Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Agenzia Fides) – Yesterday, in Madrid, the 92nd Plenary Assembly of the Spanish Conference of Bishops (CEE) began. The Assembly will last until Friday, November 28. Among the topics of discussion is the study and possible approval of the Official Version of the Holy Bible, from the Spanish Bishops' Conference. In addition, the Bishops' Commission on Missions and Cooperation among Churches will present its study for possible approval, i.e., the document entitled, “The current relevance of the mission ad gentes in Spain.” The Assembly will also vote on the site for 2010's National Eucharistic Congress. Possible sites are: Barcelona, Granada, Lugo, and Toledo.
In his inaugural address, the President of the Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid, recalled the recent celebration of the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, highlighting how “now that a Synod has been held on the word of God and now that we are awaiting an Exhortation from the Pope on this same topic, in this Year of Saint Paul, we should now be ready to approve the official version of the Bible from the Bishops' Conference.” The Cardinal says that it is an excellent occasion “to promote a renewed pastoral plan for the Word of God in every area: in preaching, in catechesis, education, the family, the celebration of the sacraments and the liturgy of the hours, and fraternal communion, which is nourished and strengthened by the Word. From such a renewal, we can undoubtedly expect to see the strengthening of the Church's mission in every area of personal and social life, enabling the saving grace of Christ to illumine all men.”
The CEE's President then recalled the upcoming World Youth Day 2011. “May we all keep in mind that this is a great opportunity, an authentic moment of grace,” the Cardinal said. “Not far from now, Madrid and all Spain will begin welcoming hundreds of thousands of Catholic youth from all over the world. Their very presence will remind us that the Church is young, that Jesus Christ manifests the newness of God's love, which comes to save a humanity that has grown old through sin. It is the hour of evangelization of Spain by the youth and for the youth.” Along these lines, he also recalled that next Palm Sunday, they will travel to Rome to receive the World Youth Day Cross from the Pope and bring it to Spain. During these years preceding WYD Madrid 2011, the Cruz will travel throughout all the dioceses of Spain, being carried by youth. “It will be an opportunity for each young person to listen to the call of Christ who invites him to follow Him, to open his life to the friendship that He wants to offer, by taking up the Cross of love that gives fullness of life. It will be the opportunity for all places to follow a precise itinerary in efforts to renew the Church's attention to the youth.”
Continuing his address, Cardinal Rouco spoke on two problems that are especially pertinent in Spanish society at this time. Firstly, the understandable restlessness felt “before the risk of a breakdown in the nation's peaceful co-existence...Spain's history in the last two centuries has been, unfortunately, marked by tensions that have, more than on one occasion, led to fratricidal conflict,” the last of which occurred during the 1930s. Thus, he considers the need “to be vigilant in order to avoid attitudes, words, strategies, and all that can lead to conflict that could end in violence” and yet, at the same time “there is a need to cultivate a spirit of reconciliation, sacrifice and generosity, which reigned in social and political life in the years referred to as the transition to democracy.” Sometimes, the Cardinal said, “there is a need to know how to forget,” in an “authentic and healthy purification of the memory,” in order to spare the youth from the burdens of the past and “help them to strengthen their will with full harmony and friendship.”
The second cause for concern is the present economic crisis. This crisis, the Prelate said, “undoubtedly has causes of a technical order that specialists try to diagnose in order to offer some of the most adequate solutions.” However, this cannot make us forget our moral responsibilities as social players.
It is now the time to reflect on the moral origins of the crisis, “to examine whether moral relativism may not have, perhaps, encouraged behavior that is not oriented towards the service of the common good and public interest; whether or not economic life has been dominated by a desire for quick money, disproportionate to the goods produced; whether or not the waste and the ostentation, private or public, has not been too often used as an alleged proof of economic and social efficiency.” It is also the proper moment to reflect on the moral demands that this crisis imposes on us, in which “there is a need for support of persons as moral subjects, capable of guiding their life and action according to the true personal and social good, which should never be mistaken for one's own pleasures and interests.”
Lastly, the Cardinal recalled that the document on the evangelization of peoples, drawn up by the Bishops' Commission on the Missions, will be studied and approved by the Assembly. To this end, he mentioned that “the Church in Spain has been and is intensely a missionary Church” and that “the work of the missionaries has always been that of promoting a culture of life and the dignity of the human being.” It is precisely this document that “wishes to aid in the discernment needed in this area, to encourage our communities in their missionary commitment, the decisive proof of the vitality of the faith and the depths reached by the evangelization effort among us.” (RG) (Agenzia Fides 25/11/2008)
