[ZE120126] The World Seen From Rome
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ZENIT
The World Seen From Rome
Daily dispatch - January 26, 2012
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VATICAN DOSSIER
- Pope's Advice on Ecumenism: Be Patient, Don't Miss a Single Opportunity
- Vatican Official Backs Call for Transaction Tax
WORLD FEATURES
INTERVIEW
ROME NOTES
DOCUMENTS
VATICAN DOSSIER
Pope's Advice on Ecumenism: Be Patient, Don't Miss a Single Opportunity
Says Christian Unity Is Important for Whole Human Family
ROME, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says that despite our divisions, Christians must look to the future with hope, accepting that victory happens in "God's timeframes.'"
The Pope offered this invitation Wednesday as he closed the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with vespers at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
"Despite experiencing in our days the painful situation of division, we Christians can and must look to the future with hope insofar as the victory of Christ means the overcoming of all that prevents us from sharing the fullness of life with him and with others," he said.
The Resurrection confirms that God's goodness is stronger than evil and love overcomes death, the Holy Father reminded.
"The presence of the risen Christ calls all of us Christians to act together in the cause of the good," he said. "United to Christ we are called to share his mission, which is that of bringing hope where injustice, hatred and desperation dominate."
Benedict XVI declared that the goal of complete unity among Christians "has importance for the good of the human family" and is not a "secondary victory."
This is because "our divisions dim the luminousness of our witness to Christ," he suggested.
Victory
Alluding to the theme of this year's Week of Prayer, which centered on victory, the Pope noted: "In today's dominant culture the idea of victory is often associated with an immediate success. In the Christian perspective, however, victory is a long -- and in the eyes of us men -- not an always linear process of transformation and growth in the good. It happens in God's timeframes, not ours, and it demands of us a profound faith and patient perseverance."
"Even our expectation of the Church's visible unity must be patient and confident," he said. "Our daily prayer and efforts for the unity of Christians have their meaning only in such a disposition."
Nevertheless, the Pope clarified, "The attitude of patient waiting does not entail passivity or resignation but a prompt and attentive response to every possibility of communion and fraternity that the Lord grants us."
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On ZENIT's Web page:
Full text: www.zenit.org/article-34192?l=english
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Vatican Official Backs Call for Transaction Tax
Says It Would Be One Way to Return Finance to Its Real Vocation
ROME, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, has declared his support for a tax on financial transactions. His statement comes just before a special European Union summit on the crisis in the Eurozone area, which will be held Monday.
The cardinal voiced his support during his address to the annual board of directors meeting of the International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE). The organization, based in Brussels, in an international alliance of Catholic development agencies.
CIDSE has long advocated such a tax, it noted in a press release today that contained the text of Cardinal Turkson's statement.
"One way of bringing economics and finance back within the boundaries of their real vocation, including their social function, would be through taxation measures on financial transactions," he told the directors.
"These should be applied with fair rates, modulated in proportion to the complexity of operations, especially those made on the 'secondary' market," the Vatican official added.
This tax, he said, "would be very useful in promoting global development and sustainability according to the principles of social justice and solidarity." Moreover, "it could also contribute to the creation of a world reserve fund to support the economies of the countries hit by crisis, as well as the recovery of their monetary and financial systems."
John Arnold, auxiliary bishop of Westminster, present at the CIDSE meeting, also supported the tax.
"Human beings are both the source and the purpose of all economic activity, we have got to reform financial markets so that they can serve human well-being and society," he said.
"Speculative activities have been proven to generate economic fluctuations that have a destabilizing impact on the economy," Bishop Arnold noted. "Economic instability, in turn, increases inequality as amply demonstrated by the current situation of many European societies."
According to CIDSE's president, Chris Bain, adopting such a tax would raise funds needed to finance development and would foster justice and equity.
"Skeptics must realize that a tax on financial transactions could go a long way towards stabilizing financial systems," he said, "while tackling poverty in some of the most vulnerable countries in the world."
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WORLD FEATURES
Courtyard of the Gentiles Goes to Palermo
Discussions on the Mafia and Organized Crime Scheduled for March
ROME, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- After Bologna, Paris, Bucharest, Florence, Rome and Tirana, the "Courtyard of the Gentiles" will now meet in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, on March 29-30.
The "Courtyard of the Gentiles" -- a reference to the courtyard of the Temple of Jerusalem reserved for pagans-- will be an occasion to address another problem that challenges the contemporary world: the mafia and the problem of organized crime as a whole.
Palermo's magistrate Giusto Sciacchitano, an anti-mafia attorney, spoke with Vatican Radio last week about the initiative.
"[The mafia] is a cultural, political, sociological and economic problem that concerns the world," said Giusto Sciacchitano. And the mafia "must certainly be countered with juridical means but also with cultural means, because the mafia is based on an 'in-culture.'"
In Palermo, a crossroads of culture and traditions, but also a place and symbol of the fight against organized crime, a cultural event like this could be "of great importance from several points of view," said the anti-mafia expert.
In the first place, insofar as it takes up the historical situation of Sicily, dominated for centuries by so many different peoples, by their culture, by their juridical systems, "we had in any case to converse" and this conversation became a kind of habit.
However, there is also the fact that Palermo, which can be considered the capital of the mafia, has also been recognized by the U.N. as the capital of the anti-mafia. The United Nations Convention against organized crime was, in fact, signed in the Sicilian capital.
These two aspects, one negative, the other positive, which are shaping forces of a culture, be it at the local or world level, call for a universal vision and the meeting in Palermo will be an occasion to look at the "absolutely global" problem with the required attention.
"It certainly does not concern Italy or, obviously, Sicily alone," confirmed the national attorney. "We look at the situation of the Far East, we look at the situation of countries of South America, we look at the situation of Eastern Europe, at the Balkan countries, countries all crossed by routes through which illicit traffic passes from various organized groups."
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Anti-euthanasia Ruling Hailed as Major Victory
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Sets Forth Principles
BRUSSELS, Belgium, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- A decision by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to pass a resolution that calls for the prohibition of euthanasia, is being hailed as a major pro-life victory.
In a communiqué today, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) reported that the resolution passed, setting the principle: "Euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit, must always be prohibited." This is the first time in recent decades that euthanasia has been so clearly rejected by a European political institution, the council explained.
It is a major victory in the battle to defend life and the ECLJ noted that it came a year after the European Court asserted that there is no right to euthanasia or assisted suicide under the European Convention. The resolution should also have an impact on a forthcoming decision by the European Court in the case of Koch v. Germany, concerning a ban on assisted suicide in Germany, said Grégor Puppinck, Director of the ECLJ.
The purpose of the resolution (No 1859/2012), passed Wednesday, is to define the principles that should govern the practice of "living wills" or "advance directives" in Europe.
The "living wills" or "advance directives" are aimed at enabling patients to express in advance their wishes regarding medical intervention or treatments, in case they are not able to express their preferences at the time of the intervention. The directives may apply, for example, when there is doubt about whether to resuscitate a patient or to continue to use extraordinary means to maintain someone alive.
Because these "living wills" or "advance directives" are open to many abuses, and can be a backdoor for introducing euthanasia or assisted suicide into legislation, the PACE has made a list of principles on how to govern this practice in the 47 states of the Council of Europe.
According to the ECLJ the list is based on principles elaborated in three documents previously adopted in the Council of Europe, including the convention on human rights and biomedicine (Oviedo Convention), which legally binds the majority of member states. Because of growing concerns about euthanasia, the Assembly judged it is necessary to state explicitly the basic principle that intentional killing must always be prohibited.
"This resolution is a clear indication that the growing majority of Europeans is opposed to euthanasia," said Puppinck.
Even if this resolution is not legally binding on member states, it has a real influence on the legislative process and on the judicial process, especially on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, the ECLJ communiqué stated.
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INTERVIEW
Romanian Orthodox Bishop: Dialogue Gaining Ground
On How 'Domestic Faith' Is Building Relationships
By H. Sergio Mora
ROME, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- A Romanian Orthodox bishop ministering in Italy says that ecumenical dialogue is taking great steps forward, particularly at the grassroots level.
This was the assertion made by Bishop Siluan Span when he spoke with ZENIT after Wednesday's celebration of Vespers at St. Paul Outside the Walls. Benedict XVI led the liturgy, and with it, closed the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The bishop of the Romanian Orthodox diocese for Italy and member of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church reflected on how things are changing.
ZENIT: What is the situation of ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox?
Bishop Siluan: I believe, despite voices that say that the ecumenical dialogue is in crisis, that in the last 15 years Christians of Eastern Europe -- we are talking of Romania Bulgaria, Russia, but in particular of the countries that are in the European Union -- having the possibility and the willingness to leave, made contact with the reality of all the Western countries. We must say that the Catholic Church in Italy, Spain and other countries manifested an openness and willingness to help, which was much appreciated by the Churches of the East, by the Orthodox Church.
ZENIT: What kind of relationships have been created?
Bishop Siluan: I speak for the Romanian Orthodox Church and I see that different relations have developed from those of the past. In the sense that the Romanian cleaning lady meets an Italian family in its reality. It is a grassroots ecumenism which was never the case before. The Italian family entrusts to her not only the grandmother or grandfather, but also the children. And when the elderly woman prays at night, she asks the Romanian Orthodox cleaning lady to read the Liturgy of the Hours to her. They go to church together and I see that they commend to me names so that we will pray for the persons they look after.
ZENIT: Hence, in daily life!
Bishop Siluan: This prayer for one another, this, let's say domestic faith, is a beginning of closeness and of dialogue that is more profound than that of the high-level commissions. This is also true of the relationship between our parish priests and the Catholics who house the greater part of our communities in Italy. It is a very important dialogue between the different communities, because, for example, in some churches the Catholic community prays in the early morning and the Orthodox at 10 or 11 o'clock.
We see the presence of Italians at the baptism of children and in our churches. Moreover, there are so many mixed marriages, between Romanian men and Italian women and vice versa. Hence, it is a sort of dialogue without precedents.
ZENIT: What was determinant for this change?
Bishop Siluan: It must be said that during Communism, Romania could not have a dialogue of this kind. There was a representative who went out once or twice a year and who did not have the liberty to say what he wished to say. Hence, in these 15 to 20 years, unprecedented relations were created.
ZENIT: This is clear at the horizontal level, but between the religious?
Bishop Siluan: Although there are places and moments in which the dialogue is in crisis, relations undoubtedly matured. I see the meetings with Catholic monks, priests and bishops whom I met 20 years ago, in my case in France. Today we meet as old time friends.
There is no mistrust when we meet for the first time, not only between brothers but also between clerics. We had learned about one another only in books and notebooks, with a rather critical attitude.
Thus it wasn't easy to break in, but little by little we began to know individuals, to talk, to meet and to share what we could.
It is essential to share, food for example. It helps to overcome the mistrust that could not be eliminated by theological argumentations.
[Translation by ZENIT]
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ROME NOTES
Disabled in Tanzania Draw Religions Together
UK-based Charity Seen as Prism for Global Dynamic
By Edward Pentin
ROME, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Kakuru, age 22, greets you with a beaming smile as you enter his small mud hut in the remote Kagera hills of northwestern Tanzania.
Suffering from muscular dystrophy and unable to move his legs or arms, he remains seated on a dusty mat listening to the radio, just as he has done for almost the entire past seven years.
To add to the torment of the forced imprisonment caused by his terminal disease, Kakuru is also an orphan: His father died of AIDS, his mother committed suicide, and he had to cope with the loss of his twin brother. His uncle shares the hut, looking after him as best he can.
Kakuru's case is not an unfamiliar one here. An estimated 15 million people suffer with disabilities across Africa, most of them children. Genetic predispositions often go untreated due to poor medical facilities; low nutritional levels cause or exacerbate disability; and many face a variety of external dangers. These include snake bites, attacks by wild animals, a high number of traffic accidents caused by poorly maintained roads and vehicles (often these result in amputations), and malaria (leading to cerebral palsy).
The prevalence of disease and especially AIDS has also left many of these children orphaned. And without adequate special-needs schooling nor the means to reach classes, they lack access to education. Only 2% of Africa's disabled ever find employment; the rest depend on begging. The disabled also continue to be stigmatized in Africa, leading to abuse and abandonment. Albino children face even harder trials in East Africa where they have been persecuted, killed or dismembered based on a witchcraft-related belief that their body parts transmit magical powers.
Yet the disabled and vulnerable children in this particular region -- a vast area the size of Wales -- are blessed with the help of an array of faith-based action groups run by Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, a Muslim non-governmental organization, and a Tanzanian government committed to upholding the rights of children. All of them have mobilized in an extraordinary and unique way, joining forces and pooling resources to support and transform the lives of those who arguably belong to the world's most vulnerable group after the unborn. And by doing so, these action groups offer a powerful witness in defending human dignity through interdenominational and interfaith collaboration on a scale probably not seen anywhere else in the world.
Rather fittingly, I had travelled to this region close to the Rwanda border during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and just ahead of the World Day of the Sick on Feb. 11. I was invited by Matthew McIlvenna, a British Catholic and old university friend, who is a founding director of a U.K.-registered charity called Friends of the Children of Tanzania (FoCT). Since its creation in 2007, the organization has helped forge this network of faith-based support by aiding them with financial assistance and capacity building (helping locals to help themselves).
"We have a very focused mandate and almost a self-targeting one," McIlvenna explains. "Often many programs in Africa struggle with targeting: How do you target the people you intend to help? But with people with disabilities, it's almost self-targeting because you know by definition who they are." He stresses that each client must contribute something toward costs of treatment to avoid total dependency. "Sometimes it will involve selling one chicken to pay for the bus fare to get to the hospital, and then FoCT will pay for the return bus fare and help pay for some maize and beans to feed their family while they're in hospital for two weeks undergoing treatment."
An expert in humanitarian assistance, having worked for many years for the U.N. World Food Programme, McIlvenna says the origins of FoCT grew out of the Rwanda genocide of the mid-1990s when the region hosted over a million Rwandan refugees. He and other U.N. staff were sent there to help build schools, camps and deliver food. But once the crisis was over and the humanitarian agencies left, McIlvenna noticed "an enormous vacuum" and a "huge need" in terms of dealing with disability. Being a very remote area, Kagera lacked the social, medical, and community services more commonly found elsewhere.
His personal faith then motivated him to start the charity. "As a Catholic and a Christian it's demanded of us to promote the rights of the vulnerable, to seek their protection based on the fact that we're all born in the image and likeness of God," he explains.
But interestingly he was introduced to this work by a local Muslim philanthropist called Raza Fazal whose Bukoba-based non-governmental organization "Izaas" has helped feed, educate, shelter and care for countless orphans and people with disabilities for decades.
Over the course of my week in Tanzania, we visited a number of these FoCT partners, all of which depend on collaboration with Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran or Muslim programs that will refer clients to one another depending on their needs.
As well as Izaas, these include Kagondo hospital, run by the Catholic Diocese of Bukoba, which has become the center for excellence in the Lake Victoria region in the field of prosthetics, orthopaedic surgery, and amputation prevention; Mugeza, a government-run school for children with disabilities, which is suffering from overcrowding and lack of resources (it's the only school of its kind in northern Tanzania); St. Nicholas Children's Home, a newly established refuge for abandoned and disabled children heroically run by a former Franciscan sister from Germany, Stefanie Köster; and a Lutheran center catering to 64 street children, run by a tireless Tanzanian Lutheran nun, Sister Adventina.
In Karagwe, close to the Rwandan border, is the Anglican Community Based Rehabilitation Programme -- a large operation founded by Bridget Hathaway, an Anglican from England, and run by a dynamic, well trained and truly ecumenical local staff made up of a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Seventh Day Adventist and an Anglican Canon as manager. (Thanks to their collaboration with FoCT, they were able to provide 22-year-old Kakuru with a wheelchair, mattress and a much appreciated recent trip to Bukoba). The program reaches out to distant, surrounding villages through mobile clinics, treating the disabled, buying equipment, raising awareness, and providing legal protection.
Each of these groups have their own specializations and comparative advantage, thereby complimenting the work of the rest. Yet despite these projects reaching out to thousands of clients, they're still only scratching the surface. "We're helping just 10% of the need here," says McIlvenna, "but with extra funding we can start to make a dent in the remaining 90%."
Much of the fruitful collaboration currently taking place owes itself to Tanzania's special historical context. The country's first president, Julius Nyerere, was a devout Catholic who founded the newly independent nation on the principle of "Umoja," or national unity. "He forged a real partnership and cohesion among the faith groups of Tanzania," says McIlvenna, "so the country has never been plagued by the religious strife that characterizes other parts of the African continent and other parts of the world." But he adds that in this case, it's the common fight for human dignity in a faith-based context that is also a powerful unifying force.
Raza Fazal's role in this collaborative witness is particularly interesting. His father, Abdullah, was a close friend and supporter of Nyerere (although a Muslim, he aided Nyerere's favorite religious order, the Poor Clares, and even paid for Nyerere's ticket to New York so he could appeal for Tanzania's independence at the United Nations).
For Fazal, the secret to good Catholic-Muslim relations is: "Keep your churches open for the Muslims and we will keep our mosques open for you." He adds that he remembered the Aga Khan asking his father the same question in 1954, to which his father replied: "Schools and hospitals -- they are the best way to make us work together."
Looking to the future, McIlvenna is hopeful that the ecumenical and interfaith collaboration will strengthen further still. Already Theresian sisters in Kayanga, a new diocese in Karagwe, have started work on a new special-needs school to take the pressure off Mugeza. The project, headed by Tanzanian Theresian nun Sister Godliva, will involve collaboration with the government, the Anglican program and Kagondo hospital.
The extent of collaborative endeavors in this little known region of Tanzania is a timely witness to what can be achieved at a time when interreligious strife threatens parts of the world, most recently in Nigeria. "This is a little crucible of a larger, global dynamic," says McIlvenna, "and FoCT is a prism through which we can see this global dynamic."
It is also witness to how much the pursuit of common goals in protecting the dignity of the human person -- a key humanitarian principle on which every major faith can agree -- can be a catalyst for transforming the lives of some of society's most vulnerable people.
"As Lutherans, Muslims, Catholics we divide ourselves," Sister Godliva says poignantly, "but in helping the neediest for God, we are one."
More details on FoCT can be found at www.foct.org.uk
* * *
Edward Pentin is a freelance journalist based in Rome and communications director for the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity). He can be reached at epentin@zenit.org
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DOCUMENTS
Pope's Address to Conclude Week of Prayer for Unity
"Patient Waiting Does Not Entail Passivity" but a "Response to Every Possibility of Communion"
ROME, JAN. 26, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave Wednesday evening at Vespers on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. The celebration closed the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
* * *
Dear brothers and sisters!
It is with great joy that I address a warm greeting to all of you who are gathered in this basilica on the liturgical fest of the Conversion of St. Paul to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in this year in which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II, which Blessed John XXIII announced here in this basilica on Jan. 25, 1959. The theme offered for our meditation during the Week of Prayer that we are concluding today is: "We Will All Be Changed By the Victory of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:51-58).
The meaning of this mysterious transformation, of which the second short reading this evening speaks, is marvelously shown in the event of St. Paul. Following the extraordinary happening on the road to Damascus, Saul, who distinguished himself by the zeal with which he persecuted the young Church, was transformed into an indefatigable apostle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the event of this extraordinary evangelizer it is clear that such a change is not the result of a long interior reflection nor the fruit of a personal effort. It is first of all the work of the grace of God operating in its inscrutable way. This is why Paul, writing to Corinth some years after his conversion, states, as we heard in the first reading of these vespers: "By the grace of God … I am what I am, and his grace in me has not been ineffective" (1 Corinthians 15:10). Moreover, considering the event of St. Paul we understand that the transformation that he experienced in his existence was not limited to the ethical dimension -- as a conversion from immorality to morality -- nor to the intellectual dimension -- as change in his way of seeing reality -- but it is a matter rather of a radical renewal in his own being, similar in many aspects to a rebirth. Such a transformation has its foundation in the participation in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it is delineated as a gradual journey of conformation to Christ. In light of this awareness, St. Paul, when he will later be called to defend the legitimacy of his apostolic vocation and the Gospel that he proclaimed, will say: "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And this life that I live in the body I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me" (Galatians 2:20).
The personal experience lived by St. Paul allowed him to await with a reasonable hope for the fulfillment of this mystery of transformation, which will affect all those who have believed in Jesus Christ and all humanity and the whole of creation as well. In the second short reading that was proclaimed this evening, St. Paul, after having developed a long argument aimed at reinforcing hope of the resurrection in the faithful, using the traditional images of the contemporary apocalyptic literature, describes in a few lines the great day of the final judgment in which the destiny of humanity is met: "In an instant, the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet ... the dead will rise uncorrupted and we will be transformed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). On that day, all believers will be conformed to Christ and all that is mortal will be transformed by his glory: "It is necessary, in fact," says St. Paul, "that this corruptible body be clothed in incorruptibility and that this mortal body be clothed in immortality" (15:53). Then the triumph of Christ will finally be complete, because, St. Paul continues, showing how the ancient prophecies of the Scriptures will be realized, death will be definitively vanquished and, with it, sin that brought death into the world and the Law that determines sin without giving the power to overcome it: "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Death is the sting of sin and the Law is the power of sin" (15:54-56). St. Paul tells us, thus, that every man, through baptism in the death and resurrection of Christ, participates in the victory of him who first defeated death, opening a path of transformation that is manifested from thence in a newness of life and that will reach its goal in the fullness of time.
It is quite significant that the passage concludes with a thanksgiving: "May thanks be given to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (15:57). The canticle of victory over death becomes a canticle of gratitude lifted up to the Victor. We too this evening, celebrating the evening praises of God, would like to join our voices, our minds and our hearts to this hymn of thanksgiving for what divine grace has worked in the Apostle of the Gentiles and through the wondrous salvific design of God the Father has accomplished in us through the Lord Jesus Christ. As we lift up our prayer, we are confident that we too will be transformed and conformed to Christ's image. This is particularly true for the prayer for the unity of Christians. When we in fact implore the gift of unity of Christ's disciples, we make our own the desire expressed by Jesus Christ in the prayer to the Father on the eve of his passion and death: "that all may be one" (John 17:21). For this reason, the prayer for the unity of Christians is nothing other than a participation in the realization of the divine plan for the Church, and the active commitment to the re-establishment of unity is a duty and a great responsibility for all.
Despite experiencing in our days the painful situation of division, we Christians can and must look to the future with hope insofar as the victory of Christ means the overcoming of all that prevents us from sharing the fullness of life with him and with others. Jesus Christ's resurrection confirms that the goodness of God defeats evil; love overcomes death. He accompanies us in the struggle against the destructive force of sin that damages humanity and the entire creation of God. The presence of the risen Christ calls all of us Christians to act together in the cause of the good. United to Christ we are called to share his mission, which is that of bringing hope where injustice, hatred and desperation dominate. Our divisions dim the luminousness of our witness to Christ. The goal of complete unity that we await in active hope and that we pray for with confidence, is not a secondary victory but has importance for the good of the human family.
In today's dominant culture the idea of victory is often associated with an immediate success. In the Christian perspective, however, victory is a long -- and in the eyes of us men -- not an always linear process of transformation and growth in the good. It happens in God's timeframes, not ours, and it demands of us a profound faith and patient perseverance. If it is true that the Kingdom of God definitively irrupts in history in the resurrection of Jesus, it is still not fully realized. The final victory will happen only with the Lord's second coming, which we await with patient hope. Even our expectation of the Church's visible unity must be patient and confident. Our daily prayer and efforts for the unity of Christians have their meaning only in such a disposition. The attitude of patient waiting does not entail passivity or resignation but a prompt and attentive response to every possibility of communion and fraternity that the Lord grants us.
In this spiritual climate I would like to offer some special greetings, in the first place to Cardinal Monterisi, archpriest of this basilica, to the abbot and the community of Benedictine monks who host us. I greet Cardinal Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and to all the members of this dicastery. I offer my cordial and fraternal greetings to his Eminence the Metropolitan Gennadios, representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the Reverend Canon Richardson, personal representative in Rome of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to all the representatives of the various Churches and ecclesial Communities gathered here this evening.
I entrust to the intercession of St. Paul all of those who with their prayer and their work commit themselves to the cause of the unity of Christians. Even if we can at times have the impression that the road toward complete re-establishment of communion is still very long and full of obstacles, I invite everyone to renew their determination to continue, with courage and generosity, the unity willed by God, following St. Paul's example, who, in the face of difficulties of every sort always maintained firm confidence in God, who brings his work to completion. After all, along this journey there are not lacking positive signs of a rediscovered fraternity and of a shared sense of responsibility before the great problems that afflict humanity. All of this is reason for joy and great hope and must encourage us to continue our commitment to arrive together at the final goal, knowing that our toil is not in vain in the Lord (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:58). Amen.
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
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