CHURCH IN FOCUS:
“Motu Proprio” Porta Fedei, the Door of Faith
13 November 2011

In our programme of Sunday we bring you the Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict XVI entitled Porta Fedei, meaning Door of Faith. Motu Proprio means a document, signed personally by the pope, and issued solely on his authority and not in response to a request. A motu proprio is usually issued to address what the pope regards as a special need of the Church. The phrase is Latin, and its literal meaning is "of one's own will", meaning as desired proper and necessary by the Pontiff. When issued by the Pope it may be addressed to the whole Church, to part of it, or to some individuals. The first motu proprio was issued by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484. It continues to be a common form of Papal rescripts, especially when establishing institutions, making minor changes to law or procedure, and when granting favours to persons or institutions. A motu proprio rescript begins by giving the reasons for issuing it, and then indicates the law or regulation made or the favour granted. It is less formal than a constitution and carries no papal seal. Its content may be instructional, administrative, or merely to confer a special favour.
During Mass in the Vatican Basilica, celebrated on the 16^th of October to mark the end of an international meeting on new evangelisation organised by the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was calling a forthcoming "Year of Faith", through his Apostolic Letter "Motu Proprio”, entitled "Porta Fedei", meaning door of faith. The Year will begin on 11 October 2012, fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II, and will come to an end on 24 November 2013, Feast of Christ the King. Its aim "is to give renewed energy to the Church's mission to lead men and women out of the desert in which they so often find themselves, and towards the place of life, towards friendship with Christ Who gives us life in all its fullness". The Year will likewise be an opportunity "to strengthen our faith in Christ and joyfully to announce Him to the men and women of our time", the Pope said.
The Holy Father went on to explain the "Year of Faith" which he had announced during his homily during the Mass, the motivations, goals and guiding principles of which are included in his Apostolic Letter. "Pope Paul VI also called a 'Year of Faith'", the Pope said, "to mark the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul in 1967, a period of great cultural upheaval. Half a century after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, associated with the happy memory of Blessed John XXIII, Pope Benedict felt it appropriate to recall the beauty and importance of the faith, and the need to strengthen and intensify in individuals and communities and to do this not so much in a perspective of celebration as of mission, but in the perspective of the mission 'ad gentes' and of the new evangelisation". He added that ever since the start of his ministry as Successor of Peter, he has spoken of the need to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ. He added that we must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the Word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples.
The Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict XVI tells that "The 'door of faith' is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into His Church. It is possible to cross that threshold when the Word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself to be shaped by transforming grace. Whereas in the past it was possible to recognise a unitary cultural matrix, broadly accepted in its appeal to the content of the faith and the values inspired by it, today this no longer seems to be the case in large swathes of society, because of a profound crisis of faith that has affected many people. While announcing a Year of Faith, the Pope said that its starting date of 11 October 2012 also coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a text promulgated by his Predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, with a view to illustrating for all the faithful the power and beauty of the faith.
Moreover, the theme of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops that the Holy Father has convoked for October 2012 is 'The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith'. He says that this will be a good opportunity to usher the whole Church into a time of particular reflection and rediscovery of the faith. It is not the first time that the Church has been called to celebrate a Year of Faith. Already in 1967 the Servant of God Pope Paul VI had announced a similar theme guiding the people I faith. It concluded with the belief of the People of God, and 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. Pope Benedict in his opening address says that the timing of the launch of the Year of Faith coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Second Vatican Council would provide a good opportunity to people to understand properly the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers. Certainly he would also like to emphasise strongly what he had expressed concerning the Council a few months after his 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.”
In this Apostolic Letter the Pope says that the renewal of the Church is also achieved through the witness offered by the lives of believers: by their very existence in the world, Christians are called to radiate the word of truth that the Lord Jesus has left us. The Council itself, in the Dogmatic Constitution 'Lumen Gentium', said this: the Church, clasping sinners to her bosom, is at once holy and always in need of purification". Thus the Year of Faith, from this perspective, is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Saviour of the world. In the mystery of His death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins. For St. Paul, this Love ushers all the baptised persons into a new life. Through faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to the radical new reality of the resurrection. Therefore, 'Faith working through love' becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man's life.
Speaking on the commitment of the Church to New Evangelisation, the Pope says that through His love, Jesus Christ attracts to Himself the people of every generation. In every age Jesus convokes the Church, entrusting her with the proclamation of the Gospel by a mandate that is ever new. Today too, there is a need for stronger ecclesial commitment to new evangelisation in order to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating the faith. In rediscovering His love day by day, the missionary commitment of believers attains force and vigour that can never fade away. Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy. Only through believing, then, does faith grow and become stronger; there is no other possibility for possessing certitude with regard to one's life apart from self-abandonment, in a continuous crescendo, into the hands of a love that seems to grow constantly because it has its origin in God.
Explaining the Year of Faith the Pontiff says that we ought to celebrate this Year in a worthy and fruitful manner. Reflection on the faith will have to be intensified, so as to help all believers in Christ to acquire a more conscious and vigorous adherence to the Gospel, especially at a time of profound change such as humanity is currently experiencing. We will have the opportunity to profess our faith in the Risen Lord in our cathedrals and in the churches of the whole world; in our homes and among our families, so that everyone may feel a strong need to know better and to transmit to future generations the faith of all times. Religious communities as well as parish communities, and all ecclesial bodies old and new, are to find a way, during this Year, to make a public profession of the Faith. He says that he wants this Year to arouse in every believer the aspiration to profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction, with confidence and hope. It will also be a good opportunity to intensify the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, which is 'the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed; ... and also the source from which all its power flows.' At the same time, we make it our prayer that believers' witness of life may grow in credibility. To rediscover the content of the faith that is professed, celebrated, lived and prayed, and to reflect on the act of faith, is a task that every believer must make it personal especially during the course of this Year".
Christian may never think of belief as a private act, says the Holy Father. Faith is choosing to stand with the Lord so as to live with Him. This 'standing with Him' points towards an understanding of the reasons for believing. Faith, precisely because it is a free act, demands social responsibility for what one believes. Profession of faith is an act both personal and communitarian. It is the Church that is the primary subject of faith. In the faith of the Christian community, each individual receives Baptism, an effective sign of entry into the people of believers in order to obtain salvation. Evidently, knowledge of the content of faith is essential for giving one's own assent that is to say for adhering fully with intellect and will to what the Church proposes. Knowledge of faith opens a door into the fullness of the saving mystery revealed by God. The giving of assent implies that, when we believe, we freely accept the whole mystery of faith, because the guarantor of its truth is God who reveals Himself and allows us to know His mystery of love.
On the other hand, says Pope Benedict, we must not forget that in our cultural context, very many people, while not claiming to have the gift of faith, are nevertheless sincerely searching for the ultimate meaning and definitive truth of their lives and of the world. This search is an authentic 'preamble' to the faith, because it guides people onto the path that leads to the mystery of God. Human reason, in fact, bears within itself a demand for 'what is perennially valid and lasting'. This demand constitutes a permanent summons, indelibly written into the human heart, to set out to find the One Whom we would not be seeking had He not already set out to meet us. To this encounter, faith invites us and it opens us in fullness. Thus in order to arrive at a systematic knowledge of the content of the faith, all can find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church a precious and indispensable tool. It is one of the most important fruits of the Second Vatican Council. It is in this sense that that the Year of Faith will have to see a concerted effort to rediscover and study the fundamental content of the faith that receives its systematic and organic synthesis in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism provides a permanent record of the many ways in which the Church has meditated on the faith and made progress in doctrine so as to offer certitude to believers in their lives of faith.
The Pope also stresses in his Apostolic Letter the need to train Catholics in the spirit of faith. He says that in this Year, then, the Catechism of the Catholic Church will serve as a tool providing real support for the faith, especially for those concerned with the formation of Christians, so crucial in our cultural context. To this end the Pontiff says that he has invited the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, by agreement with the competent Dicasteries of the Holy See, to draw up a note, providing the Church and individual believers with some guidelines on how to live this Year of Faith in the most effective and appropriate ways, at the service of belief and evangelisation. The Pope feels that to a greater extent than in the past, faith is now being subjected to a series of questions arising from a changed mentality which, especially today, limits the field of rational certainties to that of scientific and technological discoveries. Nevertheless, the Church has never been afraid of demonstrating that there cannot be any conflict between faith and genuine science, because both, albeit via different routes, tend towards the truth.
The entire exercise however is of great importance. One thing that will be of decisive importance in this Year is retracing the history of our faith, marked as it is by the unfathomable mystery of the interweaving of holiness and sin. While the former highlights the great contribution that men and women have made to the growth and development of the community through the witness of their lives, the latter must provoke in each person a sincere and continuing work of conversion in order to experience the mercy of the Father which is held out to everyone. The Year of Faith will also be a good opportunity to intensify the witness of charity. Faith and charity each require the other; in such a way that each allows the other to set out along its respective path. Indeed, many Christians dedicate their lives with love to those who are lonely, marginalised or excluded, as to those who are the first with a claim on our attention and the most important for us to support, because it is in them that the reflection of Christ's own face is seen. Through faith, we can recognise the face of the risen Lord in those who ask for our love".
Bringing together the year of Faith and the Scriptures in the context of the Mystical Body of the Church, the Pontiff says that having reached the end of his life, as St. Paul asks his disciple Timothy to 'aim at faith' with the same constancy as when he was a boy. We hear this invitation directed to each of us, that none of us grow lazy in the faith. It is the lifelong companion that makes it possible to perceive, ever anew, the marvels that God works for us. Intent on gathering the signs of the times in the present of history, faith commits every one of us to become a living sign of the presence of the Risen Lord in the world. What the world is in particular need of today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God and for true life, life without end.

Fr Eugene Lobo S.J.