DEFENDING EUROPE'S RICH CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS HERITAGE

VATICAN CITY, 11 NOV 2009 (VIS) - In his Wednesday general audience, held this morning in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope focused his remarks on the Order of Cluny, "a monastic movement which had great importance during the Middle Ages", and which "renewed the observance of the Rule of St. Benedict", he said.

  The Cluniac Order, the Pope explained, "sought to guarantee the central place that the liturgy must occupy in Christian life". It promoted sacred music, architecture and art, "and improved the liturgical calendar ... because the monks of Cluny were convicted that this meant participating in the liturgy of heaven".

  "At the beginning of the twelfth century, the time of its greatest expansion, it had almost 1200 monasteries. ... Soon a fame of sanctity enveloped the monastery of Cluny, and many other monastic communities decided to follow its customs. ... Cluny's success was assured above all by its exalted spirituality".

  "The monastery of Cluny and its dependent communities", the Pope went on, "were placed directly under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. This begot a special bond with the See of Peter and, thanks precisely to the protection and encouragement of the Popes, the ideals of purity and faithfulness, which the Cluniac reform set itself to pursue, were able to spread rapidly. Furthermore, the abbots were elected with no interference from the civil authorities".

  Benedict XVI highlighted how "the Cluniac reform had positive effects not only on the purification and revitalisation of monastic life, but also on the life of the universal Church". It "was, indeed, a stimulus to resist two grave evils afflicting the Church in that period: simony - that is, the acquisition of pastoral office by payment - and the immorality of the secular clergy". In this context the Pope also pointed out that "the fruits were not lacking: the celibacy of priests again became respected and practiced, and more transparent procedures were introduced into the process of assigning ecclesiastical office".

  He also explained how the monks of Cluny looked after the needy and concerned themselves with education and culture. The Order promoted "the so-called 'truces of God' and the 'peace of God'. In a period deeply marked by violence and the spirit of vendetta, the 'truces of God' ensured long periods of non-belligerence on specific religious feasts and on certain days of the week. The 'peace of God' called, under pain of canonical censure, for defenceless people in holy sites to be respected".

  Cluny, said Benedict XVI, "emphasised the primacy of the wealth of the spirit; it maintained the tendency towards the things of God, the primacy of God; it inspired and supported initiatives and institutions for the promotion of human values; it educated people in a spirit of peace".

  And he concluded: "Let us pray that all those people who have true humanism and the future of Europe to heart many know how to rediscover, appreciate and defend the rich cultural and religious heritage of those centuries".
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APPEAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOR SRI LANKA

VATICAN CITY, 11 NOV 2009 (VIS) - At the end of today's general audience, the Pope remarked upon the current situation in Sri Lanka, six months after the end of the conflict that bloodied the country.

  "We note with satisfaction the efforts being made by the authorities over recent weeks, to facilitate the return home of people displaced by the war. I strongly encourage an acceleration in this process and ask all citizens to work towards rapid pacification in full respect for human rights, and towards a just political solution to the challenges still facing the country.

  "I trust, moreover, that the international community will strive to meet the humanitarian and economic needs of Sri Lanka, and I raise my prayers to Our Lady of Madhu, that she may continue to watch over that beloved land".
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 11 NOV 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. Irineu Andreassa O.F.M., pastor of the parishes of "Sant'Ana" and "Nossa Senhora Aparecida" in the diocese of Marilia, Brazil, as bishop of Lages (area 18,416, population 357,000, Catholics 305,000, priests 54, religious 194), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Iacri, Brazil in 1949 and ordained a priest in 1978. He succeeds Bishop Joao Oneres Marchiori, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.
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MAKING GOD KNOWN IN OUR WORLD

VATICAN CITY, 10 NOV 2009 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message from the Holy Father addressed to participants in the sixtieth general assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), which is being held this week in the Italian town of Assisi.

  Reiterating the theme of the "urgent task of education", about which he had spoken to the Italian prelates last May, the Pope explains that this "concerns all sectors of the Church and means that the great questions of the modern age must be faced with decision: the question concerning the nature of man and his dignity (a decisive element in the complete formation of the person), and the 'question of God' which seems ever more pressing in our own times".

  Benedict XVI also repeats words he pronounced this summer in the cathedral of Aosta, Italy: "If our fundamental relationship with God is not living, if it is not lived, then none of our other relationships can take their correct form. ... If we do without God, if God is absent, we lack the compass ... to show us the path, the direction we must follow. God! We must bring the truth of God back into the world, make Him known, make Him present".

  The Holy Father goes on: "In order for this to happen we, first and foremost and with all our being, must become living adoration, a gift that changes the world and restores it to God. This is the profound message of the Year for Priests".

  Turning then to consider the question of southern Italy, one of the themes due to be examined during the course of the assembly, the Pope notes how the prelates "felt the need to give voice and support to the needs of the country, which cannot hope to develop unless it is united. The Church's presence in the south is a seed for personal and social renewal, and for integral development", he says.

  The Pope also dwells on another of the items on the agenda of the general assembly, that of the new Italian edition of the funeral rites. In this context, he concludes his Message by noting how "the funeral is an important moment in which to announce the Gospel of hope and to reveal the maternity of the Church. ... In a culture that tends to remove the idea of death - when, indeed, it does not seek to exorcise it by reducing it to a spectacle or transforming it into a right - it is the task of believers to shine the light of Christian revelation on that mystery".
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PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: SEMINAR ON ASTROBIOLOGY

VATICAN CITY, 10 NOV 2009 (VIS) - The conclusions of a study week on astrobiology, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Vatican Observatory, were presented this morning in the Holy See Press Office.

  Participating in the press conference were Fr. Jose Funes S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory; Jonathan Lunine, professor at the department of physics in Rome's Tor Vergata University; Chris Impey, professor at the department of astronomy in the University of Arizona and the Steward Observatory, Tucson, U.S.A., and Athena Coustenis, professor at the "Observatoire de Paris-Meudon", LESIA/CNRS, France.

  "Why is the Vatican involved in astrobiology?" asked Fr. Funes in his remarks, going on to explain that "although astrobiology is an emerging field and still a developing subject, the questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very interesting and deserve serious consideration. These questions offer many philosophical and theological implications".

  "Astrobiology is the study of life's relationship to the rest of the cosmos: its major themes include the origin of life and its precursor materials, the evolution of life on earth, and its future prospects on and off the earth. ... The study week provided a special opportunity for scientists from different basic disciplines to spend an intensive week understanding how the work in their particular specialty might have an impact on, or be impacted by, that in other areas. Nowhere is this more evident than in the work being done on how life formed on the earth and evolved with the changing environment", explained Professor Lunine.

  For his part, Professor Impey observed that "if biology is not unique to the earth, or if life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or if we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound. It is appropriate that a meeting on this frontier topic be hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The motivations and methodologies might differ, but both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe. There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe".

  The press conference on the study work - held in the Vatican's Casina Pio IV from 6 to 10 November - concluded with the remarks of Athena Coustenis on the subject of the exploration of outer planets and their systems.
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