AMERICA WITH CHRIST. LIVE THE MISSION

VATICAN CITY, 24 FEB 2009 (VIS) - The Pontifical Commission for Latin America today published its annual message for Hispanic-American Day, which is celebrated annually in the dioceses of Spain. This year the Day falls on Sunday 1 March.

  In the message Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re and Archbishop Octavio Ruiz Arenas, respectively president and vice president of the commission, explain that this year's theme - "America with Christ. Live the mission" - highlights "two intimately related questions. On the one hand it reminds us of the call to go out into the world to 'make disciples' of Jesus; on the other it reaffirms a conviction that has its foundation in the Master's promise: 'I am with you always, to the end of the age'"

  "At the present time Latin America needs to recover and reaffirm the Christian values that lie at the root of its culture and traditions", they write. "There is an urgent necessity to bring the light of the Gospel to public, cultural, economic and political life".

  "How", the two prelates ask, "can we respond to these challenges? How can we find an authentic and truly satisfactory solution to an ever-changing reality in which the values propagated by contemporary culture are in ever greater contrast with the reality of the Gospel?" The Holy Father in his inaugural address to the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida (2007) "reminded us of a great truth: 'only those who recognise God know reality and are able to respond to it adequately and in a truly human manner'".

  "Faced with the crisis of faith in Latin America today", write Cardinal Re and Archbishop Ruiz, "there is a pressing need to make Christ known, and to announce His Word to the men and women of the continent. To this end we must base our missionary efforts, and all of our lives, upon the rock of the Word of God".

  "Announcing the Gospel, as is evident from the Apostle Paul's missionary activity, does not consist in the unfeeling transmission of a doctrine but, fundamentally, in bearing witness to an individual experience of meeting a person, Jesus Christ. He is the only reality with the power to open the hearts of men and women to contact with the Truth. Hence, it is only united to Christ, only with Christ, that America can live its mission!"

  The message concludes by inviting people, on this Hispanic-American Day, "to shoulder missionary commitment in the Continent of Hope", and encourages priests and religious "to feel in their hearts the ardour of being bearers of the Word 'unto the ends of the earth', and not to be afraid to respond generously to the apostolic mission".
COM-AL/HISPANIC-AMERICAN DAY/RE:RUIZ                VIS 20090224 (460)

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 24 FEB 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father promoted:

 - Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins C.M.F., prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, to the order of bishops, assigning him the suburbicarian see of Palestrina.

 - Cardinal Agostino Vallini, his vicar general for the diocese of Rome, to the order of priests. Cardinal Vallini retains his diaconate of St. Peter Damian ai Monti, elevated "pro hac vice" to presbyteral title.
NA/.../SARAIVA:VALLINI                        VIS 20090224 (80)

FREEDOM IS ACHIEVED IN SERVICE TO OTHERS

VATICAN CITY, 21 FEB 2009 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon, the Holy Father visited the Major Roman Seminary for the occasion of the feast of its patroness, Our Lady of Trust.

  The Pope presided at a "lectio divina" for the seminarians on the Letter of St. Paul to the Galatians, held in the seminary's major chapel.

  Commenting on the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles in his Letter to the Galatians - "you were called to freedom" - Benedict XVI asked: "What is freedom? How can we be free? St. Paul helps us to understand this complex question of freedom" when he says "do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another".

  Pope Benedict went on: "The absolute self who depends on nothing and no-one seems truly and definitively to possess freedom. I am free if I depend on no-one, if I can do anything I want. Yet this absolute exaltation of self is 'flesh', in other words degradation of man. It is not the conquest of freedom. Libertinism is not freedom, rather it is the failure of freedom".

  "Paradoxically, freedom is achieved through service", he said. "Our truth is that we are, first and foremost, creatures, creatures of God, and we live in a relationship with the Creator. We are relational beings, and only by accepting this fact do we enter the truth. Otherwise we fall into lies and there, in the end, we destroy ourselves. ... The only human freedom is shared freedom".

  "Man has need of order, of laws, in order to realise his freedom, which is a freedom he shares with others. ... If there is no shared truth about man, ... all that remains is positivism and people get the impression of something imposed from outside, even violently imposed. Hence this rebellion against order and laws, as if they represented a form of slavery".

  This Letter, the Holy Father continued, "contains a reference to the rather sad situation of the Galatians themselves, when Paul writes: 'If you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another'".

  "We see similar things happen today when, rather that entering into communion with Christ, with the Body of Christ which is the Church, everyone wants to be better than everyone else and, with intellectual arrogance, wants to make it known that they are best. This gives rise to destructive polemics, to a caricature of the Church, which should be of one heart and soul.

  "In St. Paul's warning we must also find a call to examine our own consciences today: not thinking we are better than others, but discovering ourselves in the humility of Christ, in the humility of the Virgin Mary, entering the obedience of the faith. In this way the great spaces of truth and freedom in love open before us".

  At the end of the ceremony the Pope dined with the seminarians, before returning to the Vatican.
BXVI-VISIT/.../MAJOR ROMAN SEMINARY                    VIS 20090223 (510)

HOLY FATHER TO CANONISE TEN BLESSEDS, IN APRIL AND OCTOBER

VATICAN CITY, 21 FEB 2009 (VIS) - In the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace at 11 a.m. today, the Holy Father presided at an ordinary public consistory for the causes of canonisation of the following Blesseds:

 - Blessed Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski, Polish former archbishop of Warsaw and founder of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary (1822-1895).

 - Blessed Arcangelo Tadini, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth (1846-1912).

 - Blessed Francesc Coll y Guitart, Spanish professed priest of the Order of Friars Preachers and founder of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1812-1875).

- Blessed Jozef Damian de Veuster, Belgian professed priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar (PICPUS) (1840-1889).

 - Blessed Bernardo Tolomei, Italian founder of the Olivetan Benedictine Congregation (1272-1348).

 - Blessed Rafael Arnaiz Baron, Spanish oblate friar of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (1911-1938).

 - Blessed Nuno di Santa Maria Alvares Pereira, Portuguese religious of the Order of Friars of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (1360-1431).

 - Blessed Gertrude Comensoli (nee Caterina), Italian virgin and foundress of the Institute of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (1847-1903).

 - Blessed Mary of the Cross Jugan (nee Jeanne), French virgin and foundress of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor (1792-1879).

 - Blessed Caterina Volpicelli, Italian virgin and foundress of the Institute of Handmaidens of the Sacred Heart (1839-1894).

  At the end of the ceremony, the Pope announced that the canonisation of Blesseds Arcangelo Tadini, Bernardo Tolomei, Nuno di Santa Maria Alvares Pereira, Gertrude (Caterina) Comensoli, and Caterina Volpicelli will take place on Sunday 26 April.

  The canonisation of Blesseds Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski, Francesc Coll y Guitart, Jozef Damian de Veuster, Rafael Arnaiz Baron, and Mary of the Cross (Jeanne) Jugan will take place on Sunday 11 October.
OCL/CONSISTORY CANONISATION/...                VIS 20090223 (350)

CONSOLIDATING A CULTURE OF ACCEPTANCE FOR SICK PEOPLE

VATICAN CITY, 21 FEB 2009 (VIS) - At midday today the Pope received participants in a congress entitled: "New frontiers of genetics and the dangers of eugenics". The congress, promoted by the Pontifical Academy for Life for the occasion of its twenty-fifth general assembly, was held in the Vatican's New Synod Hall on 20 and 21 February.

  Scientific progress, said the Holy Father, "enables us to achieve not just an earlier and more effective diagnosis of genetic ailments, but also to produce forms of treatment that can alleviate the suffering of sick people and, in some cases, even give them the hope of regaining their health".

  Collaboration among the various branches of science, said Benedict XVI, "makes it possible to avoid the risk of genetic reductionism which tends to identify individuals exclusively in terms of genetic information and its interaction with the environment. It must be stressed that man will always be greater than the elements that form his body. He has, in fact, the power of thought which always tends towards the truth about himself and the world".

  "Each human being, then, is much more than an individual combination of genetic information transmitted by his or her parents. ... The arrival of a new person into the world is always a new creation", he said.

  "If, then, we wish to enter into the mystery of human life, no branch of science must isolate itself claiming to possess the final word. Rather, it must participate in the shared vocation to reach the truth, though with the different methodologies and subject matter proper to each of the sciences".

  Referring then to the danger of eugenics, the Holy Father noted how, despite its having been condemned in the past, "worrying manifestations of this odious practice", still persist. "A new mentality is insinuating itself", he said, "one that tends towards a different view of life and of personal dignity founded on personal desires and individual rights. The tendency is to favour operative capacity, efficiency, perfection and physical beauty, to the detriment of other dimensions of existence which are not considered to be worthy. In this way, we diminish the respect that is due to each human being, even in the presence of a defect in his or her development or of a genetic ailment which may manifest itself during the course of a person's life; while children whose lives are judged as being unworthy to be lived are penalised from conception.

  "It is necessary", he added, "to reiterate the fact that all discrimination against ... individuals, people or ethnic groups on the basis of differences in real or presumed genetic factors is an attack on the entire human race. What must be forcefully underlined is that all human beings, by the very fact of having been born, enjoy equal dignity. Biological, mental and cultural development, or the state of a person's health, must never become a factor for discrimination".

  Benedict XVI went on: "We must consolidate a culture of acceptance and of love, showing real solidarity towards those who suffer and breaking down the barriers that society often puts up to discriminate against people affected by disabilities or serious illness or, worse still , to select and reject life in the name of an abstract ideal of health and physical perfection. If man is reduced to an object of experimental manipulation from the earliest stages of his development, this means that medical biotechnology submits to the will of the strongest. Faith in science must not make us forget the primacy of ethics when human life is at stake".
AC/GENETICS EUGENICS/...                    VIS 20090223 (610)