| Service to the Faith is Also a Service to Joy
On Friday, 10 February, in the Vatican's Clementine Hall, the Holy
Father spoke to the participants of the plenary Assembly of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Archbishop William J. Levada, whom the pope appointed to succeed him
as Prefect of the Congregation on 13 May 2005, opened the Audience by
greeting the Holy Father. In his Address, the Pope emphasized that the
Congregation's service to the fullness of the faith "is a service to the
truth, hence, to joy", and that in this perspective their doctrinal
ministry could "appropriately be defined as 'pastoral'".
The following is a translation of the Holy Father's Address, which
was given in Italian.
Your Eminences, Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the
Presbyterate,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am pleased to meet the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at
the end of its Plenary Meeting, a Congregation over which I had the joy to
preside for more than 20 years through the mandate of my Predecessor, the
venerable Pope John Paul II.
Your faces also make me think of all those who collaborated with the
Dicastery in those years: I remember them all with gratitude and
affection. Indeed, I cannot but recall with a certain emotion the very
intense and fruitful period which I spent with the Congregation, whose
task is to promote and safeguard the doctrine on faith and morals in the
entire Catholic Church (cf. Pastor Bonus, n. 48).
Basic importance of faith
Faith has a fundamental importance in the life of the Church, because
the gift that God makes of himself in Revelation is fundamental and God's
gift of himself is accepted through faith.
Here the importance of your Congregation comes to the fore. Through its
service to the whole Church and to the Bishops in particular, as teachers
of the faith and pastors, it is precisely called in a spirit of
collegiality to encourage and to recall the centrality of the Catholic
faith in its authentic expression.
Whenever, moreover, the perception of this centrality weakens, the
fabric of ecclesial life loses its original brightness and wears thin: it
degenerates into sterile activism or is reduced to political expediency
with a worldly flavour.
If, instead, the truth of the faith is placed simply and decisively at
the heart of Christian existence, human life is innovated and revived by a
love that knows no rest or bounds, as I also had the opportunity to recall
in my recent Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est.
Charity, like love that renews all things, moves from God's Heart to
the Heart of Jesus Christ, and through his Spirit across the world. This
love is born from the encounter with Christ in faith: "Being Christian
is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter
with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive
direction" (Deus caritas est, n. 1).
Pole Star of human wisdom
Jesus Christ is the Personified Truth who attracts the world to
himself. The light that shines out from Jesus is the splendor of the
truth. Every other truth is a fragment of the Truth that he is, and refers
to him.
Jesus is the Pole Star of human freedom: without him it loses its sense
of direction, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom degenerates,
becomes isolated and is reduced to sterile arbitration. With him, freedom
is rediscovered, it is recognized to have been created for our good and is
expressed in charitable actions and behaviour.
Therefore, Jesus gives men and women total familiarity with the truth
and continuously invites them to live in it. It is truth offered as a
reality that restores the human being and at the same time surpasses him
and towers above him, as a Mystery that embraces and at the same time
exceeds the impulse of his intelligence.
And nothing succeeds as well as love for the truth in impelling the
human mind towards unexplored horizons. Jesus Christ, who is the fullness
of the truth, draws to himself the heart of each person, enlarges it and
fills it with joy. Indeed, truth alone can take possession of the mind and
make it rejoice to the full.
It is this joy that increases the dimensions of the human heart lifting
it anew from the narrowness of selfishness and rendering it capable of
authentic love. It is the experience of this joy that moves and attracts
the human person to free adoration, not to servile prostration but to bow
with heartfelt respect before the Truth he has encountered.
Joy of faith in Christ Thus, service to the faith, which is a
witness to the One who is the entire Truth, is also a service to joy, and
this is the joy that Christ desires to spread in the world: it is the joy
of faith in him, of truth that is communicated through him, of salvation
that comes from him! It is this joy we feel in our hearts when we kneel
with faith to worship Jesus! This love for truth also inspires and
directs the Christian approach to the contemporary world and the
evangelizing commitment of the Church, topics which you have taken time to
discuss at your Plenary Assembly. The Church welcomes with joy the
authentic breakthroughs of human knowledge and recognizes that
evangelization also demands a proper grasp of the horizons and the
challenges that modern knowledge and recognizes that evangelization also
demands a proper grasp of the horizons and the challenges that modern
knowledge is unfolding. In fact, the great progress of scientific
knowledge that we saw during the last century has helped us understand the
mystery of creation better and has profoundly marked the awareness of all
peoples. However, scientific advances have sometimes been so rapid as to
make it very difficult to discern whether they are compatible with the
truths about man and the world that God has revealed. At times, certain
assertions of scientific knowledge have been opposed to these truths. This
may have given rise to a certain confusion among the faithful and may also
have made the proclamation and acceptance of the Gospel difficult.
Consequently, every study that aims to deepen the knowledge of the truths
discovered by reason is vitally important, in the certainty that there is
no "competition of any kind between reason and faith" (Fides et Ratio,
n. 17). 'Reasonableness of faith' We must have no fears about
facing this challenge: Jesus Christ is indeed the Lord of all creation and
of all history. The believer knows well that "all things were created
through him and for him... and in him all things hold together" (Col 1:16,
17). By continually deepening our knowledge of Christ, the centre of the
cosmos and of history, we can show the men and women of our time that
faith in him is important for humanity's future: indeed, it is the
accomplishment of all that is authentically human. Only in this
perspective will we be able to give convincing answers to the person who
is searching.
This commitment is crucially important for the proclamation and
transmission of the faith in the contemporary world. Today, in fact,
the task of evangelizing is an urgent priority and demands equal
commitment.
The dialogue between faith and reason, religion and science, does not
only make it possible to show people of our time the reasonableness of
faith in God as effectively and convincingly as possible, but also to
demonstrate that the definitive fulfilment of every authentic human
aspiration rests in Jesus Christ. In this regard, a serious evangelizing
effort cannot ignore the questions that arise also from today's scientific
and philosophical discoveries.
The desire for the truth is part of human nature itself. The whole of
creation is an immense invitation to seek those responses that open human
reason to the great response that it has always sought and awaited: "The
truth of Christian Revelation, found in Jesus of Nazareth, enables all men
and women to embrace the 'mystery' of their own life. As absolute truth,
it summons human beings to be open to the transcendent, while respecting
both their autonomy as creatures and their freedom. At this point, the
relationship between freedom and truth is complete, and we understand the
full meaning of :he Lord's words: 'You will know the truth, and the truth
will make you free' (Jn 8:32)" (Fides et Ratio, n 15).
Serving the fullness of faith
In this the Congregation finds the motive for its commitment and the
horizon of its service. Your service to the fullness of the faith is a
service to the truth, hence, to joy, a joy that rises from the depths of
the heart, that flows from those abysses of love that Christ opened with
his Heart pierced on the Cross and that his Spirit pours out into the
world with inexhaustible generosity. From this point of view, your
doctrinal ministry can appropriately be defined as "pastoral".
Your service, in fact, is a service to the full diffusion of God's
light in the world! May the light of faith, expressed in its fullness, and
integrity, always illumine your work and be the "star" that guides you and
helps you m direct human hearts to Christ!
This is the weighty but fascinating task incumbent upon the Successor
of Peter in his mission in which you are called to collaborate. Thank you
for your work and for your service!
With these sentiments I impart my Blessing to you all.
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