astrobiology is an emerging field and still a developing subject, the questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very interesting and deserve serious consideration. These questions offer many philosophical and theological implications".

  "Astrobiology is the study of life's relationship to the rest of the cosmos: its major themes include the origin of life and its precursor materials, the evolution of life on earth, and its future prospects on and off the earth. ... The study week provided a special opportunity for scientists from different basic disciplines to spend an intensive week understanding how the work in their particular specialty might have an impact on, or be impacted by, that in other areas. Nowhere is this more evident than in the work being done on how life formed on the earth and evolved with the changing environment", explained Professor Lunine.

  For his part, Professor Impey observed that "if biology is not unique to the earth, or if life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or if we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound. It is appropriate that a meeting on this frontier topic be hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The motivations and methodologies might differ, but both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe. There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe".

  The press conference on the study work - held in the Vatican's Casina Pio IV from 6 to 10 November - concluded with the remarks of Athena Coustenis on the subject of the exploration of outer planets and their systems.
OP/ASTROBIOLOGY/FUNES                    VIS 20091110 (430)

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 10 NOV 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed:

 - Msgr. Celso Morga Iruzubieta, bureau chief at the Congregation for the Clergy, as under secretary of the same congregation.

 - Fr. Felice Ruffini M.I. as consultor of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

 - Archbishop-bishop Felix Anthony Machado of Nashik, India, as bishop of Vasai (area 7,596, population 3,523,000, Catholics 122,000, priests 139, religious 499), India.
NA/.../MORGA:RUFFINI:MACHADO                VIS 20091110 (80)

POOR AND FREE CHURCH IN DIALOGUE WITH THE MODERN WORLD

VATICAN CITY, 8 NOV 2009 (VIS) - At 9.30 a.m. today Benedict XVI arrived at the "Tenente Alfredo Fusco" military airport near the Italian city of Brescia. There he was welcomed by Bishop Luciano Monari of Brescia, by Gianni Letta, under secretary of the council of ministers who represented the Italian government, and by various other political, ecclesiastical and civil authorities.

  Following the welcome ceremony the Pope travelled to the parish church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Botticino Sera where he venerated the mortal remains of St. Arcangelo Tadini (1846-1912), pastor of that parish, who was canonised on 26 April this year.

  Having then arrived in Brescia, the Pope travelled by popemobile through the city's Piazza della Loggia where a plaque commemorates the eight victims of a bomb attack which took place there on 28 May 1974. At 10.15 a.m. the Holy Father visited the city's cathedral where he paused briefly before a monument dedicated to Paul VI, venerated the relics of St. Andrew and St. Benito, and prayed before the Blessed Sacrament.

  At 10.30 a.m., in the nearby square named after Paul VI, which was crowded with faithful, he presided at Mass and pronounced a homily.

  At the beginning of his homily the Pope expressed his joy at being able to celebrate the Eucharist "at the heart of the diocese of Brescia, which saw the birth and early education of Servant of God Giovanni Battista Montini (Pope Paul VI), ... who consecrated his entire life to the Church.

  "The Church", Pope Benedict added, "is a tangible spiritual organism which prolongs the oblation of the Son of God over time and space; an apparently insignificant sacrifice compared to the dimensions of the world and history, but decisive in the eyes of God. ... The Church, which is born ever and anew from the Eucharist, from the self-giving of Jesus, is the continuation of this gift, of this superabundance which finds expression in poverty, of this whole which offers itself in a fragment. It is the Body of Christ that incessantly gives of itself, a Body broken and shared, constantly adhering to the will of its Head".

  Quoting then from Paul VI's "A Thought about Death", Benedict XVI highlighted his predecessor's "vision of a 'poor and free' Church. ... This", he affirmed, "is how the ecclesial community must be in order to communicate with modern mankind. The Church's meeting and dialogue with mankind of our times was something particularly close to Giovanni Battista Montini's heart throughout his life".

  Paul VI "dedicated all his energies to serving a Church that was, as far as possible, conformed to her Lord Jesus Christ so that, encountering the Church, modern men and women may encounter Him, Christ, because it is of Him that they have most need", said Benedict XVI, who went on to ask: "How can we not see that the question of the Church - her importance in the plan of salvation and her relationship with the world - remains absolutely vital even today? And, indeed, that the growth of secularisation and globalisation have rendered this even more urgent in the face of the neglect of God, on the one hand, and of relations with non-Christian religions, on the other?"

  The Holy Father also referred to the Year for Priests, reminding the clergy present of the Encyclical "Sacerdotalis caelibatus" in which Paul VI wrote: "The consecrated celibacy of sacred ministers actually manifests the virginal love of Christ for the Church, and the virginal and supernatural fecundity of this marriage".

  "May the splendour of divine beauty shine out in each of our communities, and may the Church be a luminous sign of hope for humanity in the third millennium", the Pope concluded.

  After Mass and before praying the Angelus, the Pope recalled how Paul VI "placed his own priesthood under the maternal protection of the Mother of Jesus, and this bond accompanied him all his life".

  For this reason, during Vatican Council II, he proclaimed Mary Most Holy "as Mother of the Church, highlighting, with great ecumenical sensibility, that 'devotion to Mary ... is a means essentially ordained for guiding souls to Christ and so uniting them to the Father, in the love of the Holy Spirit'".
PV-ITALY/MASS ANGELUS/BRESCIA                    VIS 20091109 (720)

HOLY FATHER VISITS BIRTHPLACE OF PAUL VI

VATICAN CITY, 8 NOV 2009 (VIS) - Early this afternoon the Pope travelled to Concesio, near the Italian city of Brescia, where he visited the house in which Paul VI was born on 26 September 1897 and greeted some relatives of the late Pontiff.

  Subsequently, in the "Vittorio Montini" Auditorium, he inaugurated the new headquarters of the Paul VI Institute, and assigned the International Paul VI Prize, which was awarded to Bernard Meunier, director of a series of books published in Paris entitled "Sources Chretiennes".

  In his address the Holy Father explained that the prize was being awarded for "the commitment shown by this historic series - founded in 1942 by, among others, Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou - to a renewed discovery of ancient and mediaeval Christian sources".

  Going on then to speak about one particular aspect of Giovanni Battista Montini's personality, his commitment to education, Benedict XVI recalled how "the educator Montini, student and priest, bishop and Pope, was always aware of the need for a qualified Christian presence in the world of culture, art and civil society, a presence rooted in the truth of Christ and, at the same time, attentive to man and his vital needs".

  Pope Paul VI's concern for education "was shown buy his many initiatives dedicated to the new generations, in turbulent and difficult times such as the events of 1968. Courageously he indicated the way that leads to the meeting with Christ, as a liberating educational experience and the only true response to the desires and aspirations of the young, who had fallen victims to an ideology".

  "Paul VI defined himself as an 'elderly friend of the young'. He was able to recognise and share their torment as they were torn between the desire to live, the need for certainty, the longing for love, the sense of being lost, the temptation to scepticism and the experience of disillusionment. He learned to understand their hearts, and recalled that the agnostic indifference of modern thought, critical pessimism and the materialist ideology of social progress are not enough for the spirit, which is open to completely different horizons of truth and life".

  After then expressing the view that Paul VI was "a master of life and courageous witness of hope", the Holy Father explained that his predecessor "was not always understood; on the contrary, on more than a few occasions he was assailed and isolated by the then-dominant cultural movements. Nonetheless, firm even though physically frail, he led the Church without faltering. He never lost faith in the young, renewing in them, and not only in them, the invitation to trust in Christ and to follow Him along the path of the Gospel".

  Benedict XVI concluded by expressing the hope that "the love of this Pope for the young, his constant encouragement to trust in Jesus Christ - an invitation reiterated by John Paul II and which I too renewed at the very beginning of my Pontificate - may be perceived by the new generations".
PV-ITALY/PAUL VI PRIZE/CONCESIO                    VIS 20091109 (510)