Q-and-A Session With Parish Priests (Part 1)

"Let Us Not Lose the Simplicity of the Truth"

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 3, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Following a Lenten tradition, Benedict XVI met last
Thursday with parish priests and clergy of the Diocese of Rome for a question-and-answer session.
Here is a translation of the first question and the Holy Father's answer.
ZENIT will be publishing these transcriptions over the coming days.
***

[Father Gianpiero Palmieri:]

Holy Father, I am Father Gianpiero Palmieri, pastor of St. Frumenzio ai Prati Fiscali parish. I would
like to ask you a question on the evangelizing mission of the Christian community and, in particular, on
the role and formation of priests within this evangelizing mission.
To explain myself, I will start with a personal experience. When I was a young priest, I began my
pastoral service in a parish and school; I felt strong because of the weight of my studies and the
formation received, well affirmed in the realm of my convictions of the systems of thought. A believing
and wise woman, seeing me in action, shook her head smiling and said to me: "Father Gianpiero, when
will you wear long pants, when will you be a man?" It was an incident that remained engraved in my
heart.
That wise woman was trying to explain to me that life, the real world, God himself, are greater and
more surprising than the concepts we elaborate. She was inviting me to listen to the human to try to
understand, to comprehend, without being in a hurry to judge. She was asking me to learn how to enter
into relationship with reality, without fears, because reality is inhabited by Christ himself who acts
mysteriously in his Spirit.
In face of the evangelizing mission today, we priests feel unprepared and inadequate, always with short
pants. Whether under the cultural aspect -- detailed knowledge of the great guidelines of contemporary
thought escapes us, in its positivity and its limits -- or, especially, under the human aspect. We run the
risk of being too schematic, incapable of knowing in a wise way the heart of the men of today. Is not
the proclamation of salvation in Jesus also the proclamation of the new man Jesus, Son of God, in
which our poor humanity is redeemed, made genuine, transformed by God?
Therefore, this is my question: do you share these thoughts? Many people wounded by life come to our
Christian communities. What venues and ways can we invent to help others' humanity in the encounter
with Jesus? And how can we priests construct a beautiful and fruitful humanity? Thank you, Your
Holiness.
[Benedict XVI:]
Thank you! Dear brothers, first of all I would like to express my great joy at being with you, parish
priests of Rome: my pastors, we are in family. The cardinal vicar has told me that it is a moment of
spiritual rest. And in this sense I am also grateful to be able to begin Lent with a moment of spiritual
rest, of spiritual breath, in contact with you.
And he also said: We are together so that you can tell me your experiences, your sufferings, also your
successes and joys. Therefore, I wouldn't say that the oracle speaks here, to whom you ask questions.
We are, rather, in a family exchange, in which it is very important for me to know, through you, life in
the parishes, your experiences with the Word of God in the context of our world today. I also would
like to learn, to come close to the reality, of which in the Apostolic Palace one is also a bit removed.
And this is also the limit of my answers. You live in direct contact, day by day, with today's world; I
live in diversified contacts, which are very useful.
For example, I have now had the ad limina visit of the bishops of Nigeria, and I have been able to see,
through individuals the life of the Church in an important country of Africa, with 140 million
inhabitants, a large number of Catholics, and touch the joys and also the sufferings of the Church.
But for me this is obviously a spiritual rest, because it is a Church as we see her in the Acts of the
Apostles. A Church where there is a fresh joy of having found Christ, of having found God's Messiah.
A Church that lives and grows each day. People are happy that they have found Christ. They have
vocations, so they can give fidei donum priests to the different countries of the world. And to see, not a
tired Church, as we often find in Europe, but a young Church, full of the joy of the Holy Spirit, is
certainly a spiritual refreshment. However, with all these universal experiences, it is also important for
me to see my diocese, the problems and all the realities you live in this diocese.
In this sense, I am essentially in agreement with you: It is not enough to preach or to do pastoral work
with the precious cargo acquired in theology studies. This is important, it is essential, but it must be
personalized: from academic knowledge, which we have learned and also reflected upon, in a personal
vision of my life, in order to reach other people. In this sense, I would like to say that it is important, on
one hand, to make the great word of the faith concrete with our personal experience of faith, in our
meeting with our parishioners, but also to not lose its simplicity. Naturally, great words of the tradition
-- such as sacrifice of expiation, redemption of Christ's sacrifice, original sin -- are incomprehensible as
such today. We cannot simply work with great formulas, [although] truths, without putting them in the
context of today's world. Through study and what the masters of theology and our personal experience
with God tell us, we must translate these great words, so that they enter into the proclamation of God to
the man of today.
And, on the other hand, I would say that we must not conceal the simplicity of the Word of God in
valuations that are too heavy for human approaches. I remember a friend who, after hearing homilies
with long anthropological reflections in order to bring others near the Gospel, said: But I am not
interested in these approaches, I want to understand what the Gospel says! And it seems to me that
often instead of long summaries of approaches, it would be better to say -- I did so when I was still in
my normal life: I don't like this Gospel, we are the opposite of what the Lord says! But what does it
mean? If I say sincerely that at first glance I am not in agreement, I already have their attention: It is
understood that I would like, as a man of today, to understand what the Lord is saying. Thus we can,
without circumlocution, enter fully into the Word.
And we must also keep in mind, free of false simplifications, that the Twelve Apostles were fishermen,
artisans, of the province of Galilee, without special preparation, without knowledge of the great Greek
and Latin worlds. And yet they went to all the places of the Empire, even outside of it, to India, and
proclaimed Christ with simplicity, with the force of simplicity of what is true. And this also seems
important to me: Let us not lose the simplicity of the truth. God exists and he is not a distant,
hypothetical being, rather, he is close, he has spoken to us, he has spoken to me. And so we say simply
what it is and how naturally it should be explained and developed. However, we must not lose the
awareness that we do not propose reflections, we do not propose a philosophy, but rather the simple
proclamation of the God who has acted, and who has also acted with me.
And then, in regard to the Roman cultural context, which is absolutely necessary, I would say that the
first assistance is our personal experience. We don't live on the moon. I am a man of this time if I live
my faith sincerely in today's culture, being one who lives with today's media, with dialogues, with the
realities of the economy, with everything; if I myself take seriously my own experience and try to
personalize these realities in myself. Thus we'll be on the way to making ourselves understood also by
others. St. Bernard of Clairvaux said in his book of reflections to his disciple, Pope Eugene: "Try to
drink from your own fount, that is, from your own humanity."
If you are sincere with yourself and you begin to see in yourself what faith is, with your human
experience in this time, drinking from your own well, as St. Bernard says, you can also say to others
what must be said. And in this sense it seems important to me to be really attentive to today's world, but
also to be attentive to the Lord in oneself: to be a man of this time and at the same time a believer in
Christ, who in himself transforms the eternal message into a current message.
And who knows the men of today better than the parish priest? The sacristy is not in the world, but in
the parish. And there, to the pastor, men often come normally, without a mask, without other pretexts,
but in situations of suffering, infirmity, death, family issues. They come to the confessional unmasked,
with their own being. It seems to me that no other profession gives this possibility of knowing man as
he is in his humanity, and not in the role he has in society. In this sense, we can really study man in his
depth, far from his roles, and we ourselves also learn about the human being, to be a man in the school
of Christ. In this sense, I would say that it is absolutely important to know man, the man of today, in
ourselves and in others, but always in attentive listening to the Lord and accepting in myself the seed of
the Word, because in me it is transformed into wheat and is able to be communicated to others.

Q-And-A Session With Parish Priests (Part 2)

"To Be in the Church … Means to Be in the Prospect of a Great Opening to the Future"

[Father Fabio Rosini:]

I am Father Fabio Rosini, parish priest of St. Francesca Romana all'Ardeatino. In the face of the present
process of secularization and of its evident social and existential consequences, [and] the exhortation to
the urgency of the first proclamation -- which on many occasions we have opportunely received from
your magisterium, in admirable continuity with your venerable predecessor -- [the exhortation] to
pastoral zeal for evangelization or re-evangelization, to the assumption of a missionary mentality, we
have understood the importance of the conversion of ordinary pastoral action, no longer presupposing
the faith of the masses and contenting ourselves with taking care of that portion of believers that
perseveres, thank God, in the Christian life, but becoming involved more decisively and organically
with the many lost, or at least disoriented, sheep.
In many and with different points of view, we Roman priests have tried to respond to this objective
urgency to reignite or even ignite the faith. The experiences of first proclamation are multiplying, and
there is no lack of very encouraging experiences. Personally, I can confirm how the Gospel, proclaimed
with joy and frankness, takes no time to win the hearts of the men and women of this city, precisely
because it is the truth and corresponds to what the human person most profoundly needs. The beauty of
the Gospel and of the faith, in fact, if presented with kind authenticity, are evident in themselves. But
the numeric result, perhaps surprisingly high, does not in itself guarantee the goodness of an initiative.
There is no lack of examples in the history of the Church, including recently. A pastoral success,
paradoxically, might conceal an error, a defect in its approach, which perhaps is not seen immediately.
That is why I want to ask you: What must be the indispensable criteria of this urgent action of
evangelization? In your view, what are the elements that guarantee that one does not run in vain in the
pastoral effort of proclamation to this generation contemporary to us? I ask you humbly to point out to
us, in your prudent discernment, the parameters, the elements that must be respected and valued to be
able to carry out an evangelizing endeavor that is genuinely Catholic and that bears fruits for the
Church. My heartfelt thanks for your illumined magisterium. Bless us.
[Benedict XVI:]
I am happy to hear that this first proclamation is being made, which goes beyond the limits of the
faithful community, of the parish, in search of the so-called lost sheep, that an attempt is being made to
go to the man of today who lives without Christ, who has forgotten Christ, to proclaim the Gospel to
him. And I am happy to hear that not only is this being done, but that numerically comforting successes
also are obtained from this. I see, therefore, that you are able to talk to those people in which the faith
must be re-ignited or even ignited.
I can give no recipes for this concrete endeavor, because there are different paths to follow, according
to the individuals, their professions, the distinct situations. The Catechism points out the essence of
what must be proclaimed. But it is he who knows the situations who must apply the indications, find a
method to open hearts and invite persons to walk on the path with the Lord and with the Church.
You speak of the criteria of discernment so as not to run in vain. I would like to say first of all that the
two parts are important. The community of the faithful is something precious that we must not
underestimate -- even looking at the many who are far away -- the beautiful and positive reality that
these faithful constitute, who say yes to the Lord in the Church, trying to live the faith, trying to follow
in the footsteps of the Lord. We must help these faithful, as we said a moment ago responding to the
first question, to see the presence of the faith, to understand that it is not something of the past, but that
it shows the way today, it teaches how to live as a man. It is very important that these faithful really
find in their parish priest a pastor who loves them and helps them to listen today to the Word of God, to
understand that it is a Word for them and not only for people of the past or the future, to help them even
more, in the sacramental life, in the experience of prayer, in listening to the Word of God, and on the
path of justice and charity, because Christians should be the leaven of our society with so many
problems, with so many dangers and with as much corruption as there is.
In this way I believe that they can also play a missionary role "without words," given that they are
people who really live a just life. And thus they offer a testimony of how it is possible to live well on
the paths indicated by the Lord. Our society needs precisely these communities that are able to live
justice today, not only for themselves but for others. Persons who are able to live, as we heard in the
first reading, the life. At the beginning, this reading says: "Choose life;" it's easy to say yes. But then it
continues: "Your life is God." Therefore, to choose life is to choose the option for life, because it is the
option for God. If there are persons or communities that make this choice of life and make visible the
fact that the life they have chosen is really life, they give witness of very great value.
And I come to a second reflection. We need two elements for the proclamation: the Word and witness.
As we know from the Lord himself, the Word is necessary, which says what he has said to us, which
makes the truth of God appear, the presence of God in Christ, the path that opens before us. Hence, it is
about proclamation in the present, as you have said, which translates the words of the past into the
world of our experience. It is something that is absolutely indispensable, fundamental, with witness to
give credibility to this Word, so that it does not appear to be only a pretty philosophy, or a pretty utopia,
but rather a reality. A reality with which one can live, but not only this: a reality that makes one live. In
this sense, I think that the witness of the believing community of the proclamation, as background to
the Word, is of the greatest importance. With the Word we must open venues of experience of the faith
to those who are seeking God. This is what the primitive Church did with the catechumens, which was
not simply a catechesis, something doctrinal, but a place of progressive experience of the life of faith,
in which the Word also opens, which becomes comprehensible only if it is interpreted by life, carried
out in life.
Therefore, it seems to me important, together with the Word, that there be a place of hospitality of the
faith, a place where there is a progressive experience of the faith. And here I also see one of the tasks of
the parish: hospitality toward those who do not know this life that is typical of the parish community.
We must not be a circle enclosed in ourselves. We have our customs, but nevertheless we must open
ourselves and try to create vestibules, that is, venues of closeness. One who comes from afar cannot
enter immediately into the formed life of a parish, which already has its customs. For the former at
present everything is very surprising, far from his life. Therefore, we must try to create, with the help of
the Word, what the primitive Church created with the catechumens: venues in which to begin to live the
Word, to follow the Word, to make it comprehensible and realistic, corresponding to real forms of
experience. In this sense, what you have pointed out seems very important to me, namely, the need to
unite the Word with the witness of a just life, of being for others, of being open to the poor, to the
needy, but also to the rich, who need to be open in their hearts, to feel that their hearts are called.
Hence, it's a question of different venues, according to the situation.
It seems to me that in theory little can be said, but the concrete experience will show the paths to be
followed. And, naturally it is necessary to be always in great communion with the Church -- always an
important criterion to follow -- although perhaps still in a somewhat distant interval: that is, in
communion with the bishop, with the Pope, thus in communion with the great past and with the great
future of the Church. In fact, to be in the Catholic Church does not only imply to be on the great path
that precedes us, but it means to be in the prospect of a great opening to the future. A future that opens
only in this way. We could perhaps continue talking about the contents, but we can find another
occasion for this.

Q-and-A Session With Parish Priests (Part 3)

"The Priest as Teacher Must Himself Be Well Formed"

[Father Giuseppe Forlai:]

Holy Father, I am Father Giuseppe Forlai, parish vicar of San Giovanni Crisostomo parish, in the
northern sector of our diocese. The educational emergency, of which Your Holiness has spoken
authoritatively, is also, as we all know, an emergency of teachers, especially, I believe, under two
aspects. First of all, it is necessary to have a broader view on the continuity of the presence of the
teacher-priest. A young person does not establish a pact of growth with someone who leaves after two
or three years, also because he is emotionally involved in managing his relations with parents who
leave their home, the father's or mother's new relations, precarious teachers who change every year.
One must be present in order to educate. Therefore, I feel that the primary need is that of a certain
stability of position of the teacher-priest.
The second aspect [is this]: I believe that what is essentially at stake in youth pastoral care is related to
culture. Culture understood as emotive-emotional competence and as possession of the words
contained in the concepts. A youth without this culture might be the poor man of tomorrow, a person
who runs the risk of failing in the affective [dimension] and of drowning in the world of work. A youth
of this culture runs the risk of being a nonbeliever, or worse still, a practicing [Catholic] without faith,
because incompetence in relationships deforms one's relationship with God, and the ignorance of words
blocks the understanding of the excellence of the Word of the Gospel.
It is not enough that young people physically fill the spaces of our parishes to spend some free time. I
would like the parish to be a place where they learn to develop relational competencies and where they
are heard and given school support. A place that is not the constant refuge of those who do not want to
study or make an effort, but a community of people that ask the right questions opening them to
religious meaning and where the great work of charity that is helping one to think is practiced. And
here a serious reflection should also be initiated on the collaboration between parishes and religion
teachers.
Your Holiness, give us one more authoritative word on these two aspects of the educational emergency:
the necessary stability of the agents and the urgency of having culturally capable teacher-priests. Thank
you.
[Benedict XVI:]
Let us begin with the second point. We can say that it is broader and, in a certain sense, easier. Needless
to say, a parish in which only games are played and drinks are shared would be absolutely superfluous.
The meaning of a parish should really be the cultural, human and Christian formation of a personality,
which must become a mature personality. On this we are in absolute agreement and, it seems to me,
today there is a cultural poverty in which many things are known, but without the heart, without an
inner unity because there is no common vision of the world. For this reason, a cultural solution inspired
in the faith of the Church, in the knowledge that God has given us, is absolutely necessary. I would say
that this is precisely the function of the parish: that one not only find possibilities for one's free time,
but above all that one can find an integral human formation that completes his personality.
And for this reason, naturally, the priest as teacher must himself be well formed and be positioned in
today's culture, rich in culture, to also help young people enter into a culture inspired by faith. I would
add, of course, that in the end the point of orientation of all culture is God, the God present in Christ.
Today we see people who have much knowledge, but no interior orientation. Thus science can also be
dangerous for man, because without more profound ethical guidelines, it leaves man to his own free
will and, consequently, without the necessary orientation to really become a man. In this sense, the
heart of all cultural formation, which is so necessary, must be without a doubt the faith: to know the
face of God which has been shown to us in Christ and thus to have the orientation point for the rest of
culture, which otherwise is disoriented and becomes disorienting. A culture without personal
knowledge of God, and without knowledge of the face of God in Christ, is a culture that could even be
destructive, because it does not know the necessary ethical guidelines. In this sense, I believe, we really
have a mission of profound cultural and human formation, which opens to all the riches of the culture
of our time, but which gives the criterion, the discernment to test what is true culture and what could
become anti-cultural.
The first question is much harder for me -- the question is also [addressed] to Your Eminence [the vicar,
Cardinal Agostino Vallini] -- namely, the permanence of the young priest to give guidance to young
people. Undoubtedly, a personal relationship with the teacher is important and must also have the
possibility of a certain period to get to know each other. And, in this sense, I can agree that the priest,
point of orientation for young people, cannot change every day, because in this way, in fact, he loses
this orientation. On the other hand, the young priest must also have different experiences in different
cultural contexts, precisely to obtain, in the end, the cultural equipment necessary to be, as pastor, the
point of reference for a long time in the parish. And I would say that in the life of the young person, the
dimensions of time are different from those of the life of the adult. The three years, from 16 to 19, are
at least as long and as important as the years between 40 and 50. Precisely here is where the personality
is formed: It is an interior journey of great importance, of great existential extent.
In this sense, I would say that three years for an assistant pastor is a good period of time to form a
generation of young people; and in this way, moreover, he can also know other contexts, learn about
other situations in other parishes, enrich his human knowledge. The time is not that brief in order to
give a certain continuity, an educational path of the common experience, to learn to be a man. On the
other hand, as I have said, for youth three years is a decisive and very long time, because the future
personality is really being formed. It seems to me, therefore, that both needs can be reconciled: on one
hand, that the young priest have the possibility of different experiences to enrich his store of human
experience; and on the other, the need to stay for a determined period of time with the young people to
really introduce them to life, to teach them to be human persons. In this sense, I think that both aspects
can be reconciled: different experiences for a young priest, continuity in the accompaniment of the
young people in order to guide them in life. However, I do not know if the cardinal vicar can say
something to us in this regard.
[Cardinal Vicar for Rome, Agostino Vallini:]
Holy Father, of course I share these two needs, the combination between the two needs. It seems to me,
from the little I have been able to learn, that in Rome somehow we still have a certain stability of
young priests in the parishes, for at least a few years, with exceptions. There can always be exceptions.
But the real problem stems, perhaps, from serious needs or concrete situations, above all in the
relations between the pastor and the assistant pastor -- and here I touch a raw nerve -- and also in the
lack of young priests. I was also able to mention this to you when you received me in audience, one of
the grave problems of our diocese is, in fact, the number of vocations to the priesthood. Personally, I
am convinced that the Lord calls, that he continues to call. Perhaps we should do more. Rome can give
vocations, it will give them, I am certain. But in all this complex matter perhaps many aspects interfere.
I surely think that a certain stability already exists and I also will follow, insofar as I can, the lines
pointed out to us by the Holy Father.
[Translation by ZENIT]