Pope Benedict XVI Discourse 11 to the Bishops of Angola and São Tomé
(20 Mar 09 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI Discourse 11 to the Bishops of Angola and São
Tomé
Dear Cardinal do Nascimento, Dear Bishops of Angola and São Tomé, I
am delighted to meet you in this house which Angola has given to the Successor of
Peter – ordinarily in the person of his Representative – as a visible expression of
the bonds uniting the people of Angola and São Tomé to the Catholic Church, which
for over five hundred years has rejoiced to count you among her children. May our
prayer of praise rise up, harmonious and fervent, to God the Father who, by the workings
and grace of the Holy Spirit, unceasingly gives birth to the Mystical Body of his
Son. Here, in these lands, the Church bears the distinctive features of your native
peoples, yet without losing the Jewish, Roman, Portuguese and other characteristics
she had acquired earlier, for “as many of you as were baptized into Christ … are one
in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:27-28). Venerable Brothers, God in his goodness, in
order to carry forward today this work of bringing to birth the whole Christ through
faith and Baptism, willed to call upon you and me. It should be no surprise, then,
that we sense the pangs of birth until Christ is completely formed in the heart of
your people (cf. Gal 4:19). God will reward you for all the apostolic work
which you have accomplished in difficult conditions, both during the war and at the
present time, in spite of so many limitations, thus helping to give the Church in
Angola and in São Tomé and Principe that dynamism which everyone acknowledges. Conscious
of the ministry I have been called to carry out in the service of ecclesial communion,
I ask you to assure your communities of my constant concern for them. I greet them
all with heartfelt affection in the person of the individual members of this Episcopal
Conference. I offer a particular greeting to your President, Archbishop Damião Franklin,
whom I thank for his words of welcome in your name, emphasizing your commitment to
clear discernment and, as a result, to a unified plan to be implemented in your diocesan
communities for the purpose of “equipping the saints … until all of us come to the
maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:12-13). Indeed,
as a corrective to a widespread relativism which acknowledges nothing as definitive
and, even more, tends to make its ultimate measure the individual and his personal
caprice, we hold out another measure: the Son of God, who is also true man. Christ
is the measure of true humanism. The Christian marked by an adult and mature faith
is not one who is borne along by the waves of fashion and the latest novelties, but
one who lives deeply rooted in the friendship of Christ. This friendship opens us
up to all that is good, and it provides us with the criterion for discerning between
error and truth. Certainly a decisive factor for the future of the faith and the
overall direction of national life is the area of culture. Here the Church enjoys
renowned academic institutions, which must make it a point of honour to enable the
voice of Catholics to be constantly heard in discussion of cultural issues affecting
national life, thus reinforcing the ability to explore rationally, in the light of
faith, the many questions emerging in the various areas of science and of life. Culture
and models of behaviour are nowadays more and more conditioned and shaped by the images
set forth by the communications media. For this reason, I wish to acknowledge your
praiseworthy efforts to develop, in this area too, a communications strategy which
will enable you to provide everyone with a Christian interpretation of human events,
problems and realities. One such human reality, presently faced with numerous
difficulties and threats, is the family. Families are particularly in need of evangelization
and practical support, since, in addition to the fragility and lack of inner stability
of so many conjugal unions, there is the widespread tendency in society and culture
to call into question the unique nature and specific mission of the family based on
marriage. In your pastoral concern, which extends to every human being, continue
to raise your voice in defence of the sacredness of human life and the value of the
institution of marriage, as well as in promotion of the family’s proper role in the
Church and in society, at the same time demanding economic and legislative measures
to support the family in bearing and raising children. I rejoice that your nations
have so many vibrant communities of faith, a committed laity devoted to many works
of the apostolate, and a significant number of vocations to the ordained ministry
and the consecrated life, especially the contemplative life. They represent a genuine
sign of hope for the future. As the clergy becomes increasingly indigenous, I wish
to pay homage to the work which has been patiently and heroically carried out by the
missionaries in proclaiming Christ and his Gospel and in giving birth to the Christian
communities for which you today are responsible. I urge you to be deeply concerned
for your priests, attentive to their continuing formation on both the theological
and spiritual levels, and alert to the conditions in which they live and exercise
their specific mission, so that they can be authentic witnesses of the word they proclaim
and the sacraments they celebrate. In the gift of themselves to Christ and to the
people whom they shepherd, may they remain faithful to the demands of their state
of life, and live out their priestly ministry as a true path to holiness, striving
to become saints and in this way to raise up new saints all around them. Dear
Brothers, I entrust myself to your prayerful remembrance before the Lord, while for
my part I assure you of a particular prayer to the one who is truly the Spouse of
the Church, which he loves, protects and nourishes: the only-begotten Son of the living
God, Jesus Christ our Lord. May he sustain your pastoral commitments by his grace,
so that they will prove fruitful in accordance with the example and under the protection
of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. With these sentiments I impart my Apostolic
Blessing to each of you, to your priests, and to the consecrated persons, seminarians,
catechists and all the lay faithful who are members of the flock which God has entrusted
to you.