THE CHURCH IS CALLED TO ESTABLISH THE KINGDOM OF LIFE

VATICAN CITY, 15 JUN 2008 (VIS) - At 9.15 a.m. today, in the residence of the archbishop of Brindisi-Ostuni, the Pope met with local Benedictine and Carmelite cloistered nuns. At 10 a.m. he travelled by car to the Sant'Apollinare quay of the port of Brindisi where he celebrated a Mass which was attended by some 70,000 people.

  "The biblical texts we have just heard", said the Holy Father in his homily, "help us to understand the truth of the Church. ... The first reading ... narrates God's covenant with Moses and Israel in Sinai". It expresses "God's perennial plan ... to save all mankind through the sanctification of a people". The Gospel reading, the Pope went on, explains the call and mission of the twelve Apostles, who after the Pentecost proclaimed the Good News by "speaking in tongues". At that moment, "the Universal Church was made manifest, reunited in a single Body of which the Risen Christ is Head and, at the same time, sent out by Him to all nations, even unto the ends of the earth".

  "The twelve Apostles co-operated with Jesus in establishing he Kingdom of God, in other words His beneficent lordship which brings life and life in abundance for all humanity. In essence, the Church, like Christ and with Him, is called to establish the kingdom of life and to drive out the dominion of death ... so that God Who is love may triumph.

  "This", the Pope added, "is God's plan: to bestow His life-generating love upon humanity and the entire universe. A plan, nonetheless, that the Lord wishes to implement only while respecting our own freedom, because love by its nature cannot be imposed. The Church is then, in Christ, the place for welcoming and mediating God's love. In this perspective it is clear how the sanctity and the missionary nature of the Church are two sides of the same coin. Only in as much as she is saintly - that is, full of divine love - can the Church achieve her mission, and its precisely by virtue of this task that God has chosen her and sanctified her as His property".

  Reflecting further upon the link between sanctity and mission, the Pope noted that "it helps to recall that the twelve Apostles were not perfect men, chosen for their irreprehensible moral and religious qualities. They were certainly believers, ... but marked by their human limitations, sometimes serious limitations, ... like us, like all Christians. ... The Church is a community of sinners who believe in the love of God and allow themselves to be transformed by Him, and thus they become saints".

  "The missionary method, in other words the inner attitude that is translated into real life, ... cannot but be that of Jesus: the method of 'compassion'", said the Pope. "Christian compassion has no connection with pietism, with the simple provision of assistance. Rather it is a synonym of solidarity and sharing, and it is animated by hope. ... Animated by the hope in which you have been saved", Benedict XVI told his hearers in conclusion, "be signs and instruments of the compassion and mercy of Christ".
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 13 JUN 2008 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. Thomas Graham Rose, pastor of Actonville in the archdiocese of Johannesburg, South Africa, as bishop of Dundee (area 51,867, population 1,706,000, Catholics 94,484, priests 29, religious 27), South Africa. The bishop-elect was born in Evander, South Africa in 1951 and ordained a priest in 1980.
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AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, 13 JUN 2008 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in separate audiences:

 - Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendia, apostolic nuncio to Kazakhstan, accompanied by members of his family.

 - Bishop Paolo De Nicolo, regent of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, accompanied by members of his family.

  This evening he is scheduled to receive in audience Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education (for Seminaries and Educational Institutions).
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RELICS OF PIER GIORGIO FRASSATI IN SYDNEY FOR WYD

VATICAN CITY, 13 JUN 2008 (VIS) - The relics of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925), a student and member of the Dominican Third Order who was beatified by John Paul II in 1990, will be taken to Sydney, Australia, for the 23rd World Youth Day (WYD) due to be celebrated in that city from 15 to 20 July.

  At 6 p.m. on Wednesday 18 June, Cardinal Severino Poletto, archbishop of Turin, Italy, and Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra and Goulburn, Australia, will concelebrate Mass in the cathedral of Turin, where the remains of Blessed Pier Giorgio are conserved. On the same day, the relics will be transferred to the nearby town of Cottolengo where a prayer vigil will he held.

  At 1.45 p.m. on 19 June, the relics will be transported from Milan's Malpensa airport to Sydney.

  Pier Giorgio Frassati will, at the request of the Australian organisers of the event, be one of the ten official patrons of WYD, according to a communique released by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. The blessed from Turin is widely venerated in Australia and the presence of his relics is considered as one of the central features of World Youth Day.

  On arriving in Sydney, Pier Giorgio Frassati's casket will be placed in the church of St. Benedict where, on 4 July, the saint's feast day, Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney will celebrate the Eucharist.

  From 11 to 22 July the casket of the blessed will be on display in Sydney cathedral where participants in WYD will be able to come and pay their homage. The area leading to the casket will be hung with ten panels illustrating Pier Giorgio Frassati's life and thought. A prayer vigil will take place before his relics on the evening of 14 July, while from 15 to 18 July an exhibition dedicated to the blessed's life will be held in Sydney Exhibition Hall, organised by the Service for the Pastoral Care of Youth of the Italian Episcopal Conference.
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APPROVAL OF THE STATUTES OF THE NEO-CATECHUMENAL WAY

VATICAN CITY, 13 JUN 2008 (VIS) - Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, today published a decree containing the definitive approval of the statutes of the Neo-Catechumenal Way.

  During a celebration held in the offices of the council, the cardinal handed the decree of approval and a final draft of the statutes to Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez, initiators of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, and to the Italian priest Fr. Mario Pezzi.

  "Thus ends the process that began in 1997" reads a communique on the subject released by the Neo-Catechumenal Way. A process that began "at the behest of John Paul II to give the Way 'formal legal recognition' and to make it a 'universal patrimony of the Church'".

  In the communique the founders of the Neo-Catechumenal Way explain how "our recognition and gratitude go out to Pope Benedict XVI who with great love has followed and approved the conclusion of this work".

  The communique goes on: "The process of approval was prolonged because the Neo-Catechumenal Way, as an instrument for the Christian initiation of adults, produces fruits of various kinds: from the renewal of parishes, to the figure of itinerant catechists and of missionary families; from the formation of priests for the new evangelisation in more than 70 'Redemptoris Mater' seminaries around the world, to the new experience of the 'missio ad gentes' in Europe, Asia and America. All this involves the areas of responsibility of five separate Vatican dicasteries: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Congregation for the Clergy, and the Congregation for Catholic Education, all of which gave careful examination to the statutes, alongside the Pontifical Council for the Laity which co-ordinated and concluded the process".

  At the end of the communique Kiko Arguello, Carmen Hernandez and Fr. Mario Pezzi write: "Following the approval of the statutes, and faced with the great challenges the Church must confront, we are happy to be able to offer ourselves to the Holy Father and the bishops for the new evangelisation and the transmission of the faith to the new generations".

  Since its beginnings the Neo-Catechumenal Way has enjoyed the support of all Popes from Paul VI to Benedict XVI. In the year 1990, John Paul II recognised the Way as "an itinerary of Catholic formation, valid for modern society and times", and expressed the hope that bishops and priests "appreciate and assist this work for the new evangelisation, so that it may achieve its ends, following the guidelines suggested by the founders, in a spirit of service towards the local ordinary and in communion with him, and in a context of unity with the particular Church and with the Universal Church".

  The Neo-Catechumenal Way, which began in Spain in 1964 has now spread to more than 100 countries world-wide, including some mission territories. In the wake of the renewal brought about by Vatican Council II, the Way places itself at the service of diocesan bishops and parish priests as a means of rediscovering the sacrament of Baptism and of a permanent education in the faith, offered to those faithful who wish to revive in their life the richness of Christian initiation, by following this itinerary of catechesis and conversion. The Neo-Catechumenal Way is furthermore an instrument for the Christian initiation of adults preparing to receive Baptism".
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