Pope Benedict told his former students meeting to discuss the new evangelisation, that his generation, cradle Catholics did not evangelise enough.
Gathered for their annual seminar with the pontiff at Castel Gandolfo, Benedict said. “We, who have been able to know [Christ] since our youth, may we ask forgiveness because we bring so little of the light of his face to people; so little certainty comes from us that he exists, he’s present and he is the greatness that everyone is waiting for,” the Pope said.
Each year the meeting centres its focus on a topic of current interest, and this year Benedict chose to focus discussion on the possible contribution of theology to the “new evangelisation,” the topic at the centre of the next Synod of Bishops.
The meeting was addressed by two speakers,
- Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, a lecturer in the philosophy of religion at Dresden University, who examined the topic:“Speaking to Athens of Jerusalem. Words of God in a world that resists,” and
- Otto Neubauer, Director of the Academy for Evangelization of the Emmanuel Community in Vienna, who spoke on “An ever new evangelisation – where poverty becomes a bridge to men and women.”
Summarising the discussions for L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Schoenborn, one of Ratzinger’s former students, said participants felt that World Youth Day events in Madrid represented a fresh “boost of renewed hope” for the Church.
He said older generations had suffered by first living their faith at a time when Church life was thriving, and now watching parishes lose parishioners.
But today’s young Catholics seem to realise they are a minority in a secular, relativistic world and have shown their “undaunted willingness to give witness to their peers in such an environment,” he said.
Inaugurated in 1977 after Professor Ratzinger was named Archbishop of Munich, the Ratzinger Schulerkreis, has continued each year meeting annually with his alumni, those who defended their theses with him.
This year participants were joined by members of the “new” Schuelerkreis, the sodality founded four years ago that is made up of students who have written their theses on texts by Joseph Ratzinger.
About 40 people from various countries took part in the meeting.
Sources