Pope’s first Apostolic Exhortation to mark end of Year of Faith

November 18, 201 3 Pope Francis will bring to an end the Year of Faith with a solemn Mass in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, on Sunday, the feast of Christ the King. At the Mass, during which the relics of St. Peter the Apostle will be on display first time, the Pope will hand a document to three representatives of the Universal Church and also make a concrete ‘gesture of charity’ to the people of the Philippines, brought to the knees by super-typhoon Haiyan. The programme of the final week of the Year of Faith was presented at a press conference on Monday by the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, Archbishop Rino Fisichella and his team. The Council said that at Sunday’s Mass, the Pope will symbolically hand copies of his first Apostolic Exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium’ (The Joy of the Gospel) to a Latvian bishop, a Tanzanian priest and an Australian deacon. The document will however be officially presented at a press conference on Nov. 26. Present at Sunday’s Mass will be men and women religious, along with representatives of the various events of the Year of Faith, such as those who received the Sacrament of Confirmation, a seminarian, a novice, a family, catechists, young people, confraternities, movements and a blind person, to whom the Pope will give am audio CD of his Apostolic Exhortation. Archbishop Fisichella noted that more than 8 million pilgrims have visited the tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican to profess their faith during the Catholic Church’s Year of Faith which began under Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 11, 2012. Before the Year of Faith concludes there are two last events in the Vatican: the Day of Contemplative Life on Thursday and a meeting of some 500 catechumens from 47 countries with the Pope on Saturday. “A year dedicated totally to reviving the faith of believers comes to an end, but the desire to maintain its teachings that we have received in these months continues,” Archbishop Fisichella said.