Papal Address to Seminary of Diocese of Rome

"Faith Has Its Own Intellectual and Rational Dimension That Is Essential"


VATICAN CITY, JAN. 20, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today to the community from a seminary of the Diocese of Rome, the Almo Collegio Capranica, for the feast of St. Agnes, patron of the college.

Almo Collegio Capranica

Cardinal Martino

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Msgr. Ermenegildo Manicardi

Your Eminence, Your Excellency, Dear Brothers! It is always a joy for me to meet the community of the Almo Collegio Capranica, which for over five centuries has been one of the seminaries of the Diocese of Rome. I greet you all with affection, and of course in particular Cardinal Martino and the rector, Msgr. Ermenegildo Manicardi. And I thank your Eminence for the kind words. On the occasion of the feast of St. Agnes, patroness of the College, I would like to offer some reflections that her figure suggest to me.

Skull of St. Agnes

St. Agnes is one of the famous Roman maidens, who illustrated the genuine beauty of faith in Christ and friendship with Him. Her dual status as Virgin and Martyr reflect the fullness of holiness's dimensions. This is a fulness of holiness that is requested also of you by your Christian faith and the special priestly vocation with which the Lord has called you and binds you to Him. Martyrdom, for St Agnes, meant the generous and free acceptance of giving her own young life, in its entirety and without reservation, that the Gospel might be preached as truth and beauty that illuminate life. In the martyrdom of Agnes, received courageously in the stadium of Domitian, there shines forever the beauty of belonging to Christ without hesitation, relying on Him. Even today, for anyone who steps into Piazza Navona, the effigy of the saint from atop the gable of the church of St. Agnes in Agony, reminds him that our city is based also on the friendship with Christ and witness to his Gospel, of many of its sons and daughters. Their generous surrender to Him and to the good of their brothers is a primary component of the spiritual physiognomy of Rome.

In martyrdom, Agnes also seals the other crucial element of her life, virginity for Christ and for the Church. The total gift of martyrdom is prepared, in fact, by the conscious, free and mature choice of virginity, a witness to the will to belong totally to Christ. If martyrdom is a final heroic act, virginity is the result of a long friendship with Jesus that has matured in the constant hearing of His Word, in the dialogue of prayer, in the Eucharistic encounter. Agnes, still young, learned that being a disciple of the Lord means loving Him by putting all her life at His disposal. This dual qualification -- Virgin and Martyr -- calls to mind in our reflection that a credible witness of the faith must be a person who lives for Christ, with Christ and in Christ, transforming their lives according to the higher needs of Grace.

The formation of the priest, too, requires integrity, completeness, ascetic exercise, heroic constancy and fidelity in all the aspects that constitute it; deep down there should be a solid spiritual life animated by an intense relationship with God on the personal and community level, with particular care shown in liturgical celebrations and the frequenting of the Sacraments. The priestly life requires a growing desire for holiness, a clear sensus Ecclesiae and an openness to a fraternity without exclusions or partiality. The path of holiness of the priest forms part also of his choice to develop, with the help of God, his intelligence and his own commitment, a real strong personal culture, fruit of passionate and constant study. Faith has its own intellectual and rational dimension that is essential. For a seminarian and a young priest still struggling with academic study, it means assimilating the synthesis between faith and reason that is peculiar to Christianity. The Word of God became flesh, and the priest, the true priest of the Incarnate Word, must become more transparent, luminous and profound, to the eternal Word which is given to us. He who is mature also in this, his global cultural training, can be a more effective educator and promoter of that worship "in spirit and truth" of which Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:23). Such adoration, which is formed by listening to the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, is called to become, especially in the Liturgy, the "rationabile obsequium" of which the Apostle Paul speaks, a cult in which the man himself in his totality as a being endowed with reason, becomes adoration, glorification of the living God, and that can be achieved not by conforming to this world but being transformed by Christ, renewing the way we think, to discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).

Dear students of the Capranica College, your commitment to the path of holiness, also with a solid cultural background, is the original intention of this institution, founded 555 years ago by Cardinal Domenico Capranica. Always have a deep sense of history and tradition of the Church! Being in Rome is a gift which should make you especially sensitive to the depth of the Catholic tradition. You touch it with your hands already in the history of the building that houses you. In addition, you live these years of training in a special closeness with the Successor of Peter, which enables you to perceive with particular clarity the size of the universal Church and the desire that the Gospel may reach all peoples. Here you have the opportunity to broaden your horizons with experiences of internationality; here, above all, you breathe Catholicism. Take advantage of what is offered, for future service to the Diocese of Rome, or your dioceses of origin! By friendship, which springs from living together, learn about the different situations of the nations and Churches around the world and learn to form in yourselves a Catholic view. Prepare yourselves to be close to every person you meet, not allowing any culture to be a barrier to the Word of life, which you proclaim also with your life.

Dear friends, the Church expects much from the young priests in the work of evangelization and new evangelization. I encourage you so that in the daily fatigue, rooted in the beauty of authentic tradition, deeply united to Christ, you are able to bring it into your communities with truth and joy. With the intercession of Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, and Mary Most Holy, Star of the Evangelization, may your commitment today contribute to the fruitfulness of your ministry. I cordially impart to you and your loved ones my Apostolic Blessing. Thank you.
 

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Benedict XVI's Address to US Bishops on 'Ad Limina' Visit

"The Legitimate Separation of Church and State Cannot Be Taken to Mean That the Church Must Be Silent"

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 19, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of the address Benedict XVI gave today to the bishops of Washington, D.C., and surrounding regions, who are at the Vatican for their "ad limina" visit.

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Dear Brother Bishops,

I greet all of you with fraternal affection and I pray that this pilgrimage of spiritual renewal and deepened communion will confirm you in faith and commitment to your task as Pastors of the Church in the United States of America. As you know, it is my intention in the course of this year to reflect with you on some of the spiritual and cultural challenges of the new evangelization.

One of the most memorable aspects of my Pastoral Visit to the United States was the opportunity it afforded me to reflect on America’s historical experience of religious freedom, and specifically the relationship between religion and culture. At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.

For her part, the Church in the United States is called, in season and out of season, to proclaim a Gospel which not only proposes unchanging moral truths but proposes them precisely as the key to human happiness and social prospering (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 10). To the extent that some current cultural trends contain elements that would curtail the proclamation of these truths, whether constricting it within the limits of a merely scientific rationality, or suppressing it in the name of political power or majority rule, they represent a threat not just to Christian faith, but also to humanity itself and to the deepest truth about our being and ultimate vocation, our relationship to God. When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society.

With her long tradition of respect for the right relationship between faith and reason, the Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of an extreme individualism, seek to promote notions of freedom detached from moral truth. Our tradition does not speak from blind faith, but from a rational perspective which links our commitment to building an authentically just, humane and prosperous society to our ultimate assurance that the cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning. The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a "language" which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being, and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for building a secure future.

The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.

In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society. The preparation of committed lay leaders and the presentation of a convincing articulation of the Christian vision of man and society remain a primary task of the Church in your country; as essential components of the new evangelization, these concerns must shape the vision and goals of catechetical programs at every level.

In this regard, I would mention with appreciation your efforts to maintain contacts with Catholics involved in political life and to help them understand their personal responsibility to offer public witness to their faith, especially with regard to the great moral issues of our time: respect for God’s gift of life, the protection of human dignity and the promotion of authentic human rights. As the Council noted, and I wished to reiterate during my Pastoral Visit, respect for the just autonomy of the secular sphere must also take into consideration the truth that there is no realm of worldly affairs which can be withdrawn from the Creator and his dominion (cfr. Gaudium et Spes, 36). There can be no doubt that a more consistent witness on the part of America’s Catholics to their deepest convictions would make a major contribution to the renewal of society as a whole.

Dear Brother Bishops, in these brief remarks I have wished to touch upon some of the pressing issues which you face in your service to the Gospel and their significance for the evangelization of American culture. No one who looks at these issues realistically can ignore the genuine difficulties which the Church encounters at the present moment. Yet in faith we can take heart from the growing awareness of the need to preserve a civil order clearly rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as from the promise offered by a new generation of Catholics whose experience and convictions will have a decisive role in renewing the Church’s presence and witness in American society. The hope which these "signs of the times" give us is itself a reason to renew our efforts to mobilize the intellectual and moral resources of the entire Catholic community in the service of the evangelization of American culture and the building of the civilization of love. With great affection I commend all of you, and the flock entrusted to your care, to the prayers of Mary, Mother of Hope, and cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of grace and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

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