OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 10 MAR 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop Pascal Delannoy, auxiliary of Lille, France, as bishop of Saint-Denis (area 235, population 1,459,000, Catholics 635,000, priests 130, permanent deacons 26, religious 261), France.
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AGREEMENT ON PATRIMONIAL RELATIONS HOLY SEE - AUSTRIA

VATICAN CITY, 10 MAR 2009 (VIS) - On 5 March, at the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs in Vienna, Archbishop Edmond Farhat, apostolic nuncio to Austria, and Michael Spindelegger, Austrian federal minister for European and International Affairs, signed the sixth additional agreement of the Convention Regulating Patrimonial Relations between the Holy See and the Republic of Austria, of 23 June 1960.

  On the ecclesiastical side, the ceremony was attended by Msgr. Christoph Kuhn, nunciature counsellor in Austria and by Walter Hagel, legal advisor to the Austrian Bishop's Conference.

  The State was represented by Ambassador Melitta Schubert, head of protocol for the ministry; Ambassador Nikolaus Marschik, the minister's chief of cabinet; Ambassador Helmut Tichy, vice director of the office for questions of international law; Minister-Counsellor Georg Stillfried, head of department; Minister-Counsellor Karin Proidl, counsellor on the minister's cabinet, and Harald Stranzl, vice head of the minister's press and information office.
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CARE FOR HIV/AIDS SUFFERERS, SHARED BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

VATICAN CITY, 10 MAR 2009 (VIS) - Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York, yesterday addressed the fifty-third session of the Economic and Social Council's Commission on the Status of Women, which was meeting to consider the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS.

  Care for HIV/AIDS sufferers must "be shared between all women and men, in households as well as in the public sector", he said. "In particular, it is more and more untenable that there continue to be attitudes and places - even in healthcare - where women are discriminated against and their contribution to society is undervalued simply because they are women. Recourse to social and cultural pressure in order to maintain the inequality of the sexes is unacceptable".

  Continuing his English-language remarks, the nuncio indicated how "HIV/AIDS calls into question the values by which we live our lives and how we treat, or fail to treat, one another".

  "Home-based care is the preferred means of care in many social and cultural settings, and is often more sustainable and successful over the long term when based within communities. In fact, when many members of a community are involved in care and support, there is less likely to be stigma associated with the disease", he said.

  "Unfortunately, community- and home-based care is largely unrecognised, and many caregivers face precarious financial situations. Very little of the funds spent every year on providing assistance to those who are suffering as well as on much needed research to combat the disease go to supporting them.

  "Studies have shown that community- and home-based caregivers actually experience more stress than medical personnel", he added, "so better support must be provided for these persons, particularly women and older persons".

  "Governments should properly recognise that the budget and organisation of public institutions are somewhat relieved by family-based caregiving and should thus adopt migration laws aimed at creating social integration and full protection of immigrant caregivers, and fostering social integration".

  "Care in itself", he concluded, "must become a topic of public debate and take on an importance capable of shaping political life and giving men and women the ability to be more concerned for the needs of others, more empathetic and able to focus on others".
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WOMEN ENTIRELY DEDICATED TO GOD AND TO OTHERS

VATICAN CITY, 9 MAR 2009 (VIS) - Having left Rome Town Hall, the Pope travelled by car to the nearby convent of the Oblate Sisters of Santa Francesca Romana. There, having paused in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and venerated the saint's body, he pronounced a brief address.

  "I am", he said, "particularly grateful to the Lord to be able to pay homage to this 'most Roman of saints'", who was canonised on 29 May 1608 and whose feast day falls today.

  "Contemplation and action, prayer and the service of charity, the monastic ideal and social commitment: all these things have found here a 'workshop' that has brought abundant fruit, in close union with the Olivetan Brothers of Santa Maria Nova".

  After highlighting how the convent is "located at the heart of the city", Benedict XVI told his audience: "Your community, along with all other communities of contemplative life, is called to be a kind of spiritual 'lung' of society, so that all the activities and all the activism of a city may not lack spiritual 'breath': the reference to God and His plan of salvation".

  "Also in our own time, Rome has need of women" like Santa Francesca Romana, he said. Women "entirely dedicated to God and entirely dedicated to others; women capable of prayer and of generous and discreet service; women who know how to obey pastors but also to support and stimulate them with suggestions that arise from their intimacy with Christ and from direct experience in the field of charity, assistance to the sick, the marginalised and young people in difficulties. This is the gift of maternity which is an inseparable part of religious oblation, following the model of Mary Most Holy".

  Having concluded his address, the Pope greeted the fifteen nuns of the community before leaving the convent and returning to the Vatican.
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SOLIDARITY AND COMMITMENT TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES

VATICAN CITY, 9 MAR 2009 (VIS) - Having met with civic leaders of the city of Rome, the Pope appeared at the loggia of Palazzo Senatorio to greet people gathered in the square below, including members of Roman volunteer organisations, immigrants and guests of local authority help-centres.

  "Having lived in Rome for so many years", said the Holy Father, "I feel I have become a little Roman myself; yet it is as your bishop that I feel most Roman".

  Referring then to the city's beauty, Benedict XVI expressed the view that "Rome is beautiful for its ancient remains, for its cultural institutions, for the monuments that tell its history, for the churches and their many artistic masterpieces. But Rome is beautiful above all for the generosity and sanctity of so many of its sons and daughters, who have left eloquent signs of their passion for the beauty of God, the beauty of love that never fades or grows old".

  The Pope went on: "The Apostles Peter and Paul, and the ranks of martyrs of early Christendom, were witnesses to this beauty, as were the many men and women - Roman by birth or adoption - who over the centuries gave their lives in the service of young people, of the sick, the poor and all those in need". In this context he mentioned, among others, Deacon Lawrence, Santa Francesca Romana whose feast day falls today, and St. Philip Neri. "Their example", he said, "shows that when people encounter Christ, they do not close in on themselves but open up to the needs of others and, in all areas of society, place the common good before their own interests.

  "We also have need of such men and women in our own time", he added, "because no small number of families, no small number of young people and adults, are living in precarious, even dramatic, situations; situations that can only be overcome by working together, as is clear of from the history of Rome, which has seen much more difficult moments than these. ... Apart from the necessary solidarity, and from due commitment on everyone's part, we can always rely upon the certain help of God, Who never abandons His children".

  Having completed his address, the Holy Father bid farewell to the mayor then travelled by car to the nearby Via di Teatro Marcello, location of the convent of the Oblate Sisters of Santa Francesca Romana.
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