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16.05.2007, [19:34] // UOC-MP // RISU.ORG.UA

Sumy – The city council in northern Ukrainian Sumy (SCC) has approved a project for the construction of the first building of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) in the city. The press service of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) says the project was arranged by Sumy governor Pavlo Kochur, a Greek Catholic whose other actions it criticizes. pravoslavye.org.ua posted the news on 15 May 2007.

According to Stanislav Hradil, who submitted the construction project, the building is going to be constructed in the center of the square on Pryvokzalnoyi Street, where the New Year’s tree was usually set up.

pravoslavyye.org.ua posted the commentary: “Pavlo Kachur, appointed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, is a hardline Uniate [Greek Catholic]. Before his appointment he was an ‘orange’ minister and got on the nerves of the Orthodox in Kyiv by trying to ‘uniatize’ St. Sophia’s Cathedral and take away St. Cyril’s Church from the Orthodox faithful.”

According to a Greek Catholic priest who was present at the meeting of the SCC, Sumy has a rather large community of the UGCC, who either attend services of the Roman Catholic Church or the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate.

During the discussion of the project, concerns were voiced that the construction of a UGCC church next to the railway station may evoke indignation from representatives of other denominations. The SCC will make its final decision at the next meeting, when the issue of allotting land for the construction of the church will be discussed.

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Joins Leaders in Addressing Ecumenical Meeting

VATICAN CITY, MAY 15, 2007, Zenit.org - Benedict XVI encouraged representatives of European Christian movements to work toward safeguarding the "particular richness" of the continent -- its faith.

The Pope said this in a message to the meeting Together for Europe 2007, sent on his behalf by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state. The one-day meeting was held Saturday in Stuttgart.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, called the gathering of some 250 Christian movements one of the most important ecumenical initiatives of the year.

"The Together for Europe initiative," the papal message read, "has come to life through the good ecumenical intuition of Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican groups, associations, movements and communities, and seeks to underline the need to reaffirm together faithfulness to the Gospel in a Europe that risks losing its original values and giving up on its Christian roots."

The message quoted Pope John Paul II's apostolic exhortation "Ecclesia in Europa": "I would like to mention in a particular way the loss of Europe's Christian memory and heritage, accompanied by a kind of practical agnosticism and religious indifference whereby many Europeans give the impression of living without spiritual roots and somewhat like heirs who have squandered a patrimony entrusted to them by history."

The message affirmed, "Benedict XVI echoes this consideration. From the beginning of his pontificate he has never missed an opportunity to recall the importance of safeguarding the Christian inheritance, the particular richness of the European continent."

The message called for "defending a human and spiritual heritage that is vital for the authentic development of Europe."

Benedict XVI expressed his wish that the meeting of Together for Europe would "strengthen the desire for communion that animates lay movements and communities of the different churches."

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The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, also sent a message to the meeting, reflecting on the fact that "communion in Christ requires us to stay alert and to work to understand the other: This is why we rejoice over your 'day,' recalling that we must search for man made in the image of God -- far from human designs or ideological or class differences."

According to the patriarch, it is often the human person that tries to make God "in his image."

"To understand man and woman as rational beings made in God's image, we must elevate ourselves from an individualistic love to communion with God, to a serene and personal relationship with him," the patriarch said.

In this way we will break barriers "between nations and ethnic groups and races and we will feel like brothers," added Bartholomew I. "If we search for our Christian roots then our desire will be transformed into a tangible reality!"

The Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, praised the event, saying: "It is not important how many people want to have answers for the troubles of Europe but that many people know that there exists a true hope and a source of renewal beyond our projects and resources."

The meeting Together for Europe 2007 issued a message during the event that spoke of the continual growth in communion between Christian movements and communities.

The message also spoke in favor of life, family, creation, solidarity and dialogue, calling participants to communicate the Gospel of life and peace, and to promote Europe's Christian roots.

Code: ZE07051504

Date: 2007-05-15

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

"Passion for the Truth Truly Guided Him"

VATICAN CITY, MAY 15, 2007, Zenit.org - Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's homily on Augustine's three stages of conversion. He delivered it April 22 during his pastoral visit to Pavia, Italy.

* * *

PASTORAL VISIT TO VIGEVANO AND PAVIA (ITALY)
EUCHARISTIC CONCELEBRATION
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

"Orti Borromaici" Esplanade, Pavia
Third Sunday of Easter, 22 April 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Yesterday afternoon, I met the diocesan Community of Vigevano and the heart of my Pastoral Visit was the Eucharistic concelebration in Piazza Ducale; today, I have the joy of visiting your Diocese and a culminating moment of our encounter is also here at Holy Mass.

I greet with affection my Brothers who are concelebrating with me: Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan, Bishop Giovanni Giudici, Pastor of your Diocese, Bishop emeritus Giovanni Volta, the retired Pastor, and the other Prelates of Lombardy.

I am grateful to the Government Representatives and local Administrations for their presence. I address my cordial greeting to the priests, deacons, Religious, leaders of lay associations, the young people, the sick and all the faithful, and I extend my thoughts to the entire population of this ancient and noble City, and of the Diocese.

During the Easter Season, the Church presents to us, Sunday after Sunday, some passages from the preaching with which, after Easter, the Apostles, particularly Peter, invited Israel to have faith in Jesus Christ, the Risen One, thereby founding the Church.

In today's reading, the Apostles stand before the Sanhedrin -- before that institution which, having sentenced Jesus to death, could not tolerate that this same Jesus was now beginning to be active again through the Apostles' preaching. They could not tolerate that his saving power was once more making itself felt and that his Name was attracting people who believed in him as the promised Redeemer.

They accused the Apostles. Their accusation is: "You want to make us responsible for that man's blood".

Peter, however, reacted to this accusation with a brief catechesis on the essence of Christian faith: "No, we do not want to make you responsible for his blood. The effect of the death and Resurrection of Jesus is quite different. God has exalted him as "'Head and Saviour' of all, and of you, too, his People of Israel". And where will this "Head" lead us? What does this "Saviour" bring?

He leads us, St Peter tells us, to conversion -- creates for us the leeway and opportunity to mend our ways and repent, begin again. And he offers us forgiveness for our sins: he introduces us into the proper relationship with God, hence, into the proper relationship of each individual with himself or herself and with others.

Peter's brief catechesis did not only apply to the Sanhedrin. It speaks to us all, for Jesus, the Risen One, is also alive today. And for all generations, for all men and women, he is the "Head" who shows us the way and the "Saviour" who straightens out our lives.

The two terms: "conversion" and "forgiveness of sins", which correspond to the titles of Christ "Head", archegòs in Greek, and "Saviour", are the key words of Peter's catechesis, words intended to move our hearts too, here and now. And what do they mean?

The path we must take -- the path that Jesus points out to us -- is called "conversion". But what is it? What must we do? In every life conversion has its own form, because every human being is something new and no one is merely a copy of another.

But in the course of history, the Lord has sent us models of conversion to whom we can look to find guidance. We could thus look at Peter himself to whom the Lord said at the Last Supper: "[W]hen you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22: 32).

We could look at Paul as a great convert. The City of Pavia speaks of one of the greatest converts in the history of the Church: St Aurelius Augustine. He died on 28 August in 430 in the port town of Hippo, in Africa, at that time surrounded and besieged by the Vandals.

After the considerable turmoil of a turbulent history, the King of the Longobards acquired Augustine's remains for the City of Pavia so that today they belong to this City in a special way, and, in it and from it, have something special to say to all of us, to humanity, but to all of us here in particular.

In his book, Confessions, Augustine touchingly described the development of his conversion which achieved its goal with Baptism, administered to him by Bishop Ambrose in the Cathedral of Milan. Readers of his Confessions can share in the journey that Augustine had to make in a long inner struggle to receive at last, at the baptismal font on the night before Easter 387, the Sacrament which marked the great turning point in his life.

A careful examination of the course of St Augustine's life enables one to perceive that his conversion was not an event of a single moment but, precisely, a journey. And one can see that this journey did not end at the baptismal font.

Just as prior to his baptism Augustine's life was a journey of conversion, after it too, although differently, his life continued to be a journey of conversion -- until his last illness, when he had the penitential Psalms hung on the walls so that he might have them always before his eyes, and when he excluded himself from receiving the Eucharist in order to go back once again over the path of his repentance and receive salvation from Christ's hands as a gift of God's mercy.

Thus, we can rightly speak of Augustine's "conversions", which actually consisted of one important conversion in his quest for the Face of Christ and then in the journeying on with him.

I would like to mention briefly three important landmarks in this process of conversion, three "conversions".

The first fundamental conversion was the inner march towards Christianity, towards the "yes" of the faith and of Baptism. What was the essential aspect of this journey?

On the one hand, Augustine was a son of his time, deeply conditioned by the customs and passions prevalent then as well as by all the questions and problems that beset any young man. He lived like all the others, yet with a difference: he continued to be a person constantly seeking. He was never satisfied with life as it presented itself and as so many people lived it.

The question of the truth tormented him ceaselessly. He longed to discover truth. He wanted to succeed in knowing what man is; where we ourselves come from, where we are going and how we can find true life.

He desired to find the life that was right and not merely to live blindly, without meaning or purpose.

Passion for truth is the true key phrase of his life. Passion for the truth truly guided him.

There is a further peculiarity: anything that did not bear Christ's Name did not suffice for him. Love for this Name, he tells us, he had tasted from his mother's milk (cf. Confessions, 3, 4, 8). And he always believed -- sometimes rather vaguely, at other times, more clearly -- that God exists and takes care of us (cf. Confessions, 6, 5, 8).

But to truly know this God and to become really familiar with this Jesus Christ and reach the point of saying "yes" to him with all its consequences -- this was the great interior struggle of his youthful years.

St Augustine tells us that through Platonic philosophy he learned and recognized that "in the beginning was the Word" -- the Logos, creative reason. But philosophy, which showed him that the beginning of all things was creative reason, did not show him any path on which to reach it; this Logos remained remote and intangible.

Only through faith in the Church did he later find the second essential truth: the Word, the Logos, was made flesh.

Thus, he touches us and we touch him. The humility of God's Incarnation -- this is the important step -- must be equalled by the humility of our faith, which lays down its self-important pride and bows upon entering the community of Christ's Body; which lives with the Church and through her alone can enter into concrete and bodily communion with the living God.

I do not have to say how deeply all this concerns us: to remain seekers; to refuse to be satisfied with what everyone else says and does; to keep our gaze fixed on the eternal God and on Jesus Christ; to learn the humility of faith in the corporeal Church of Jesus Christ, of the Logos Incarnate.

Augustine described his second conversion at the end of the 10th book of his Confessions with the words: "Terrified by my sins and the pile of my misery, I had racked my heart and had meditated, taking flight to live in solitude. But you forbade me and comforted me, saying: "That is why Christ died for all, so that those who live should not live for themselves, but for him who died for them' (2 Corinthians 5:15)"; Confessions, 10, 43, 70).

What had happened? After his baptism, Augustine had decided to return to Africa and with some of his friends had founded a small monastery there. His life was then to be totally dedicated to conversation with God and reflection on and contemplation of the beauty and truth of his Word.

Thus, he spent three happy years in which he believed he had achieved the goal of his life; in that period, a series of valuable philosophical and theological works came into being.

In 391, four years after his baptism, he went to the port town of Hippo to meet a friend whom he desired to win over for his monastery. But he was recognized at the Sunday liturgy in the cathedral in which he took part.

It was not by chance that the Bishop of the city, a man of Greek origin who was not fluent in Latin and found preaching rather a struggle, said in his homily that he was hoping to find a priest to whom he could entrust the task of preaching.

People instantly grabbed hold of Augustine and forced him forward to be ordained a priest to serve the city.

Immediately after his forced ordination, Augustine wrote to Bishop Valerius: "I was constrained ... to accept second place at the helm, when as yet I knew not how to handle an oar. ... And from this derived the tears which some of my brethren perceived me shedding in the city at the time of my ordination" (cf. Letter 21, 1ff.).

Augustine's beautiful dream of a contemplative life had vanished. As a result, his life had fundamentally changed. He could now no longer dedicate himself solely to meditation in solitude. He had to live with Christ for everyone. He had to express his sublime knowledge and thoughts in the thoughts and language of the simple people in his city. The great philosophical work of an entire lifetime, of which he had dreamed, was to remain unwritten.

Instead, however, we have been given something far more precious: the Gospel translated into the language of everyday life and of his sufferings.

These were now part of his daily life, which he described as the following: "reprimanding the undisciplined, comforting the faint-hearted, supporting the weak, refuting opponents ... encouraging the negligent, soothing the quarrelsome, helping the needy, liberating the oppressed, expressing approval to the good, tolerating the wicked and loving all" (Sermon 340, 3).

"Continuously preaching, arguing, rebuking, building God's house, having to manage for everyone -- who would not shrink from such a heavy burden?" (Sermon 339, 4).

This was the second conversion which this man, struggling and suffering, was constantly obliged to make: to be available to everyone, time and again, and not for his own perfection; time and again, to lay down his life with Christ so that others might find him, true Life.

Further, there was a third, decisive phase in the journey of conversion of St Augustine. After his Ordination to the priesthood he had requested a vacation period to study the Sacred Scriptures in greater detail.

His first series of homilies, after this pause for reflection, were on the Sermon on the Mount; he explained the way to an upright life, "the perfect life", pointed out by Christ in a new way. He presented it as a pilgrimage to the holy mountain of the Word of God. In these homilies it is possible to further perceive all the enthusiasm of faith newly discovered and lived; his firm conviction that the baptized, in living totally in accordance with Christ's message, can precisely be "perfect" in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount.

Approximately 20 years later, Augustine wrote a book called the Retractations, in which he critically reviewed all the works he had thus far written, adding corrections wherever he had in the meantime learned something new.

With regard to the ideal of perfection in his homilies on the Sermon on the Mount, he noted: "In the meantime, I have understood that one alone is truly perfect and that the words of the Sermon on the Mount are totally fulfilled in one alone: Jesus Christ himself.

"The whole Church, on the other hand -- all of us, including the Apostles -- must pray every day: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" (cf. Retract. I 19, 1-3).

Augustine had learned a further degree of humility -- not only the humility of integrating his great thought into the humble faith of the Church, not only the humility of translating his great knowledge into the simplicity of announcement, but also the humility of recognizing that he himself and the entire pilgrim Church needed and continually need the merciful goodness of a God who forgives every day.

And we, he added, liken ourselves to Christ, the only Perfect One, to the greatest possible extent when we become, like him, people of mercy.

Let us now thank God for the great light that shines out from St Augustine's wisdom and humility and pray the Lord to give to us all, day after day, the conversion we need, and thus lead us toward true life. Amen.

© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Code: ZE07051509

Date: 2007-05-15

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Commentary by Father Raniero Cantalamessa

VATICAN CITY, MAY 15, 2007, Zenit.org - Here is a translation of the Italian-language commentary by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, on the book "Inchiesta su Gesù" (An Investigation on Jesus) by Corrado Augias and Mauro Pesce.

Part 1 appeared Monday. Part 3 will appear Wednesday.

* * *

3. Jesus: a Jew, a Christian, or both?

I come now to the main thing which our authors share. Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian; he had no intention of founding a new religion; he understood himself to be sent only to the Jews and not to the pagans; "Jesus is much closer to the religious Jews of today than to Christian priests"; Christianity was "born only in the second half of the second century."

How can the last claim be reconciled with the report from Acts 11:26, according to which, no more than seven years after Christ's death, around 37 A.D., "at Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians"? Pliny the Younger (hardly a suspicious source!), between 111 and 113 speaks repeatedly of "Christians," and describes their life, their worship, and their faith in Christ "as in a God."

Around the same time, Ignatius of Antioch at least five times speaks of Christianity as distinct from Judaism. He writes: "It was not Christianity that believed in Judaism, but Judaism that believed in Christianity" (Letter to the Magnesians, 10, 3). In Ignatius, that is, at the beginning of the second century, we find that not only the names "Christian" and "Christianity" are attested to, but also the content of these names: faith in the complete humanity and divinity of Christ, the hierarchical structure of the Church (bishops, priests, and deacons), and even a first clear hint of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, "called to preside in charity."

Before the name "Christian" became standard usage, the disciples were conscious of their own identity and expressed it in terms like "the believers in Christ," "those of the way," or "those who invoke the name of the Lord Jesus."

But among the claims of the two authors which I have just mentioned there is one that deserves to be taken seriously and considered on its own. "Jesus did not intend to found a new religion. He was and remained a Jew." Quite true. In fact neither does the Church, strictly speaking, consider Christianity a "new" religion. She considers herself together with Israel -- there was a time when it was mistakenly said "in the place of Israel" -- the heir of the monotheistic religion of the Old Testament, worshippers of the same God of "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." (After the Second Vatican Council, the dialogue with Judaism was not carried on by the curial office that dealt with dialogue with other religions but by the one that concerned itself with unity among Christians!)

The New Testament is not an absolute beginning, it is the "fulfillment" (the fundamental category) of the old. Besides, no religion was started because someone intended to "start" it. Did Moses intend to found the religion of Israel, or Buddha Buddhism? Religions are born and only afterward become aware of themselves among those who have gathered up the teaching of the master and have made it a rule of life. To say that Christ was not a Christian is as evident and as misleading a statement as saying that Hegel was not a Hegelian, nor Buddha a Buddhist. Nobody can be a follower of himself.

But once this clarification is made, can it be said that in the Gospels there is nothing that makes us think that Jesus did have the conviction that he was the bearer of a new message? And what about his antitheses -- "You have heard it said that ... but I tell you that ..." -- with which he reinterprets even the Decalogue and puts himself on a level with Moses? They fill up an entire section of the Gospel of Matthew (5:21-48), that is, the same evangelist whom are authors claim wanted to affirm Christ's pure Jewishness!

4. Did he come for the Jews, the Pagans, or for both?

Did Jesus intend to establish his community and foresee that his life and teaching would have a continuation? The indisputable fact of the choosing of the Twelve Apostles seems to indicate precisely this. Even if we leave aside the great commission -- "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature" -- (someone could attribute this command, in its formulation, to the post-Easter community), all those parables whose original core contains the idea of an expansion toward the Gentiles can only imply that Jesus had in mind a future for his community. One thinks of the parables of the murderous vinedressers, the workers in the vineyard, the saying about the last being first, of the many who "will come from the east and west to sit at the feast with Abraham," while the others will be excluded, and countless other sayings.

True, during his life Jesus did not leave the land of Israel, except for an occasional foray into the pagan territories in the North. This is explained by his conviction that he was sent above all to Israel to bring her, once converted, to embrace all the Gentiles, following the universalistic vision proclaimed by the prophets. It is curious: There is a whole school of modern Jewish thought (F. Rosenzweig, H.J. Schoeps, W. Herberg) that holds that Jesus did not come for the Jews but only for the Gentiles; instead, according to Augias and Pesce, he came only for the Jews and not for the Gentiles.

Pesce deserves credit for not denying the institution of the Eucharist as a historical fact and for recognizing its importance for the early community. Here is one of the places where what we said at the beginning of the article about the problem of taking account only of the differences, and not of the convergences, has particular relevance. The three Synoptics and Paul all attest to the fact of the institution and almost with the same words. But for Augias this counts less than the fact that John's Gospel is silent about the institution and that in reporting it, Matthew and Mark have "This is my blood," while Paul and Luke have "This is the chalice of the new covenant in my blood."

Christ's words "Do this in memory of me," pronounced on such an occasion recalls Exodus 12:14 and discloses his intention to give new content to the paschal "memorial." It is not for nothing that very soon Paul will speak of "our Paschal Lamb" (1 Corinthians 5:7) distinct from that of the Jews. If to the Eucharist and to Passover we add the incontestable fact of the existence of a Christian baptism immediately after Easter which progressively substituted circumcision, we have, if not a new religion, a new way of living the religion of Israel.

In regard to the canon of the Scriptures, Pesce rightly affirms (p. 16) that the definitive list of the present 27 books of the New Testament was determined only with Athanasius in 367, but we must not be silent about the fact that its essential nucleus, composed of the four Gospels along with the thirteen Pauline epistles, is much more ancient; it was formed around the year 130 and at the end of the second century it already enjoyed the same authority as the Old Testament (cf. the "Muratorian Fragment").

Augias and Pesce say that "even Paul, like Jesus, is not a Christian but a Jew who remains in Judaism." This also is true. Does he himself not say: "Are they Jews? So am I! Indeed, more than them!" But this does no more than confirm what has just been revealed about the faith in Christ as "fulfillment" of the law.

On one hand Paul feels himself to be in the very heart of Israel (of the "remnant of Israel" he himself makes clear); on the other hand he distances himself from her (from the Judaism of his time) by his attitude toward the law and his doctrine of justification by grace. It would be interesting to hear what the Jews themselves think of the thesis of a Paul who is "Jewish and not Christian."

[The final part of this commentary will appear Wednesday.]

Code: ZE07051519

Date: 2007-05-15

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

ROME, MAY 15, 2007, Zenit.org - The superiors-general of women religious communities completed their plenary assembly meeting in Rome with a statement that underlines their role in building up God's kingdom.

The May 6-10 meeting of the International Union of Superiors-General included an audience with Benedict XVI.

Some 800 superiors-general gathered to address challenges and established new directives.

The final declaration stated: "Our passion for Jesus Christ, for humanity and for creation urges us to become weavers of hope and life. … The awareness of the link between all the forms of religious life invites us to deepen our understanding of consecrated life today."

The superiors-general called for "constant dialogue with the word of God and with life, the heart of our task as women religious in following Christ."

"Like Mary," they said, "we will become weavers of the reign of God. Let us be provoked, converting our hearts and our mentalities. ... Let us weave, untiringly, a spirituality of communion from which will flow hope and life for humanity and for all of creation."

Some 1,996 religious communities belong to UISG, representing more than 800,000 women religious in the world.

Code: ZE07051515

Date: 2007-05-15

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Says Event Must Be Integrated into Life of Church

SYDNEY, Australia, MAY 15, 2007, Zenit.org - The real challenge of World Youth Day isn't in the logistics, but rather in integrating the event into the life of the Church, said the apostolic nuncio to Australia.

Archbishop Ambrose De Paoli said this in his address at the opening of the recent Australian bishops' conference plenary meeting in Sydney.

The nuncio noted that preparations for the event are well under way: "No one harbors any doubt as to the quality of the Australian welcome, which will be extended to the Holy Father, to other Church dignitaries, to the young people and others who come.

"But the nature of the event, a religious one, a special encounter of the young through the Church with the Jesus who came to give us life and life more abundantly, requires something more."

Archbishop De Paoli said that perhaps the most important part of any World Youth Day is the work of integrating the experience into the life of the Church.

The nuncio reminded the bishops: "As Church leaders, you will have to live in its aftermath, which will come to rest on your doorsteps as principal caretakers of the faith.

"It will offer a golden opportunity to look in upon yourselves, a mirror of the Catholicism in general of which you are the principal caretakers, but in particular as it relates to the young."

Code: ZE07051511

Date: 2007-05-15