Encouraged Prelates to Proclaim Christ
VATICAN CITY, MAY 14, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI told Latin American bishops that their priority is proclaiming Christ, says the director of a think tank that focuses on the Church's social doctrine.
Stefano Fontana, director of the International Observatory Cardinal Van Thuân for the Social Doctrine of the Church, spoke with ZENIT about the Pope's address at the inauguration of the 5th General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean, being held through May 31 in Brazil.
Fontana, who is also a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that the Holy Father asked the Church in Latin America to avoid preoccupying themselves principally with unjust structures or pre-Columbian cultures and to make their first priority the proclamation of truth and love.
"Benedict XVI inaugurated the fifth assembly of Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil, with a surprisingly short but incisive discourse to establish the route to be taken, instead of entering into particulars," he added.
According to Fontana, "Benedict XVI established the primary task for the Church in Latin America as being the proclamation of Christ."
He added that the Holy Father's focus was not on unjust political structures, indigenous cultures, popular religions or Christians' experiences in the work place.
Instead, Fontana said, the Pope emphasized "the proclamation of God as revealed in Christ as truth and love."
"The Pope insisted on Christ being the way," Fontana said, "the way that permitted the pre-Columbian cultures to be purified and freed from alienation, the way to give to the Latin American people their cultural identity, because the Word of God is also in history and culture, the way to know reality."
"Christ, according to Benedict XVI, is able to be known in the Church, in the Word of God that she proclaims and in the teachings of the Church," Fontana continued. "The theological place to know God and his project for man, therefore, is not in the sociological data of the Church in Latin America, but the apostolic faith transmitted by the Church.
"Only by belonging to the Church, being educated by catechesis and nourished by the Eucharist can Catholics be able to work for authentic promotion of the human person.
"It is very important that the Holy Father mentioned the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, inviting a real 'social catechesis and adequate formation in the social doctrine of the Church.'"
Code: ZE07050403
Date: 2007-05-14