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Vatican City, 10th November 2006 (CNA) -
Meeting with a group of German bishops for their “ad limina” visit today,
Pope Benedict XVI said that the “crisis of secularization” is the
providential challenge of our day. The Holy Father emphasized the urgent
need to offer convincing answers to the many that seek and look with hope to
the Christian message.
According to a report from Vatican Radio, the
Pope affirmed that, “the Republic of Germany shares, with the whole Western
world, the situation of a culture dominated by secularization, in which God
seems to disappear more and more from the public conscience.”
“The German Church,” he said, “has the
spiritual roots and the ability to promote the faith and support the needs
of those in the country.”
“Above all,” the Pope emphasized, “the Church
in Germany must again show the power and the beauty of the Catholic Faith.”
Benedict then spoke about the growing Muslim
population of Germany and the necessity of dialogue between the two
religions.
Muslims, the Pope said, "who hold to their
convictions and their rites [ceremonies] with such seriousness, have the
right to our humble and resolute witness to Jesus Christ. To make that
witness credible requires a great commitment, and for this reason it is
necessary that in places where there is a large Muslim population, there
also be Catholic interlocutors who have the essential knowledge of the
language and religious history that makes them capable of engaging in
dialogue with Muslims,” he stressed.
But, he added, a full understanding of the
truths of the Catholic faith are a pre-requisite for entering into a
fruitful dialogue.
The Holy Father also addressed the teaching of
religion, Catholic schools, and the formation of Catholic adults. One key
focus of Catholic education should be, he said, "above all, the matter of
the curriculum of the teaching of religion so that the entire scholarly
journey can transmit the fullness of the Faith and of the life of the
Church."
“In Catholic schools it is fundamental that
the introduction to the Catholic view of the world and the practicing of the
Faith are not only transmitted during religion classes, but in a convincing
way in the daily routine of the scholastic life and by means of the personal
testimony of instructors," Benedict said.
He also encouraged a profitable collaboration
between lay people and clergy, but warned that such collaboration should not
confuse the specific rolls proper to each state of life. The Pontiff
mentioned, for example, that the homily at Mass is reserved to the preaching
by clergy. “It is the Sacrament of Orders that allows the person to work
and speak sacramentally, in persona Christi.”
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