INTRODUCTORY WORDS

by

His Excellency Cardinal

DARÍO CASTRILLÓN HOYOS

Prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy

DEUS CARITAS EST

“God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 Jn 4:16) wrote the Holy Father at the beginning of his first Encyclical (see Enc. Dues caritas est, n. 1), reminding the whole world with words from the first letter of John that God loves and his love appeared among humanity and was made visible in Christ, his only Son. The Pope affirms: “In a world in which at times God’s name is linked with vengeance and even the duty to hate and to violence, this is a very current message with a real concrete significance” (Ibidem).

It is a message which expresses the heart of the Christian faith and that calls out to all faithful, especially to ordained ministers of the Church who, through their priestly ordination, are ontologically configured on Christ himself. This is also the theme for the forty-fourth international videoconference directed to the continuing formation of the clergy. The truth of the love of God “of which God fills us and which we have to communicate to others” (see Enc. Deus caritas est, n. 1) is the root of each priest’s life.

The theologians in their talks, and in particular Bishop Rino Fisichella, the professor, Msgr. Antonio Miralles and the professor, Fr. Paolo Scarafoni, will highlight that God is not far; he is not the abyss, the Bythos, of the current deism; he is not the Unknown, the Theos agnostos, of the ancient pagan philosophies and of the false agnosticism of the new sects.

The speakers will underscore that from the Church’s origins, the Fathers and the ecclesial writers have responded to the heretical gnosis of Deus otiosus, isolated in an inaccessible dimension, non-beginning and non-father, Proarchê and Propatôr, and you will remember what Saint Irenaeus wrote in the second century: “The true God cannot be fully understood by us for his infinite majesty: we know him instead for his love, because it is this love that leads us to God by means of the Word” (Against the heresies, IV 20,1).

Christian prayer is the response of faith to the closeness of God who bends down to every person, calling him friend and bringing him into his divine life. We will be reminded that those who do not pray have no hope of being heard by God, of being understood by Him, and in the end, do not want to be loved by him. We will also listen to a theological comment on the Hymn to Charity in which Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, lists the sentiments of Christ with which the believer is called to clothe himself.

In the following talks, the contents of the plenary humanism will be deepened that consists in “the development of the whole person and of all people” as wrote the venerated servant of God, Paul VI, in his Encyclical Populorum progressio (n. 42). It is not, in fact, possible to separate responding to the material and social needs of humanity from satisfying the deep needs of their hearts, which essentially yearn to experience the love of God. The compassionate gaze with which Christ looks onto the crowd (cf. Mt 9:36) has to become the way a Christian looks at the world, its events, and all people, as he is called to measure his “gaze” against Christ’s.

You will hear repeated what the Holy Father recently wrote in his Message for Lent 2006: “ the primary contribution that the Church offers to the development of mankind and peoples does not consist merely in material means or technical solutions. Rather, it involves the proclamation of the truth of Christ, Who educates consciences and teaches the authentic dignity of the person and of work; it means the promotion of a culture that truly responds to all the questions of humanity” (Lenten Message for 2006, 29.9.2005). In this perspective, the charitable organizations of the Church do not work in favour of and to support “a divided person” – to use an expression of the venerated Servant of God, John Paul II (cf. see Enc. Redemptoris missio, n. 11) – but to contribute to the whole humanization of the human person in justice.

The upcoming speakers in today’s videoconference will deepen the meaning of this justice which should be the goal and also the intrinsic measure of every nation’s politics. They will specify that the Social Doctrine of the Church does not want to confer to the Church community power over the State, but only to contribute to the purification of reason, offering its help so as to make what is just recognized and actualized (cf. see Enc. Deus Caritas est, n. 28). Only in this way can “the sadness of this world” that is bearer of death be conquered, as affirmed Saint Paul (cf. 2 Cor 7:10): it is the mortal sadness of laicism which rebels against the divine agape and closes itself off in the eros that is deprived of transcendence.

In thanking our guests, I want to remind them that their talks will be transmitted live in ten nations worldwide. The reflections will be delivered in Rome, from the Office for the Congregation for the Clergy, by Bishop Rino Fisichella, from Msgr. Antonio Miralles and Father Paolo Scarafoni.

In addition, we will also hear Dr. Alfonso Carrasco Rouco from Madrid; Dr. Igor Kowalewsky from Moscow; Dr. Michael Hull from New York; Dr. José Vidamor Yu from Manila; Dr. Louis Aldrich from Taiwan; Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller from Regensburg; Dr. Rodney Moss from Johannesburg; Dr. Silvio Cajiao from Bogotà; Dr. Gary Devery from Sydney.

Best wishes to all and enjoy the talks.