FROM PARABLES TO TWITTER

Vatican City, 13 April 2012 (VIS) - A congress entitled "From Parables to Twitter" is due to begin this afternoon at the "Istituto Massimo" in Rome. It will focus on the challenges and opportunities for evangelisation presented by modern communications technology.

The conference will begin with some remarks by Fr. Francesco Tata S.J., rector of the "Istituto Massimo". Participants will include Ettore Franzini, professor of new communications media at Rome's LUMSA University; Fabio Bolzetta, journalist of TV2000 and spokesperson of "WeCa", the association of Catholic webmasters, and Lucandrea Massaro, social media editor of "Aleteia", a Christian social network created under the patronage of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation. The moderator of the event will be Alessandro Gisotti, a Vatican Radio journalist.

VATICAN APOSTOLIC LIBRARY TO DIGITISE A MILLION PAGES OF MANUSCRIPTS AND INCUNABULA

Vatican City, 13 April 2012 (VIS) - Msgr. Cesare Pasini, prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, announced in yesterday's "Osservatore Romano" that over the next five years 1.5 million pages of manuscripts and incunabula held in the Vatican and in the Bodleian Library in Oxford will be be transferred into digital format. This is the largest such initiative yet carried out by the Vatican Library and is being put into effect with the assistance of the Polonsky Foundation.

Two thirds of the works to be digitised - around one million pages or 2,500 books - will be chosen from the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts and incunabula in the Vatican Apostolic Library. The institution possesses 8,900 incunabula, making it the fourth largest collection in the world. A catalogue of the incunabula has recently been published on the internet and, thanks to this latest project, it is hoped to make more than 800 complete works available online. They include the famous "De Europa" by Pope Pius II, printed by Albrecht Kunne in Memmingen before 1491, and the 42-Line Latin Bible of Johann Gutenberg, the first book printed using moveable type, between 1454 and 1455.

Certain particularly important Hebrew manuscripts are also due to be digitised, including the "Sifra", written some time between the end of the ninth and the middle of the tenth century and perhaps the oldest surviving Jewish codex; a Bible written in Italy around the year 1100; commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud; Halakhah and Kabbalah, as well as writings on philosophy, medicine and astronomy.

Among the Greek manuscripts to be transferred into digital format are works by Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Hypocrites, as well as New Testament codices and works by Church Fathers, many decorated with Byzantine miniatures.

As well as its 8,900 incunabula, the Vatican Apostolic Library also possesses more than 80,000 manuscripts. Msgr. Pasini explains that transferring them to digital format is a way of "better conserving cultural heritage, facilitating consultation and ensuring a high-quality reproduction before any eventual degradation of the original. It also means making those works immediately accessible to many more people online".

The Vatican Apostolic Library’s digitisation project began two years ago, since when the number of manuscripts available in digital format has been gradually increasing thanks to the efforts of the library's own reproduction laboratory. There are also a number of initiatives under way in collaboration with other cultural institutions, such as the ongoing digitisation of the Latin Palatine manuscripts being carried out with the University of Heidelberg.

ANNUAL PLENARY OF THE PONTIFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION

Vatican City, 12 April 2012 (VIS) - The annual plenary session of the Pontifical Biblical Commission is to be held from 16 to 20 April at the "Domus Sanctae Marthae" inside Vatican City under the presidency of Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to a communique made public today.

The meeting will be chaired by Fr. Klemens Stock S.J., secretary general of the commission, and the participants will continue their reflections on the theme of "Inspiration and Truth in the Bible". As a first stage in its examination of this subject, the commission has chosen to focus attention on the way in which inspiration and truth appear in Sacred Scripture. On the basis of their individual competencies, each participant will present a report which will then be discussed by the assembly as a whole.

FAMOUS FIGURES WRITE ABOUT THE POPE

Vatican City, 12 April 2012 (VIS) - On Monday 9 April, Edmund Stoiber, former minister-president of Bavaria, Germany, presented the Holy Father with a German-language book entitled: "Benedikt XVI - Prominente uber den Papst" in which twenty leading figures in the Church and from the worlds of politics, culture, the economy and sport have written their individual view on the person and works of the current Pontiff. Contributors include Cardinal Kurt Koch; Cardinal Joachim Meisner; German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, Olympic sportswoman Maria Hofl-Riesch, and footballer Franz Beckenbauer.

The book, which is being published by "Media Maria Verlag", has a prologue by Msgr. Georg Gaenswein, private secretary to Benedict XVI, who also contributed one of the articles. In his preface Msgr. Gaenswein notes that "the opinions are not only those of Catholics but also of Evangelical Christians. They do not hide their Christian faith and are not afraid to give voice to a number of 'desiderata'. Each contribution is like the tile of a mosaic which helps to create a chromatic image in which the essential aspects of Benedict XVI's pontificate become clear".

FAITH IN CHRIST TRANSFORMS OUR LIVES, FREES US FROM FEAR AND FILLS US WITH HOPE

Vatican City, 11 April 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father dedicated his catechesis during this morning's general audience to the transformation which Jesus' Resurrection brought about in His disciples, also reflecting on the meaning that Easter has for Christians today. Faith in the Risen One, he said, "transforms our lives; it frees them from fear, gives them firm hope, and infuses them with something that provides existence with full meaning: the love of God".

Benedict XVI explained how on the evening of the day of the Resurrection the disciples were at home behind locked doors, full of fear and doubt at the recollection of the passion of their Lord. "This situation of anguish changed radically when Jesus arrived. He entered through the closed doors, was among them and brought them peace", peace which "for the community became source of joy, certainty of victory, trusting reliance on God".

After His greeting, Jesus showed His wounds to the disciples, "signs of what had befallen and would never be cancelled. His glorious humanity remained 'wounded'. The gesture had the aim of confirming the new reality of the Resurrection. The Christ Who returned among His followers was a real person, the same Jesus Who three days earlier had been nailed to the cross. Thus, in the shining light of Easter, in the meeting with the Risen One, the disciples came to understand the salvific meaning of His passion and death. Then sadness and fear became overwhelming joy".

Jesus greeted them again: "Peace be with you". Yet this, the Pope explained, was not just a greeting, "it was a gift, the gift the Risen One made to His friends. At the same time it was a commission: the peace which Christ had bought with His blood was for them, but it was also for everyone else, and the disciples would have to carry it throughout the world". Jesus "had completed His mission in the world, now it was up to them to to sow faith in people's hearts".

However, the Lord knew that His followers were still afraid. "For this reason He breathed upon them and regenerated them in His Spirit. This gesture was the sign of the new creation. With the gift of the Holy Spirit which came from the Risen Christ, a new world began".

"Today too the Risen One enters our homes and hearts, although sometimes the doors are closed", the Pope said, "He enters bringing joy and peace, life and hope, gifts we need for our human and spiritual rebirth". Only He can put an end to division, enmity, rancour, envy, mistrust and indifference. Only He can give meaning to the lives of those who are weary, sad and without hope.

This was the experience of the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus, full of foreboding at the recent death of their Master. Jesus came up to them and accompanied them without being recognised, explaining the meaning of Sacred Scripture to help them understand His salvific mission. Later they asked Jesus to stay with them and recognised him as He blessed and broke the bread. "This episode", said the Holy Father, "shows us two privileged 'places' in which we can meet the Risen One Who transforms our lives: ... the Word and the Eucharist".

The disciples of Emmaus returned to Jerusalem to join the others. "Their enthusiasm for the faith was reborn, their love for the community and their need to communicate the good news. The Master rose and with Him all life resurges. Bearing witness to this event became an irrepressible need for them".

For Christians, Easter must be a time for the joyful and enthusiastic rediscovery of the sources of the faith. "This means following the same path as that along which Jesus directed the two disciples of Emmaus, through the rediscovery of the Word of God and the Eucharist. The culmination of this journey, then as now, is Eucharistic communion. In communion Jesus nourishes us with His Body and His Blood, becoming present in our lives, making us new and animating us with the power of the Holy Spirit".

In conclusion the Holy Father invited Christians to remain faithful to the Risen One Who "living and true, is always present among us, Who walks with us to guide our lives", and Who "has the power to give life, to make us reborn as children of God, capable of believing and loving".