Over the past weekend, the Pope, of course, delivered his Angelus address.
Earlier in the day, he had consecrated a new church in Rome – Holy Mary Star of Evangelization, in the Torrino neighborhood. None of the words he spoke there are available in English translation yet, I don’t think, but here’s the Zenit report:
The Holy Father spoke about the meaning of a sacred building as a house of God and house of men, and did so by referring to the rebuilding of the People of Israel, of the holy city of Jerusalem and the Temple after the return from exile.
An external reconstruction cannot progress "unless the people as such are reconstructed first, if there is no operative common criterion of justice that unites all," Benedict XVI explained.
"True justice cannot be invented by man; instead, it must be rediscovered," he said. "It must come from God, who is justice" and, it is "the holy Word of God … [that] indicates to people the path of justice."
"The Word of God is always force of renewal that gives meaning and order to our time," the Pope added.
From the above is also distilled the meaning of "church building": It exists "so that the Word of God can be heard, explained and understood among us; it exists so that the Word of God can work in us as force that creates justice and love," the Holy Father said.
"It exists, in particular, so that the celebration can begin in which God wills the whole of humanity to participate, not only at the end of time but beginning now," he added. "It exists to awaken in us knowledge of what is just and good, and there is no other source to know and strengthen this knowledge of the just and good other than the Word of God.
"The building exists, therefore, so that we will learn to live the joy of the Lord, who is our strength. And we pray to the Lord so that he will make us happy in his Word. … We pray to the Lord to make us happy in the faith so that this joy will renew us and the world!"
"Without the Word of God there is no community," the Pope said. "The Word of God is not just a discourse but leads to construction; it is a Word that builds."
He continued: "The Word of God is not just a word. In Jesus Christ it is present in our midst as Person," and the latter "is the most profound objective of this sacred building’s existence: The church exists because in it we encounter Christ, the Son of the living God."
"God has a face, … a name," Benedict XVI affirmed. "In Christ, he has become flesh and gives himself to us in the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist. The Word is flesh. He gives himself to us under the appearance of bread and is thus transformed into the Bread from which we live.
"We people live from the Truth. This Truth is a Person: He speaks to us and we speak to him. The church is the place of encounter with the Son of the living God and so the place of meeting among ourselves.
"This is the joy God gives us: that he became one of us, that we can almost touch him and that he lives with us. The joy of God is really our strength."
In addition, on that occasion, the Pope had some special words for the children of the parish, particularly those preparing for First Communion and Confirmation. A run through the creative translating stylings of Babelfish (which "translated" natale consistently as "NATO.") tells me that Benedict continued with the house theme, encouraging the children to think of their souls as houses which will be receiving the great gift of the Person of Jesus, and just as is the case when we receive any guest into our homes, we want to prepare the home of our souls and our lives to receive Jesus.
On Saturday, he spoke to the gathering of the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists.
Here is a link to the Vatican Radio report.
The concept of secularity, said the Holy Father in his address to the group, originally referred to "the condition of simple faithful Christian, not belonging to the clergy or the religious state. During the Middle Ages it acquired the meaning of opposition between civil authorities and ecclesial hierarchies, and in modern times it has assumed the significance of the exclusion of religion and its symbols from public life by confining them to the private sphere and the individual conscience. In this way, the term secularity has acquired an ideological meaning quite opposite to the one it originally held."
Secularity today, then, "is understood as a total separation between State and Church, the latter not having any right to intervene in questions concerning the life and behavior of citizens. And such secularity even involves the exclusion of religious symbols from public places." In accordance with this definition, the Pope continued, "today we hear talk of secular thought, secular morals, secular science, secular politics. In fact, at the root of such a concept, is an a-religious view of life, thought and morals; that is, a view in which there is no place for God, for a Mystery that transcends pure reason, for a moral law of absolute value that is valid in all times and situations."
The Holy Father underlined the need "to create a concept of secularity that, on the one hand, grants God and His moral law, Christ and His Church, their just place in human life at both an individual and a social level, and on the other hand affirms and respects the ‘legitimate autonomy of earthly affairs’."
The Church, the Pope reiterated, cannot intervene in politics, because that would "constitute undue interference." However, "’healthy secularity’ means that the State does not consider religion merely as an individual sentiment that can be confined to the private sphere." Rather, it must be "recognized as a … public presence. This means that all religious confessions (so long as they do not contrast the moral order and are not dangerous to public order) are guaranteed free exercise of their acts of worship."
Hostility against "any form of political or cultural relevance of religion," and in particular against "any kind of religious symbol in public institutions" is a degenerated form of secularity, said the Holy Father, as is "refusing the Christian community, and those who legitimately represent it, the right to pronounce on the moral problems that today appeal to the conscience of all human beings, particularly of legislators.
"This," he added, "does not constitute undue interference of the Church in legislative activity, which is the exclusive competence of the State, but the affirmation and the defense of those great values that give meaning to people’s lives and safeguard their dignity. These values, even before being Christian, are human, and therefore cannot leave the Church silent and indifferent, when she has the duty firmly to proclaim the truth about man and his destiny."
The Pope concluded by highlighting the need "to bring people to understand that the moral law God gave us – and that expresses itself in us through the voice of conscience – has the aim not of oppressing us but of freeing us from evil and of making us happy. We must show that without God man is lost, and that the exclusion of religion from social life, and in particular the marginalization of Christianity, undermines the very foundations of human coexistence. Such foundations, indeed, before being of the social and political order, belong to the moral order."
In his speech, the pope synthesized a theme that has become a cornerstone of his pontificate: that modern societies are drifting toward an ideological form of secularism that excludes God and moral law and relegates religion to the realm of the individual conscience.
In this narrow vision, he said, the separation between church and state is understood as prohibiting the church from making its views known on moral issues.
Finally, today, Pope Benedict’s message for the World Day of Peace was presented. The title is "The Human Person, the Heart of Peace." The conclusion:
16. Finally, I wish to make an urgent appeal to the People of God: let every Christian be committed to tireless peace-making and strenuous defence of the dignity of the human person and his inalienable rights.
With gratitude to the Lord for having called him to belong to his Church, which is “the sign and safeguard of the transcendental dimension of the human person”(9) in the world, the Christian will tirelessly implore from God the fundamental good of peace, which is of such primary importance in the life of each person. Moreover, he will be proud to serve the cause of peace with generous devotion, offering help to his brothers and sisters, especially those who, in addition to suffering poverty and need, are also deprived of this precious good. Jesus has revealed to us that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8) and that the highest vocation of every person is love. In Christ we can find the ultimate reason for becoming staunch champions of human dignity and courageous builders of peace.
17. Let every believer, then, unfailingly contribute to the advancement of a true integral humanism in accordance with the teachings of the Encyclical Letters Populorum Progressio and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, whose respective fortieth and twentieth anniversaries we prepare to celebrate this year. To the Queen of Peace, the Mother of Jesus Christ “our peace” (Eph 2:14), I entrust my urgent prayer for all humanity at the beginning of the year 2007, to which we look with hearts full of hope, notwithstanding the dangers and difficulties that surround us. May Mary show us, in her Son, the Way of peace, and enlighten our vision, so that we can recognize Christ’s face in the face of every human person, the heart of peace!
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