100 METRE SPRINT FOR FAITH

Vatican City, 17 October 2013 (VIS) – On Sunday, 20 October, Via della Conciliazione and St. Peter's Square will be transformed into an impromptu sports track where there will be a “100 metre sprint for faith” before the Angelus prayer, an event organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Italian Sports Centre as a Year of Faith initiative. Participants will include families, seminaries and schools along with numerous pilgrims, and will take the form of a relay race.

According to a communique from the Pontifical Council for Culture, the continual passing of the baton recalls how Christian life is, in the image described by St. Paul in his Letter to the Corinthians, a sort of ideal relay race in which faith is transmitted from generation to generation, and in which the Christian competes in order to win “an incorruptible crown”. Also, within the context of the Year of Faith, it is intended to emphasise the importance of sport as a cultural asset of education and spiritual value, and to draw the attention of different components of the Catholic world to the formative role that sport may assume in Christian catechesis.

From 8.30 a.m. until 12 p.m., on a genuine athletics track, the participants in the relay race will runn the 100 metres to arrive in St. Peter's Square. The event will be televised and will involve the participation of, among others, the tennis player Mary Santangelo; British ex-athlete Jason Gardener, Olympic gold medallist for the 4 x 100 metre relay race in the 2004 Games in Athens; the sexagenarian runner Ulderico Lambertucci; and Andrea Bartali, son of the legendary cyclist Gino Bartali, who won the Giro d'Italia three times and the Tours de France twice. The event will conclude with the Angelus and the Pope's greeting to participants.

The race will be followed by a second appointment on 21 October, the seminar “Believers in the World of Sports”, which will analyse the relationship between sport and faith, and which will be attended by heads of professional sports and Catholic sporting associations. The seminar will focus on how sport can reveal man to himself, on the value of the human body, with particular reference to disability, and on the value of sport in openness to the absolute.

AUDIENCES

Vatican City, 17 October 2013 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in audience:

- Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

- Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega, archbishop of Guadalajara, Mexico.

- Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, emeritus of Freiburg im Breisgau, Federal Republic of Germany, and president of the German Bishops' Conference.

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City, 17 October 2013 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father appointed Bishop Raphy Manjaly as bishop of Allahabad (area 46,774, population 32.644,000, Catholics 13,525, priests 88, religious 386), India. Bishop Manjaly was previously bishop of Varanasi.

THE CHURCH IS ROOTED IN THE APOSTLES BUT LOOKS TO THE FUTURE

Vatican City, 16 October 2013 (VIS) – After considering the unity, holiness and catholicity of the Church, as defined by the Creed, the Holy Father today addressed her apostolic nature. During the catechesis of the Pope's general audience in St. Peter's Square, he stated that “to profess that the Church is apostolic means underlining her constitutive bond with the Apostles, with that small group of twelve men whom Jesus called to Him by name one day, to ask them to stay with Him and to send them to preach. Indeed, 'apostle' is a Greek word meaning 'messenger', 'envoy'.

“The Apostles were chosen, called and sent by Jesus in order to continue His work, that is, prayer, the first task of an apostle, and secondly, to proclaim the Gospel”, continued the Pope, recalling that in the first years of the Church, to enable the apostles to have enough time for prayer, they instituted deacons to help them with their evangelising mission. “And when we think of their successors, of the bishops – including the Pope, because he too is a bishop”, he added, “we have to wonder if this successor of the Apostles prays, first of all, and then proclaims the Gospel. This is what it means to be an apostle, and this is why the Church is apostolic”.

The Church is apostolic “because she is based on the preachings and prayer of the Apostles, on the authority given to them by Christ Himself”, said the Pope, quoting St. Paul who, in his letter to the Christians of Epheseus compared them to “living stones, forming a house that is the Church, and this edifice is based on the Apostles, who are its columns, and the cornerstone of Jesus Himself. Without Jesus there can be no Church – he is the base and foundation. The Apostles lived with Jesus, they listened to His words, they shared in His life and, above all, they witnessed His Death and Resurrection. Our faith, the Church that Christ wanted, is not based on an idea, on a philosophy, but on Christ Himself. And the Church is like a plant that grows throughout the centuries … and has borne fruit, but the roots are planted deeply in Him, and the fundamental experience of the Apostles, chosen and sent by Jesus, reaches us”.

“But”, Pope Francis asked, “how is it possible for us to connect with this testimony of those who lived with and listened to Him?” He responded that it is the Catechism that affirms that the Church is apostolic, since she “keeps and hands on the teaching, the 'good deposit', the salutary words she has heard from the Apostles”; that is, “she conserves over the centuries the valuable treasure of the Sacred Scripture, the doctrine, the sacraments, the ministry of the pastors, so that we can be faithful to Christ and participate in His life. It is like a river flowing through history … but the water that flows is always that which emerges from the source, from Christ Himself. He is the Risen One, the Living One, and His words do not pass away from us. Christ never passes away from us, He is here, among us”.

Addressing the thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father said, “Do we ever think of how it has been precisely the Church who, in her path across these centuries, in spite of difficulties, problems and weakness, who has transmitted Christ's authentic message to us, and who gives us the security that what we believe in is really what Christ communicated to us?”

Finally, the Church is apostolic because “she is sent to bring the Gospel to all the world. She continues, on her path through history, the very mission that Christ entrusted to the Apostles: 'Go and make disciples of all nations. … And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age'. I insist on the missionary aspect of the Church, because Christ invites us all to the encounter with others, He sends us, He asks us to be on our way, to bring the joy of the Gospel to all!”

The Holy Father concluded, “The Church has her roots in the teaching of the Apostles, authentic witnesses of Christ, but looks to the future, and has the fixed awareness of being sent by Christ, of being Christ's missionary, of bringing forth Christ's name by prayer, proclamation and witness. A Church closed in on herself and the past, a Church who focuses only on minor rules and habits, betrays her own identity”.

POPE FRANCIS COMMEMORATES 35 YEARS SINCE BLESSED JOHN PAUL II'S ELECTION TO THE PAPACY

Vatican City, 16 October 2013 (VIS) – In his greetings in several languages at today's general audience, the Pope addressed, among others, the German students of the Mulhausen Liebfrauenschule. “Learn from St. Augustine who said, 'seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand'. May the Holy Spirit accompany you in your endeavours”.

“Today in Katowice”, he said to the Polish pilgrims, “an important cultural and religious event is taking place: a holy representation of the life and spirituality of St. Francis, with the participation of hundreds of actors and thousands of spectators. I express my wish to the organisers and participants that this artistic encounter with the 'Poverello' of Assisi may arouse in the hearts of all those present the love for God the Creator, respect for creation and true charity for all those in need of spiritual and material assistance”.

“I entrust all present, and your loved ones, to the heavenly intercession of Blessed John Paul II, on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his election to the Chair of St. Peter, and impart my heartfelt blessing”.

In Italian he warmly addressed the staff of the various embassies to the the Holy See, whom he thanked for their valuable work, and the delegates of the “Mouvement International Quart Monde”, “on the eve of the World Day for the Refusal of Misery and on World Food Day, convened by the United Nations”.