Latest News from #Vatican Information Service - Pro Pontifice Winners and more...

27-02-2015 - Year XXII - Num. 042

Summary

- The Pope and the Curia conclude their Spiritual Exercises

- A congress to commemorate the first mass in Italian celebrated by Blessed Paul VI

- Other Pontifical Acts - The Foundation Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice presents the winners of the “Economy and Society” award

The Pope and the Curia conclude their Spiritual Exercises Vatican City, 27 February 2015 (VIS) – This morning in the House of the Divine Master in Ariccia the Holy Father and the Roman Curia completed the spiritual exercises they began last Sunday afternoon. Following today's sermon, the Pope thanked Fr. Bruno Secondin, O. Carm., author of this week's meditations, which explored the theme “Servants and prophets of the living God”, based on a pastoral reading of the prophet Elijah. “On behalf of all of us, myself included”, said Francis, “I would like to thank Fr. Secondin for his work with us. It is not easy to give Exercises to priests! We are all somewhat complicated, but you have managed to sow seeds. Many the Lord allow the seeds you have given us to grow. And I hope that we will all be able to leave here with a piece of Elijah's mantle in our hands and in our hearts. Thank you, Father!”.

A congress to commemorate the first mass in Italian celebrated by Blessed Paul VI Vatican City, 27 February 2015 (VIS) – On 7 March 1965, Blessed Paul VI, on the 25th anniversary of the death of St. Luigi Orione, celebrated the first mass in Italian in history in the parish of Ognissanti (All Saints), Rome. “Today we inaugurate the new form of Liturgy in all the parishes and churches of the world, for all the Masses followed by the people. It is a great event, that shall be remembered as the beginning of a flourishing spiritual life, as a new effort to participate in the great dialogue between God and man”. Fifty years on, to commemorate this historic date, Pope Francis will preside at a Eucharistic celebration next Saturday, 7 March at 6 p.m. in the same parish (Via Appia Nuova, 244). The occasion will also be celebrated by a Congress on Pastoral Liturgy organised by the Vicariate of Rome, the Opera Don Orione and the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Rome, to open today at the Teatro Orione, adjacent to the All Saints parish. The theme of the Congress is “United in giving thanks”. The works will be presented by Rev. Flavio Peloso, superior general of the Sons of Divine Providence (Don Orione), who comments that the event “will facilitate an understanding of the reasons behind yesterday's liturgical reforms and today's commitment to liturgical fidelity”. Following greetings from the auxiliary bishop Giuseppe Marciante, Archbishop Francesco Pio Tamburrano, metropolitan emeritus of Foggia-Bovino, Italy, will speak about “Tradition and renewal in paragraph 23 of the liturgical Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium. Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, will then consider the theme “The spoken language, tool of communion in the dialogue of the liturgical assembly”, and finally Rev. Francesco Mazzitelli, parish priest of Ognissanti, will examine “The liturgical formation of the laity”. The work of the Congress will be concluded by the Benedictine Fr. Jordi Pique, president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute. The moderator, Fr. Giuseppe Midili, director of the diocesan liturgical office, affirmed that “the congress offers various points for reflection on the reasons that led the conciliar bishops to introduce the spoken language into the liturgy. Indeed, one of the main aims of liturgical reform was full, active and conscious participation in the liturgy, so that the faithful moved on from their role as mute, extraneous spectators. In this sense, the change was historical and signified a turnaround. Indeed, when the liturgy was celebrated in a language they did not understand, the faithful sought more accessible forms of private worship and prayer to recite during the Mass. With the introduction of the spoken language, these individualistic forms slowly disappeared from the celebratory context in favour of the centrality of the community celebration”.

Other Pontifical Acts Vatican City, 27 February 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed Bishop Charles Jude Scicluna, as metropolitan archbishop of Malta (area 246, population 413,000, Catholics 380,000, priests 621, religious 1,321), Malta. Msgr. Scicluna is currently apostolic administrator of the same archdiocese. 26-02-2015 - Year XXII - Num. 041  The Foundation Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice presents the winners of the “Economy and Society” award Vatican City, 26 February 2015 (VIS) – This morning in the Holy See Press Office the Foundation Centesimus Annus presented its activity during the past two years, its programmes and the names of the winners of the second edition of its the biennial international award, “Economy and Society”. The speakers in the conference were Domingo Sugranyes Bickel, president of the Foundation, Michael Konrad, secretary of the jury, Msgr. Giuseppe Antonio Scotti, a jury member and Alberto Quadrio Curzio, president of the scientific committee of the foundation and deputy president of the Italian Lincean Academy. The Foundation Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice, the president explained, was created by St. John Paul II in 1993, is managed by a council made up of nine laypeople and reports to the president of the APSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See), currently Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, under the supervision of the Secretariat of State. Its main objective is to promote the Social Doctrine of the Church and it therefore invites the participation of businesspeople and professionals who acknowledge the principles of this Doctrine and of the papal Magisterium, and who wish to contribute to the creation of a new economic and social culture. Sugranyes Bickel emphasised that in these last two years the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice has worked in line with the themes of Pope Francis' 2013 address, in which he remarked that it was essential to “restore to this word 'solidarity', viewed askance by the world of economics – as if it were a bad word – the social dignity that it deserves”. Msgr. Scotti reiterated the importance of following Pope Francis' example in challenging the “deviant culture” that has reached the point of discarding people. “There are many who believe that the economy should assume the role of absolute producer of the aims and values to which every single aspect of the human dimension should be subject, justifying this with the fact that we live in a post-ideological, post-political age. Certainly, this would be an interesting aspect to analyse. … However, contemporary culture can also be analysed from the perspective of the Word of God. Considering that this award is assigned to authors who seek to contribute, through their studies, reflections and publications to learning anew how to take a scholarly view of the present and on the use of money, it seems appropriate to me to recall the words of the Qoheleth: 'Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless'”. The names of the recipients of the second edition of the award were then announced: Pierre de Lauzun, for his work “Finance: un regard chrétien. De la banque mediéval a la mondialisation financière”, a profound reflection on the morality that motivates financial markets, viewed in the light of the social doctrine of the Church, inviting consideration of an order other than that purely linked to profit, and emphasising that there is no form of financial operation that may be separated from social realities and moral needs. In the special section dedicated to young researchers of the social doctrine of the Church, the winner was Alexander Stummvoll, born in 1983, for his thesis “A Living Tradition. The Holy See, Catholic Social Doctrine and Global Politics 1965-2000”, presented in 2012 at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. The study examines the Social Doctrine of the Church in international relations, referring to four major international issues that take a concrete event as a starting point. With reference to the war in Vietnam, he analyses the Holy See's commitment to peace; taking as a point of reference the Polish crisis before 1989 he studies the politics of the Holy See in relation to communism; from the conferences in Cairo and Beijing in 1994 and 1995 he examines the position of the Holy See regarding bioethical questions, and finally in relation to the campaign against Third World debt on the occasion of the 2000 Jubilee, he studies the Holy See's criticism of unfettered capitalism. The awards will be presented by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich und Freising and president of the Jury, during the next International Congress of the Foundation, scheduled to take place from 25 to 27 May in the Vatican's New Synod Hall and in the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, on the theme “Rethinking Key Features of Economic and Social Life”.