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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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VATICAN CITY, APR 4, 2007 (VIS) - In today's general audience, held in St. Peter's Square, the Pope spoke on the Easter Triduum which begins tomorrow.
"What we are celebrating over the coming days," he said, "is the supreme confrontation between Light and Darkness, between Life and Death. We too must place ourselves in this context - aware of our own night, our own sins, our own responsibilities - if we wish to gain spiritual benefit from reliving the Paschal Mystery, which is the heart of our faith."
The Holy Father recalled how on Holy Thursday, during the Chrism Mass, diocesan bishops and priests "renew the promises they made on the day of their priestly ordination," and "the oils used for catechumens, to anoint the sick and for confirmation" are blessed. During Mass "in Cena Domini" the Christian community relives "the events of the Last Supper. In the Cencacle, the Redeemer wished, in the Sacrament of the bread and wine transformed into His Body and Blood, to anticipate the sacrifice of His life, His definitive gift of self to humanity."
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VATICAN CITY, APR 4, 2007 (VIS) - In the Vatican's Synod Hall at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 13, the presentation will take place of the book by Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, "Jesus of Nazareth." The volume will be on sale in bookshops from Monday, April 16 in its Italian, German and Polish editions, published respectively by: Rizzoli, Herder and Wydawnictwo M.
Participating in the presentation will be Cardinal Christoph Schonborn O.P., archbishop of Vienna, Austria; Daniele Garrone, dean of the Waldensian faculty of theology in Rome; and Massimo Cacciari, professor of aesthetics at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy. The conference will be presented by Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office.
OP/BOOK BENEDICT XVI/... VIS 070404 (130)
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MELBOURNE, Australia, APRIL 4, 2007 (Zenit.org).- John Billings, a pioneer in natural family planning whose research spanned a half-century, died late Sunday. He was 89.
The Australian-born doctor and his wife, Evelyn, began work in 1953 on their natural family planning system at the invitation of the Catholic Marriage Guidance Bureau.
Marian Corkill, director of the Ovulation Method Research and Reference Centre of Australia, said, "He changed the understanding of fertility though the work that he has done."
The Billings Method has been effective in assisting couples both to avoid and achieve pregnancy, especially for those who had been considered infertile, through an enhanced understanding of women's ovulation cycle.
"Most notably in the past decade, the Billings Ovulation Method has been successfully introduced into China, where it is now the only government-approved method of natural family planning," Corkill said in a statement.
Billings is survived by his wife and eight of their nine children.
Code: ZE07040414
Date: 2007-04-04
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Moscow, Apr. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Catholics in Russia are not pressing for an early meeting between Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) and Moscow's Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, according to the general secretary of the Russian Catholic bishops' conference.
Father Irog Kowalewski, writing in the <.i>NG-Religii journal, reported that a summit meeting between the two prelates "is not viewed as present as a strategic task in Orthodox-Catholic dialogue," the Interfax news service reports.
The Church spokesman said that Catholic and Orthodox leaders in Russia are agreed that the immediate task for ecumenical work is to build up strong relations at the local level, rather than to plan for a high-profile meeting. While the media often focus on the prospects for a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch, he said, quiet work at the local level is more important to "overcome the atmosphere of mutual suspicions, stereotyped think, and sometimes even open animosity."
If those problems can be solved by Catholic and Orthodox parishioners inside Russia, Father Kowalewski said, the results will create new opportunities for more visible progress-- including perhaps a summit meeting. But he cautioned: "Fast results are not to be expected."
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VATICAN CITY, APRIL 3, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's March 16 address to participants in a course on the internal forum.
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ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE COURSE ON THE INTERNAL FORUM PROMOTED BY THE APOSTOLIC PENITENTIARY
Clementine Hall
Friday, 16 March 2007
Your Eminence,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the priesthood,
I welcome you today and address my cordial greeting to each one of you, participants in the Course on the Internal Forum organized by the Apostolic Penitentiary.
In the first place I greet Cardinal James Francis Stafford, Major Penitentiary, who I thank for the kind words he addressed to me, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, Regent of the Penitentiary, and all those present.
Today's meeting also offers me the opportunity to reflect together with you on the importance in our day of the Sacrament of Penance and to repeat the necessity for priests to prepare themselves to administer it with devotion and fidelity to the praise of God and for the sanctification of the Christian people, as they promise to their Bishop on the day of their priestly ordination.
In fact, it is one of the qualifying duties of the special ministry that they are called to exercise "in persona Christi". With the gestures and sacramental words the priest above all makes God's love visible, which was revealed fully in Christ.
In the administration of the Sacrament of Pardon and of Reconciliation, the priest -- as the Catechism of the Catholic Church recalls -- acts as "the sign and the instrument of God's merciful love for the sinner" (n. 1465). What takes place in this Sacrament, therefore, is especially a mystery of love, a work of the merciful love of the Lord.
"God is love" (I Jn 4:16): in this simple affirmation the Evangelist John has enclosed the revelation of the entire mystery of the Triune God. And in meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus, foretelling his passion and death on the Cross, affirms: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16).
We all need to draw from the inexhaustible fountain of divine love, which is totally manifested to us in the mystery of the Cross, in order to find authentic peace with God, with ourselves and with our neighbour. Only from this spiritual source is it possible to draw the indispensable interior energy to overcome the evil and sin in the ceaseless battle that marks our earthly pilgrimage toward the heavenly homeland.
The contemporary world continues to present contradictions so clearly outlined by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council (cf. Gaudium et Spes, nn. 4-10): we see a humanity that would like to be self-sufficient, where more than a few consider it almost possible to do without God in order to live well; and yet how many seem sadly condemned to face the dramatic situations of an empty existence, how much violence there still is on the earth, how much solitude weighs on the soul of the humanity of the communications era!
In a word, it seems that today there is even loss of the "sense of sin", but in compensation the "guilt complex" has increased.
Who can free the heart of humankind from this yoke of death if not the One who by dying overcame for ever the power of evil with the omnipotence of divine love?
As St Paul reminded the Christians of Ephesus: "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" (Eph 2:4).
The priest in the Sacrament of Confession is the instrument of this merciful love of God, whom he invokes in the formula of the absolution of sins: "God, the Father of mercies, through the death and Resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace".
The New Testament speaks on every page of God's love and mercy, which are made visible in Christ. Jesus, in fact, who "receives sinners and eats with them" (Lk 15:2), and with authority affirms: "Man, your sins are forgiven you" (Lk 5:20), says: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Lk 5:31-32).
The duty of the priest and the confessor is primarily this: to bring every person to experience the love of Christ, encountering him on the path of their own lives as Paul met him on the road to Damascus. We know the impassioned declaration of the Apostle to the Gentiles after that meeting which changed his life: "[he] loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20).
This is his personal experience on the way to Damascus: the Lord Jesus loved Paul and gave himself for him. And in Confession this is also our way, our way to Damascus, our experience: Jesus has loved me and has given himself for me.
May every person have this same spiritual experience and, as the Servant of God John Paul II said, rediscover "Christ as mysterium pietatis, the one in whom God shows us his compassionate heart and reconciles us fully with himself. It is this face of Christ that must be rediscovered through the Sacrament of Penance" (John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 37).
The priest, minister of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, must always consider it his duty to make transpire, in words and in drawing near to the penitent, the merciful love of God. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, to welcome the penitent sinner, to help him rise again from sin, to encourage him to amend himself, never making pacts with evil but always taking up again the way of evangelical perfection. May this beautiful experience of the prodigal son, who finds the fullness of divine mercy in the father, be the experience of whoever confesses in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Dear brothers, all this means that the priest engaged in the ministry of the Sacrament of Penance is himself motivated by a constant tending to holiness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church aims high in this demand when it affirms: "The confessor... should have a proven knowledge of Christian behaviour, experience of human affairs, respect and sensitivity toward the one who has fallen; he must love the truth, be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and lead the penitent with patience toward healing and full maturity. He must pray and do penance for his penitent, entrusting him to the Lord's mercy" (n. 1466).
To be able to fulfil this important mission, always interiorly united to the Lord, the priest must be faithful to the Church's Magisterium concerning moral doctrine, aware that the law of good and evil is not determined by the situation, but by God.
I ask the Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, to sustain the ministry of priest confessors and to help every Christian community to understand ever more the value and importance of the Sacrament of Penance for the spiritual growth of every one of the faithful. To you present here and to the people dear to you, I impart my Blessing with affection.
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Code: ZE07040329
Date: 2007-04-03
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DOHA, Qatar, APRIL 3, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The construction of the first Catholic church to be built in Qatar since the seventh century is set for completion by year-end.
The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary will stand in the south of the capital city, which overlooks the Persian Gulf.
According to the future pastor, Father Tom Veneration, there are more than 100,000 Catholics in Qatar, all of them foreigners since the government grants freedom of religion to Christians, but prevents conversions, AsiaNews reported.
"We grow in number each year," the priest said, "but we cannot do any type of apostolate."
Qatar and the Holy See re-established diplomatic relations in 2002, an agreement which foresaw granting land to Christian communities.
"After over 20 years of making formal requests to the authorities, the government has finally granted the Christian confessions land to build their own places of worship," Father Veneration said. "The Catholic community was given the largest piece of land, because our presence here goes back down the centuries and also because our community is the largest."
The priest, who has been working in Doha for three years, is originally from the Philippines.
"Up till now," he said, "we have been gathering to pray in our homes. … Together with all the Catholics who live here, I am really delighted at the idea that soon we will be able to celebrate Mass in a true church, sign of our presence in this land."
Qatar has a domestic population of about 885,000, of whom 95% are Muslims.
AsiaNews explained that for almost 14 centuries Qatar's government opposed the construction of Christian churches under pressure from the Wahhabi, a puritanical Muslim sect, who compose a majority in the country
Code: ZE07040313
Date: 2007-04-03