The feast of Christ the King will open on October 11, 2012 with a "solemn celebration" presided over by Pope Benedict XVI and will end on November 24th next year.
A Mass will be celebrated by the Pope “during which to renew the solemn profession of faith”.
In between, as explained in the Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced on Thursday and published today, all Catholics - but also the ‘brothers’ of other churches, with a strong ecumenical emphasis - will have the opportunity to rediscover the beauty and truth of faith.
To do so, the former Holy Office - in cooperation with other Vatican departments and the preparatory Committee for the Year of Faith, composed of 11 cardinals and five bishops - has prepared a long series of proposals and suggestions.
These range from an invitation to make pilgrimages – to the Vatican, the Holy Land and major Marian shrines – to that of attending the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in July 2013 which, explains the Note, “will offer” an privileged opportunity to experience the joy that comes from faith and communion with the Holy Father, in the great family of the Church”.
The former Holy Office also hopes in “symposiums, conferences and large-scale gatherings, even at international levels” to spread “the contents of Catholic doctrine”. But above all, he stresses, “the Year will be a favorable occasion to pay more careful attention to homilies, catechesis, speeches and other interventions by the Holy Father” through “renewed commitment to effectively and cordially adhere to the teachings of the successor of Peter. "
The list of proposals also includes that of discovering and spreading the texts of Vatican II and the Catechism, the latter also to be distributed almost 'door to door' among families, at baptisms, weddings or the annual blessing of homes by the pastor.
For the Council, of course, a "correct understanding", must be promoted "rejecting as erroneous - in the wake of the preaching of Pope Ratzinger - the so-called hermeneutic of discontinuity and rift and promoting what he called the hermeneutic of reform, the renewal in continuity”.
But this disclosure must not be limited to printed media. The Bishops' conferences around the world are invited to make wide use of the language of communication and art, contributing also to the production of “television or radio broadcasts, films and publications, also at a popular level accessible to a broader audience”, as well as symposiums, conferences and gatherings that also involve academics, lays and non-believers, on the basis of what has been done by the Holy See and the Court of the Gentiles promoted by the Pontifical Council for Culture.
The diocese will be tasked with organizing the “penitential celebrations in which to ask God for forgiveness also and especially for sins against the fait” 'and “'prepare, with the help of theologians and competent authors, subsidies of a popular apologetic nature” to help the faithful to find answers both to the challenges of sects and to the problems associated with secularism and relativism”.
As for the young, the Year of Faith “will be an opportunity to pay greater attention to “Catholic schools” and increase the use of “'good catechetical tools such as the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church or Youcat”.