THE COURTYARD OF THE GENTILES CALLS AT ASSISI

Vatican City,  (VIS) - "God, the unknown" is to be the theme of the "Atrium of St. Francis", an initiative organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Holy Convent of Assisi and the "Oicos Riflessioni" Association. A press conference presenting the event was held this morning in the Holy See Press Office.

The meeting is due to take place in the Italian town of Assisi on 5 and 6 October and is part of the "Courtyard of the Gentiles" project, a structure for permanent dialogue between believers and non believers created by the Pontifical Council for Culture under the presidency of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. The Courtyard of the Gentiles has already organised events in several European capitals.

The Assisi meeting, in which more than forty speakers are due to participate, will be opened by Giorgio Napolitano, president of the Republic of Italy. The programme, which involves nine meetings in nine "atria" at different locations around the city of St. Francis, will cover the following themes: "Work, business and responsibility", "Contemplation and meditation", "Inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue for peace", "Young people, between faith and nihilism", "The cry of the earth", "Art and faith", "The cry of the poor, the world economic crisis and sustainable development". Among the participants will be figures from the worlds of culture, science, art and economics, such as film-maker Ermanno Olmi, architect Massimiliano Fuksas, and trade union leader Susanna Camusso.

"In a second edition of his letter to the faithful St. Francis addressed himself to 'all Christians, religious, clergy and laity, to men and women, to all inhabitants of the world entire'", notes Fr. Giuseppe Piemontese, custodian of the Holy Convent of Assisi. "We are opening the 'Atrium of St. Francis' with great humility, and under the sign of that evangelical openness to others. Our hope is that the Courtyard of the Gentiles, in its call at Assisi, will be able to demonstrate the 'pure heart' and 'pure mind' to which St. Francis called us".

AUDIENCES

Vatican City,  (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in audience Cardinal Marc Ouellet P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

THE LOGIC OF GOD IS DIFFERENT FROM THE LOGIC OF MAN

Vatican City, 23 September 2012 (VIS) - At midday today the Holy Father appeared on the balcony overlooking the internal courtyard of the Apostolic Palace at Castelgandolfo to pray the Angelus with faithful gathered there.

The Pope commented on today's Gospel reading from St. Mark in which "Jesus began to speak openly about what would happen to Him at the end. ... It is clear that a great interior distance separates Jesus and His disciples. They are, so to speak, on two different wavelengths, and so the words of the Master are either not understood, or understood only superficially".

For example, the Holy Father went on, "the Apostle Peter, after having shown his faith in Jesus, reproved Him because He predicted that He would be rejected and killed". In their turn the disciples, following the second announcement of the Passion, "began discussing which of them was greatest". Finally, following the third announcement "James and John asked Jesus to be allowed to sit at His right and left hand when He was in glory.

"But there are several other signs of this distance", Benedict XVI added, "for example, the disciples were unable to heal an epileptic boy, whom Jesus later healed with the power of prayer. Moreover, certain children were presented to Jesus, the disciples reproved them but Jesus was indignant and insisted they stay, affirming that only those like unto children can enter the Kingdom of God".

All this, the Holy Father explained, "reminds us that God's logic is always “other” with respect to our own. ... For this reason, following the Lord always requires a profound conversion on the part of man, a change in his or her way of thinking and living. It requires an openness of heart, in order to listen and allow oneself to be enlightened and transformed from within. A key point in which God and man are different is pride: God has no pride, because He is absolute fullness, and is completely given to love and the giving of life. In us, on the other hand, pride is deeply rooted and requires constant vigilance and purification. We, who are small, desire to appear great, to be the first, while God does not fear to humble Himself and make Himself the last".

PRAYERS FOR MIDDLE EASTERN CHRISTIANS, AND FOR CHILDREN

Vatican City, 23 September 2012 (VIS) - In his greetings following the Angelus prayer today, the Holy Father addressed some remarks to French-speaking pilgrims, whom he thanked for their prayers for his recent apostolic trip to Lebanon and, by extension, to the entire Middle East. "Continue to pray for Christians of the Middle East, for peace and for serene dialogue between religions", he said.

"Yesterday", the Pope went on, "I was spiritually united to the joy of faithful in the French diocese of Troyes, who were gathered together for the beatification of Fr. Louis Brisson, founder of the Oblates of St. Francis of Sales. May the example of this new blessed bring light to your lives. He was wont to say: 'I need God, it is a hunger which devours me'. Learn to have that same hunger for God, and to appeal to Him constantly and trustingly".

Turning then to address Polish pilgrims, Benedict XVI quoted Jesus words: "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me". Let us, he said, "ask God that these words may inspire all those responsible for the gift of life, for a dignified education, and for the safe and serene development of children. May all children enjoy the love and warmth of the family".

REALISM AND HOPE IN THE FACE OF THE CRISIS

Vatican City,  (VIS) - This morning at Castelgandolfo Benedict XVI received participants in a meeting being promoted by the Christian Democrat International, the president of which is the Italian politician Pier Ferdinando Casini.

"The involvement of Christians in society", the Holy Father said, "must not lessen or decrease; rather, it must be proffered with renewed vitality, in view of the persistence and, in some cases, the worsening of the problems we are facing".

Among these problems the Pope mentioned the economic crisis, the "complexity and gravity" of which "rightly arouse concern. Yet, in the face of this situation, Christians are called to act and express themselves with a prophetic spirit - that is, a spirit capable of seeing in these transformations the incessant and mysterious presence of God in history - and thus to shoulder their newly emerging responsibilities with realism, faith and hope".

"Your political and institutional commitment must not", he told his listeners, "be limited to responding to the requirements of market logic. Rather, its central and indispensable goal must remain the search for the common good, correctly understood, and the promotion and protection of the inalienable dignity of the human person. The teaching of Vatican Council II that 'the order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons, and not the other way around' is today more valid than ever. This order of persons 'is founded on truth, built up in justice, and animated by love', and it cannot be discerned without constant attention to the Word of God and the Magisterium of the Church".

"The areas in which this decisive discernment is to be exercised are those touching the most vital and delicate interests of the person, the place where the fundamental choices regarding the meaning of life and the search for happiness are made. These areas are not separate from one another but profoundly interconnected; they possess a manifest continuum which is constituted by respect for the transcendent dignity of human beings, rooted in the fact that they were made in the image of the Creator and are the ultimate goal of any authentically human social justice.

"The commitment to respecting life in all its phases from conception to natural end - and the consequent rejection of abortion, euthanasia and any form of eugenics - is, in fact, interwoven with respecting marriage as an indissoluble union between a man and a woman and, in its turn, as the foundation for the community of family life. ... Thus the family, the basic cell of society, is the root which nourishes not only the individual human being, but the very foundations of social coexistence".

The Holy Father went on: "The authentic progress of human society cannot forgo policies aimed at protecting and promoting marriage, and the community that derives therefrom. Adopting such policies is the duty not only of States but of the International Community as a whole, in order to invert the tendency towards the growing isolation of the person, which is a source of suffering and corrosion for both individuals and for society.

"If it is true that the defence and promotion of human dignity 'have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt', it is equally true that this responsibility particularly concerns people called to positions of responsibility. They, especially if animated by Christian faith, must be 'strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping'".