(Talk delivered by Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Tagle during the general assembly for the orientation to the Year of Faith and its celebration in the Archdiocese of Manila, on September 24, 2012 at the Layforce Chapel.)


Good afternoon po. Welcome to this grand assembly as we prepare as an archdiocese to welcome the Year of Faith. We want to thank at the outset Bishop Pabillo and the  team that helped him visualize this whole year. This is already the beginning of the activities, the general orientation towards the celebration of the Year of Faith.

On the 28th of September, the memorial of San Lorenzo Ruiz, I will issue a pastoral letter on the year of the faith. It is already written but I dated it September 28. So do not talk about it until the 28th. But I want to share with you some of the orientations regarding the Year of Faith coming from the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and the many other notes and instructions emanating from the different offices in the Vatican .

Photogallery
www.yearoffaith.ph

First a bit of historical account. In his apostolic letter whose opening words are Porta fidei, the door of faith, Pope Benedict XVI announced to the whole world a Year of Faith, the celebration of  a Year of Faith. And it will be opened on the 11th of October, will run for a whole, even more than a year and will close on the 24th of November, 2013 which next year is the solemnity of Christ the King. And he invites all of us, the whole church, in Porta fidei to celebrate the precious gift of faith. And that already makes us pause, are we really celebrating our faith? I saw how you rejoiced when Bishop Pabillo mentioned merienda. I’m very sure we celebrate when there is merienda. But do we celebrate the faith, are we grateful to God for having been given the gift of faith?

This Year of Faith wants us to celebrate this precious gift and it also invites to receive the gift of faith again. Just like any other living gift, faith must be received over and over again. I see a number of priests here. We do not receive the gift of faith only on ordination day. Everyday you receive it. If you stop receiving it something will go wrong. I see many religious here. You do not receive the gift of faith only on the day of your profession. Every moment you receive the gift again. The married people here – are there married people here? I hope you are lay. (Yes they are. Nagsisigurado lang ako.) The married people you have to receive each other as a gift over and over again so married life, family will bloom, the same with faith. We receive it again and again and the Year of Faith is such an opportunity, and we don’t only celebrate the gift, we don’t only receive it again, we also commit ourselves to the transmission of faith, a joyful transmission of the faith. The gift that is given to us should not be kept, should not be hoarded if it is truly a gift then it must continue being a gift through our sharing and through our transmission of the gift.

Our gathering is already a positive sign that the Archdiocese of Manila and our guests from Cabanatuan, and from Papua New Guinea, Bishop Rollie Santos, he is  Filipino Vincentian, the bishop of Arutao. So our gathering is already a sign that we join the universal church in welcoming the Year of Faith.

The first thing I wish to expound on is the rationale. What is the reason for declaring the Year of Faith. If we look at Porta fidei and the many other homilies and pronouncements of the Holy Father we see some significant reasons for the convocation or the celebration of the Year of Faith. Let us start delving into the mind of Pope Benedict by looking at the dates. Why October 11, 2012? Why will the Year of Faith commence on October 11. This date was carefully chosen, this was not chosen at random. October 11 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II and also the 20th anniversary of the promulgation of one of the fruits of Vatican II namely, the catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992. (Ah si Bishop Ronnie pala, Hi Bishop). So we have these two dates, the opening of Vatican II, 50 years ago in 1962, and 20 years ago the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Now the significance of these two events already tells us what or partly determines the spirit of the Year of Faith.

The second Vatican council. The Year of Faith wants to celebrate this great moment of renewal of faith in recent history called the Vatican Council. I guess many of us had already been born when Vatican II was opened. Do not cheat. I can see. Some obviously were still in the eternal plan of God, very young looking, just like me. Hindi, ipinanganak na ako noon. Still for our recent stage in history Vatican II cannot be matched yet as the moment of renewal in faith.

Blessed Pope John XXIII the good pope who convened Vatican II desired that the council, and I quote from him in his opening remarks in Vatican II, he desired that “through the council the church will become greater in spiritual riches and, gaining the strength of new energies from the spiritual riches, the church will look to the future without fear.” A beautiful line from the pope. So for him the council, as a pastoral council that wants to address the role of the church, the mission of the church in the modern world, was a spiritual event, and the desire is for the church to recover its spiritual riches. So for blessed John XXIII church renewal comes from a rediscovery of our spiritual heritage and what is that heritage that we have received and we pass on to the next generations, nothing else but faith. And to renew the church means to renew, to be reinvigorated in the energies that come from the church’s faith.

The Holy Father stresses this very often. When we talk of the renewal of Vatican II let it be associated with faith, the faith that we have received from our fathers and mothers in faith. By renewal, according to Pope Benedict, Vatican II did not invent a new church that is cut off from the church of the past. He laments the use of the expressions, post-Vatican II, pre-Vatican II church, sometimes carelessly used, as though there are two or even more churches. He says there is one church. If ever we use that terminology post-Vatican II or pre-Vatican II it is simply to mark a year, probably, after Vatican II in 1965. But according to him some people understand that post-Vatican II, pre-Vatican II as though there were three churches, as though there were two faiths that ground two different churches.

There are two possible misinterpretations. One is this: Some love the so-called post-Vatican II church and the more they love the post Vatican 2 church the more they disdain the pre-vatican II church. Para bagang everything good came out only with Vatican II and Vatican II is a correction of everything that went before Vatican II. If that were the case then St. Benedict must be correct; St. Francis is wrong. And all of these people that witnessed to the faith must be eliminated. No. we cannot say that Vatican II produced a new faith which is not connected to the faith and the church of the past. That is one mistake in the interpretation of Vatican II; rupturing Vatican II from the legacy of faith and church before it.

You might think that this is just a conceptual thing. But it exists in the minds of some people, a mistaken hermeneutics or interpretation of Vatican II. For example, once as a priest I was in a seminar. It was supposed to be a seminar to introduce ideas on the basic orientation of Vatican II and during the open forum a participant said, “Father our parish priest need to be educated in Vatican II theology. And I said, “Well all of us need to be educated.” Then she said, “But he needs it. Imagine it is already the 1980s and he still believes in the hierarchy!” I said, “Why, what’s wrong?” “But Vatican II already eliminated the hierarchy!” I said, “No, that’s the third chapter of Lumen Gentium.” “Ah, really? I thought Vatican II eliminated the…” So you see some people love Vatican II, they invoke Vatican II and they make Vatican II appear that it started a new faith, a new church, totally divorced from what happened in the past. So Vatican II did not receive anything according to them and there is nothing good to receive from the past. And that is not right. That is a wrong use of Vatican II.

But there is another danger. Some people look to the past and extol the past and consider Vatican II an aberration. They don’t see anything good in Vatican II. Vatican II naman is filled with dangers and so they want to eliminate Vatican II they want to go back to an idealized past, as though the faith is dead, as though is not capable of growing. Again I was in one renewal and one participant stood up and said, “I cannot stand this. I will leave this hall, I will go to the chapel to pray for you.” He said he will pray for the whole assembly. He said, “You are all being misled by believing in Vatican II.” Very dramatic! And then he added, “I have decided to be a Christian of the 17th century.” But the faith is a living, dynamic reality. So you have at least two, maybe there are more, wrong interpretations of the faith as recovered by Vatican II; one the tendency to say that before Vatican 2 nothing good ever existed; so Vatican II is a new formulation of faith, in fact, it is a new church and a new faith. The other tendency is to deny that Vatican II is rooted in the past and because of that, it is a deviation, it is unfaithful to the tradition.

Now if we look at the documents of Vatican II and you look at the footnotes, you will realize that Vatican II does not invent a new faith. It does not create a new church. You find references to the Bible, to the early ecclesiastical writers, to the councils, especially Trent and Vatican 1. It quotes saints, popes, especially Pope Pius XII. So just the sources of Vatican II already alert us to the fact that Vatican II is digging into the deep, deep sources of faith. And it is the same church; it is the one church founded on the faith of the apostles that we are part of up to now.

So by holding or opening the year of faith on the date that Vatican II was opened, the Holy Father is inviting us to study again Vatican II and how Vatican II’s expressions of faith for a church in the modern world would have to be rediscovered. And this will lead us also to an appreciation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is a fruit of Vatican II.

But at the same time we are being asked to look at Vatican II and the continuity of the church through the ages, we are also reminded that in the history of the church, the one church has undergone different forms of renewal. The same church expressing itself in different forms of renewal. Just some examples, looking at the priesthood, holy orders. There was a time when the priests met their communities in their houses, what they called the home churches because Christianity was still outlawed at that time, it was illegal. But then came the recognition of Christianity, so you see the church and the faith being renewed with a new expression. They got out of the houses and they were able now to use public places, and they were now able to hold their meetings and Eucharistic assemblies in the basilicas. And then the church needed renewal and what became prominent was the monastery, so monastic life became an expression of the renewal of the church. And then came the universities, the summas of the scholastics. And then came the reformation,   the church responded, now you have the seminries. Before, there were no seminaries. With the Council of Trent you have. Then came the 19th century, modernism. Oh the church fought hard to preserve the purity of faith and the authority of the church to teach the faith. So you have the Dogma of Papal Primacy and Infallibility of Papal Magisterium in the 19th century. Then came Vatican II. It is the same faith, the same church, but looking for its expression of faith in a changing world.

Now within the Year of Faith the Holy Father called for a Synod of Bishops on The New Evangelization and the Transmission of the Faith. So you see the mind of Pope Benedict. Going back to Vatican II we affirm, it is only one church, it is only one faith in continuity through the ages. But by calling for a synod on the new evangelization he realizes that one faith, one church must engage changing realities.