Archbishop Bruno Forte visits the Curia of the Comboni Missionaries in Rome

Archbishop Bruno Forte took part in the Synod of Bishops, which took place at the Vatican on October 7-28, 2012, as a delegate elected by the Italian bishops. The Synod was dedicated to the topic of the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith. “I understood in person – said Archbishop Forte – why Paul 6^th instituted this form of collegiality at the service of the entire Church: At regular intervals, she must give new life to parts of the extraordinary experience that was Vatican II, a true Pentecost of modern times.” According to the archbishop, “it was an extraordinary occasion for sharing experiences and for outlining trustworthy ways for the proclamation of faith to the women and men of today, a ‘new’ announcement, both as involving the renewal of hearts in the Holy Spirit, and in the novelty of the challenges thrown at the faithful by the different contexts in which they live.”

“All the participants at the Synod – so said the theologian from Naples – observed throughout the world – in an explicit or cover way – a new resonance of the Gospel, which will give hope, joy and motivation to the faithful, even to those who do not practice, and which will be offered to those who do not believe as a proposal for life and for hope. Certainly, in the variety of current situations in the ‘global village’ the proposal meets with not a few difficulties. At times they show themselves in the form of outright religious persecution; at other times they show themselves in a widespread indifference, due to the rejection, following the crisis of ideologies, when faced with totalitarian and violent visions of the world; and finally, at times, especially in the North of our planet, in the challenge represented by the so called ‘liquid modernity’, where each one feels as the carrier of his or her subjective truth, incapable of trusting in a common project. Faced with these difficulties, we wanted to show how the Gospel is indeed a total view of life and of the world, but that it contains nothing which is violent, while instead offering the good news of love and peace, fulfilling the truest expectations of the human heart. It is exactly this message of peace, truth and beauty which can help women and men of our time to get away from the many forms of loneliness to which they are often relegated by the structures of post-modern societies. In this reading of the signs of the time, done with attention and respect, I think that the spirit of Vatican II has abundantly breathed on the work done, with times of fertile creativity.”

Following the brief introduction of the topic, the archbishop took time to outline seven aspects of the Synod of Bishops that, according to him, “have made the memory of the fifty years that have passed since the opening of the Council especially alive and contemporary”:

1. The very rich experience of diversity in communion; 2. The way to propose the Gospel; 3. The contemplative dimension of the new evangelization; 4. The attention to cultural contexts; 5. Attention to the youth; 6. The use of means of social communication; 7. In synthesis, the entire Church announces the entire Gospel to the total human being, to every human being.

We offer as an attachment (@ All rights reserved) the lecture – in Italian language – of Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti/Vasto to the community of the General Curia in Rome on the evening of February 6.

From left: Fr. Claudio Lurati, mccj; Archbishop Bruno Forte; Fr. Luciano Verdoscia, mccj.