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
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