Pope says we need to vigorously face the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Facing the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel to the world with renewed vigour, using all of our strengths so that goal is reached, is part of the task that I have been entrusted: this is what Benedict XVI says in the book "Light of the World. The Pope, the Church, the Signs of the Times. A conversation with Peter Seewald." which was presented this morning at the Vatican.
"It is immediately clear, however, the Church is the protagonist of these pages”, said, Mgr. Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the new evangelization. "The many questions that compose the interview - he continued – only serve to highlight the nature of the Church, its presence in history, the service that the Pope is called to carry out and, not least, the mission he still needs to continue today to be faithful to his Lord. "We live in an age in which a new evangelization is needed. An era in which the only Gospel must be proclaimed in its great and unchanged rationally, and together in the power that exceeds that of rationality, so as to arrive in a new way to our thinking and our understanding ... It is important to understand the Church not as an apparatus that everything must do everything, but as a living organism that comes from Christ himself "(pp. 193-194).
"In light of this reference, is easy to see the goal that marked the years of the pontificate aimed to show that it is crucial for modern man to grasp God's presence in his life to be able to respond freely - in fact this implies a continuous emphasis on rationality – to the qualifying question on the meaning of our existence. The scope of the interview is vast, it seems that nothing escapes the curiosity of P. Seewald who wants to catch a glimpse of the personal life of the Pope, in the big issues that mark the theology of the moment, the various political events that have always accompanied the relationship between different countries and, finally, the questions that often occupy most of the public debate . We are dealing with a pope who does not avoid any questions who wants to clarify everything in simple but no less profound, language, accepting graciously the provocations contained in many of the questions. "
"The simple tone of his answers embolden the plasticity of the images that often recur, allowing you to fully understand the plight of some facts. Yet, from the calmness of the responses and the development of his argument, what emerges clearly is above all the spirituality that characterizes his life so much so as to leave one speechless. "Even at the moment when it hit me, all I was able to say to the Lord was simply: “What are you doing with me? Now the responsibility is yours. You must lead me! I can’t do it. If you wanted me, then you must also help me!” "(p. 18, see p. 33). In this case readers either give up. Or accept the view of faith as a true surrender to God who takes you where he wants, or they give in to the more fanciful interpretations that have often characterise chatter clerical and beyond. The truth, however, is all in those words. If you want to know Benedict XVI, his life and his papacy, one must return to this expression. Here his vocation to the priesthood is condensed into a call to discipleship, here one understands the reason for a trajectory that can not be changed into his view of the world and action of the Church; here one understands the perspective through which it is possible to enter the depth of his thought and meaning for some of his actions".
"An interview which in many ways becomes a challenge to make a serious examination of conscience inside and outside the Church to bring about a true conversion of heart and mind. The living conditions of society, ecology, sexuality, economics and finance, the Church itself ... these are all issues that require a special effort to check the cultural direction of the world of today and the prospects for future. Benedict XVI refuses to be intimidated by the data of surveys, because the truth has many other criteria: "the statistics are not the measure of morality" (p. 204). He is aware that we are dealing with “a poisoning of the thought that from the outset gives a wrong perspective" (p. 77), this provokes us to choose the necessary path towards the truth (see p. 79-80), to be able to generate genuine progress in the world today (see p. 70-71). These pages, however, clearly reveal the Pope's thinking and some quarters will have to rethink their preconceived judgements of him as an obscurantist man and enemy of modernity: "It is important that we try to live and think about Christianity in such a way that it assumes that the right and good of what is modern"(p. 87) with its achievements and values that has achieved with difficulty:" There are naturally many issues which show so to speak the morality of modernity. Modernity is not only negativity. If so it could not last long. It has in itself great moral values which originate in Christianity, which thanks to Christianity alone, have entered as values into the consciousness of humanity. Where they are defended - and they must be defended by the Pope – they is large scale adhesion”.(p. 40).
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