Pope Francis' election a new phase in living Vatican II: Card Kasper

Vatican City, 13 April 2013: The election of Pope Francis marks a new phase in the Catholic Church's process of fully understanding, responding to and living out the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, said Cardinal Walter Kasper, who was part of the conclave that elected the new pope.

"From the first day of his pontificate, Pope Francis has given what I would call a prophetic interpretation of the council and has launched a new phase of its reception," the cardinal said in a speech prepared for an April 12-13 conference in Bergamo, Italy. The speech was published in the Vatican newspaper.

Cardinal Kasper, a theologian and retired president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said Pope Francis continues to remind Catholics they are called to follow Christ, "who became poor for us," and to remind them of the "poverty and apostolic simplicity of the church."

The March 13 election of a pope from Argentina also highlights the need for the church to respond to the poverty afflicting the majority of the world's population and to the fact that most of the world's Catholics live in the global South, Cardinal Kasper told the conference. The conference, looking specifically at the contributions of popes to the council and its implementation, was sponsored by the John XXIII Foundation in Bergamo and the Paul VI Institute in Brescia. The two institutions are named for the popes who presided over the council sessions from 1962 to 1965.

Source: CNS