Launching the Year of Faith: Monsignor Graham Bell
(Vatican Radio) – Vatican Radio’s Veronica Scarisbrick spoke to the Under Secretary
of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation , Monsignor Graham
Bell about the forthcoming Year of Faith shortly after the project was launched in
the Vatican’s Press Office on Thursday 21st of June.
Also presented
on this occasion were the web site (www. annusfidei.va ) , the logo and the official
hymn which goes by the title of ‘Credo Domine , aduage nobis fidem’, relating to
this special year.
A year called for by Benedict XVI in an effort to mark
in a special way both the 50th anniversary of the opening session of the
Second Vatican Council on the 11th October 1962 as well as the 20th
anniversary of the presentation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
One
first announced by the Pope on the 17th October 2011 when he issued the
Apostolic Letter 'Porta Fidei’, or Door of Faith in which he writes : “Faith grows
when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as
an experience of grace and joy”. Going on to explain how the main focus of this year
will be on the figure of Jesus Christ .
The Holy Father has expressed the
hope the occasion might provide: “… renewed energy to the mission of the whole Church
to lead men and women out of the desert they often are in and toward the place of
life- friendship with Christ who gives us fullness of life”.
As the Pope writes
in 'Porta Fidei': “...It seemed to me that timing the launch of the Year of Faith
to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council
would provide a good opportunity to help people understand that the texts bequeathed
by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of
their value or brilliance. They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and
taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church's
Tradition ... I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great
grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass
by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.” I would also like to
emphasize strongly what I had occasion to say concerning the Council a few months
after my election as Successor of Peter: “if we interpret and implement it guided
by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever
necessary renewal of the Church.”
Among the questions Veronica Scarisbrick
put to Monsignor Bell was one relating precisely to this continuation with Vatican
II. He picks up on the value of these texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers highlighting
in particular the Catechism of the Catholic Church as one of the most important fruits
of the Second Vatican Council : "..anyone who picks up a copy of the Catechism cannot
fail to be struck by the fact that it continaully quotes from the documents of the
Council..if you could put it this way the Catechism is in many ways the Council explained
to the Church."
In an effort to get a better grasp on this special year,
Veronica Scarisbrick also asked Monsignor Bell how this Year of Faith ties in with
new evangelisation given it takes place during the October 7th to 28th
Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops focusing precisely on this issue: " ..when
we speak about new evangelisation we have to clarify what we mean by the adjective
new. Obviously it's not new to the extent that it adds anything to the gospel because
we receive the gospel from Jesus Christ through the Apostles and it will be the same
gospel until the end of time, the gospel doesn't change.
What does change are
the circumstances in which the Church announces the gospel and in the world of today
we have to be very careful about a number of factors which intervene in our preaching
of the gospel. We have to be very careful about the cultural context in which men
and women live. We have to be very aware of the new technologies in announcing the
gospel. We also have to be very aware of those situations in which it can be very
difficult to believe: we live in a society which is under the domination of science
and technology and those two things can make it very difficult to believe. And so
the Church is called today to face up to new situations and to give new answers
to the perennial question which every man and woman has as they seek after the sense
of their own personal existence..."
Another question put to Monsignor
Bell focused around the purpose of the year of Faith, whether it's a call for a
spiritual awakening timed at a moment in history when there’s a crisis of faith.
He replied that he doesn't believe anyone can deny that especially in the west there
is a crisis of faith: "..and the Holy Father has called this Year of Faith so that
anyone in the Church can renew their personal relationship with Jesus Christ ..."
The Year launched already has a calendar of events which is pretty charged.
Veronica Scarisbrick asked Monsignor Bell to highlight one particular moment. He picked
this event : " On Corpus Christi 2013 the Holy Father will preside over an hour of
Eucharistic Adoration in the Vatican and what we're asking for throughout all the
world is that in the cathedrals and parish churches wherever possible there should
be an hour of adoration in communion with the Holy Father".
This is not the
first Year of Faith announced by a Pope, the last such event was launched by Paul
VI almost half a century ago. As Pope Benedict writes in ‘Porta Fidei’: “Paul VI
announced one in 1967, to commemorate the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul on the
19th centenary of their supreme act of witness. He thought of it as a solemn
moment for the whole Church to make “an authentic and sincere profession of the same
faith”; moreover, he wanted this to be confirmed in a way that was “individual and
collective, free and conscious, inward and outward, humble and frank”. He thought
that in this way the whole Church could reappropriate “exact knowledge of the faith,
so as to reinvigorate it, purify it, confirm it, and confess it”. The great upheavals
of that year made even more evident the need for a celebration of this kind. It concluded
with the Credo of the People of God, intended to show how much the essential content
that for centuries has formed the heritage of all believers needs to be confirmed,
understood and explored ever anew, so as to bear consistent witness in historical
circumstances very different from those of the past.
A programme presented
and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick - Vatican Radio