Pope visits Nemi centre after 47 years

(July 09, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday made an emotional visit to Nemi, not far from Rome, where he as a young priest was part of an ‘editorial committee’ that drafted the Second Vatican Council’s decree ‘Ad Gentes’, on the missionary nature of the Catholic Church. The Pope travelled in his car from Castel Gandolfo, where he is on vacation, and visited the “Ad Gentes’ centre in Nemi, run by the Society of the Divine Word, SVD, where the society’s general chapter is currently taking place. It was in this centre, then known as the International Centre of the Society of the Divine Word, that the Second Vatican Council’s Commission on Missions met from March 29 to April 3, 1965. Pope Benedict, then a young theologian expert, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, was part of this commission. Speaking on Monday to the general chapter delegates and members of the Mother House of Rome, the Pope said he was really grateful for the chance of revisiting the centre after 47 years, and said it was perhaps his most memorable time of the entire Vatican Council. He said it was wonderful to be in the company of great theologians to prepare the missionary decree with such great responsibility. The Pope described the decree as one without great controversies, in which everything converges into a unique dynamism of the need to bring the light of the Word of God and of the love of God in the world and experience a new joy in announcing it. He underscored that this mission of proclaiming the Gospel is a good that cannot remain closed in but needs to be communicated. The Holy Father fondly recalled former SVD general Fr. Johannes Schütte of Germany who had suffered, was condemned and then expelled from China. He also expressed great esteem for Cardinal. Joseph Frings and missiologist Fr. Congar. After the half-hour visit to Nemi the Pope returned to his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.