(Vatican Radio) “A blessing to one another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People” is the title of an exhibition showing in the Vatican’s Charlemagne Wing.
Scheduled to last until September 17, the exhibit was previously displayed in a number of state capitals in the USA where it received more than a million visitors.
“A blessing to one another” illustrates the steps Pope Saint John Paul II took to improve the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and reflects the continuing relevance of the conciliar declaration “Nostra Aetate”, in which the Catholic Church expresses her appreciation for other religions and reaffirms the principals of universal fraternity, love and non-discrimination.
Dr William Madges, one of the exhibition curators, spoke to Vatican Radio about the event.
Listen to the interview:
Madges explains the exhibit is divided into four sections and consists of photographs, videos, recordings and other interactive sources.
The first section illustrates Karol Wojtyla’s early years in his birthplace Wadowice, what would become a lifelong friendship with the young Jew Jerzy Kluger, and the relations between Catholics and Jews in Poland during the decade 1920 to 1930.
The second section is dedicated to the Pope’s university years in Krakow, and his work not far from his friends in the Ghetto who knew the horrors of the Shoah.
The third describes his priestly and episcopal life, Vatican Council II and the change of direction it represented in relations between Jews and Christians, and the close link between the cardinal archbishop of Krakow and the Jewish community in his archdiocese.
The final section considers the figure of Wojtyla as the Successor of Peter, his visit to the Synagogue of Rome, and his trip to Israel in the year 2000 when he left a prayer in the Western Wall asking for divine forgiveness for the treatment that Jews had received in the past and reaffirming the Church’s commitment to a path of fraternal continuity with the People of the Covenant.
Visitors to “A blessing to one another” are invited to write a prayer to be placed in a reproduction of the Wall. They will be gathered and deposited in the Western Wall without being read.
For more information about the exhibition click here .
(from Vatican Radio)…
SECAM, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) is today Wednesday set to officially launch the African Year of Reconciliation (AYR) as it commemorates its 46th Anniversary since it was founded.
SECAM, the Pan-African Conference of Catholic Bishops’ conferences in Africa and Madagascar, was inaugurated in July 1969 in Kampala, Uganda, during the visit by Pope Paul VI, with the aim to promote collaboration and foster communion among Bishops’ conferences in view of enhancing the mission of evangelization and integral human development on the continent.
According to a press release by the Communications office of SECAM, the event of launching the AYR will take place at SECAM Secretariat in Accra, Ghana, beginning with the celebration of the Eucharist and followed by a reception “for a cross-section of people.”
The year-long AYR being officially kicked off on Wednesday will conclude on 29 July 2016 during the 17th Plenary Assembly of SECAM scheduled to take place in Angola.
The celebration of AYR was recommended by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus.
“In order to encourage reconciliation in communities, I heartily recommend, as did the Synod Fathers, that each country celebrates yearly a day or week of reconciliation,” the Pope stated in Africae Munus, 157.
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI tasked SECAM to facilitate the various reconciliation initiatives saying, “SECAM will be able to help bring this about and, in accord with the Holy See, promote a continent-wide Year of Reconciliation to seek God’s special forgiveness for all the evils and injuries mutually inflicted in Africa, and for the reconciliation of persons and groups who have been hurt in the Church and in the whole of society.”
“This would be an extraordinary Jubilee Year during which the Church in Africa and in the neighbouring islands gives thanks with the universal Church and implores the gifts of the Holy Spirit especially the gift of reconciliation, justice and peace,” the Pope continued in Africae Munus 157.
In a letter addressed to the Bishops’ conferences in Africa, the Treasurer of SECAM, Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, writing on behalf of SECAM President, asked each Conference of Bishops to put in place some programmes to mark the AYR.
“Each Conference, with the assistance of its Justice and Peace Commission is expected to kindly celebrate the “Year of Reconciliation” according to its own programmes based on the general theme: “A Reconciled Africa for Peaceful Co-existence,” Archbishop Palmer-Buckle reminded Bishops of Africa, on behalf of SECAM President Archbishop Gabriel Mbilingi of Lubango, Angola.
The scheduled celebration of the 46th Anniversary of SECAM will also be the second year SECAM is marking SECAM Day. On this day, local churches in Africa are expected to take a collection from the faithful to help sustain the activities of SECAM.
The collections are to be shared on the ratio of 75% for SECAM and 25% for the National Conference,” concludes the SECAM Treasurer’s message to the bishops’ conferences in Africa.
(CANAA, By Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla)
e-mail: engafrica@vatiradio.va
(from Vatican Radio)…
Vatican City, 28 July 2015 (VIS) – “A blessing to one another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People” is the title of an exhibition opening today in the Vatican (Charlemagne Wing, 29 July to 17 September), previously displayed in a number of state capitals in the U.S.A., where it received more than a million visitors. The exhibition, presented as a gift to John Paul II for his 85th birthday, was inaugurated at the Xavier University of Cincinnati, Ohio, on 18 May 2005, just a month after the Pope’s death. It then arrived in Rome, and while in Europe its organisers wanted it to visit Krakow, the Polish city where Karol Wojtyla was archbishop. “A blessing to one another” describes the steps the Pontiff took to improve the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and reflects the continuing relevance of the conciliar declaration “Nostra Aetate”, issued fifty years ago, in which the Catholic Church expresses her appreciation for other religions and reaffirms the principals of universal fraternity, love and non-discrimination. Funded by various universities and private individuals and bodies who see interreligious dialogue as a source of progress for humanity, the exhibition narrates John Paul II’s relations with those whom he defined during his historic visit to the synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986 as “our elder brothers”. It is divided into four sections and consists of photographs, videos, recordings and other interactive sources. The first section illustrates Karol Wojtyla’s early years in his birthplace Wadowice, what would become a lifelong friendship with the young Jew Jerzy Kluger, and the relations between Catholics and Jews in Poland during the decade 1920 to 1930. The second section is dedicated to the Pope’s university years in Krakow, and his work not far from his friends in the Ghetto who knew the horrors of the Shoah. The third describes his priestly and episcopal life, Vatican Council II and the change of direction it represented in relations between Jews and Christians, and the close link between the cardinal archbishop of Krakow and the Jewish community in his archdiocese. The final section considers the figure of Wojtyla as the Successor of Peter, his visit to the Synagogue of Rome, and his trip to Israel in the year 2000 when he left a prayer in the Western Wall asking for divine forgiveness for the treatment that Jews had received in the past and reaffirming the Church’s commitment to a path of fraternal continuity with the People of the Covenant. Visitors to “A blessing to one another” are invited to write a prayer to be placed in a reproduction of the Wall. They will be gathered and deposited in the Western Wall without being read….
(Vatican Radio) Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, has sent a message looking ahead to the next World Youth Day which will take place in Krakow from July 26th to 31st 2016. Pope Francis is scheduled to attend the event that will be focused on the theme from the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy’. Philippa Hitchen reports…
Listen:
Taking place in the context of the Jubilee Year of Mercy which begins on December 8th this year, the Krakow event follows on from the last World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro where Pope Francis told young people to read the Beatitudes because, he said, it “will do you good”. In his message Cardinal Rylko notes that the Pope has made the theme of mercy a priority of his pontificate and that the Krakow meeting will mark an international Jubilee of Young People dedicated to this theme.
It’s the second time that World Youth Day has been held in Poland – the first such event took place in 1991 at the Marian shrine of Czestochowa with Pope John Paul II. The Polish pontiff will also be spiritually present at the 2016 event as young participants visit the tomb of St Faustina Kowalska at the Divine Mercy shrine, inaugurated by Pope John Paul during his last visit to his homeland in 2002. There, they will be able to take part in a programme of meditations and recitation of the Divine Mercy chapelet.
Numerous confessionals will also be set up and Pope Francis himself is likely to offer the sacrament of reconciliation to a number of young men and women attending the celebration. A symbolic Holy Door will also be built at the shrine, through which the Pope will process at the start of the prayer vigil and Eucharistic Adoration on Saturday July 30th. Following the final Mass on Sunday 31st, Pope Francis will give lighted lamps to five young couples from the five continents to symbolically send all the participants out as missionaries of God’s mercy throughout the world.
(from Vatican Radio)…
Less than 24 hours
after registration opened for next year’s World Youth Day (WYD), 45,000 people
had already signed up. The first to register was Pope Francis himself who had
previously announced that the theme of the meeting would revolve around mercy.
According to the website’s managers, thus far there are 250 “macrogroups” and
300 volunteers signed up. The countdown
to the event is already surrounded by great enthusiasm. In exactly one year —
from 26 to 31 July 2016 — young people will meet in Krakow for
the 31 st WYD. Twenty five years after its start, WYD will return to
Poland, the land of the Pontiff who created it. Even if Pope Wojtyła loved to
say that “it was the young people themselves who invented WYD”. In 1991 in
Częstochowa, a strong wind of faith was announced to the young people and from
them the faith blew beyond the iron curtain. The young Christians of eastern
and western Europe experienced the first large-scale encounter after the fall
of the Berlin Wall. Pope Wojtyła
returned to his homeland for WYD which saw the participation of more
than one million people. A true jubilee of young people will be celebrated on a
global level. Pope Francis recalled this at the Angelus and Cardinal Stanisław
Ryłko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, also underlined it in
a message published on the dicastery’s website. The theme of WYD is “Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” is part of the extraordinary
holy year which will begin on 8 December. WYD in Krakow will complete a three
part series of themes dedicated to the
Beatitudes. The theme in Rio in 2014 was “Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. This year’s theme for the 30 th
WYD on the diocesan level is “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see
God”….