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Message to the Roman Curia: Pope's 'game plan' for 2009 (Subscribe to RSS Feed)

Vatican, Dec. 22, 2008 (CWNews.com) -

Each year before Christmas, the Pope holds an audience with officials of the Roman Curia, for an exchange of Christmas greetings. Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) has used these annual occasions as an opportunity to reflect on what he considers the most important issues facing the Church. By looking backward across the events of the past year, the Holy Father gives his subordinates some insights into his plans for Vatican policies in the near future.

With this year's talk Pope Benedict has signaled that his primary focus for 2009 will be the drive to proclaim the Gospel, energetically and unapologetically, throughout the world during the remainder of the Pauline Year, always relying confidently on the power of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church.

In December 2005, at his first Christmas audience with the Curia, Pope Benedict let Vatican officials know that he was dedicated to implementing the teachings of Vatican II-- with the important caveat that a "hermeutic of continuity" should be used to see those teachings in the light of constant Church traditions.

In 2006 the Pontiff offered a similar analysis, concentrating on the wisdom of Church teachings on such issues as war and peace, faith and reason, and priestly celibacy.

Last year the Pope devoted most of his address to the Curia to a discussion of his trip to Brazil that year, and the need for a new impulse of evangelization in Latin America and throughout the Christian world.

Pope Benedict expanded on that theme of evangelization during his December 22 meeting with curial officials. He picked up several key events of 2008: the inauguration of the Pauline Year in June, his apostolic trips to the US and to France, the World Youth Day celebration in Australia, and the Synod of Bishops in October. During the Synod, he recalled, the participating bishops were "again made aware of what God, through his Word, addresses to each of us." But that same theme was clear in each of the Pope's recollections about the events of 2008. The Gospel message is the single great hope of mankind, he said, explaining that "this Word has shaped a common history and wants to continue doing so."

The Synod, the Pope continued, emphasized "the presence of the Word of God, God Himself, at this moment in history." That same sense of God's presence shaped his apostolic trips, he said-- just as it shaped the vision of St. Paul, whose teachings are the focus and inspiration for the Pauline Year.

At World Youth Day, for example, the Word of God was active in the young participants, the Pope said. He told the curial officials that it is a mistake to think of the World Youth Day celebration as a "type of rock festival, with the Pope as its star." Nor is it accurate to think that the celebration can be accurately understood by the secular media. The more important reality, he said, it "a long exterior and interior journey" undertaken by participants, who attend World Youth Day for an encounter with God, to be enriched by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That Creator Spirit, the Pope observed, helps Christians to understand "our responsibility toward the earth. It is not simply our property to be exploited according to our interests and desires. Rather, it is a gift of the Creator." However, he added, concern for God's creation cannot be limited to care for the natural environment-- although that is certainly a part of it. Far more important, he said, is the Church's mission to preserve what he called referred to as "something like an ecology of the human being, understood in the proper manner." In this context, the Pope said that the Church must teach clearly about the nature of the human person, to counteract the influence of secular ideologies that confuse and diminish human dignity. He spoke specifically about "gender ideology," insisting that God created man and woman as complementary, and the Church "demands that this order of creation be respected" by promotion of marriage and family life.

In all her teaching, Pope Benedict said, the Catholic Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit is the breath of Christ," he said, and "makes the entire breadth of the Christian faith visible."