On 24 November, the Catholic Church will
have six new cardinals, including three in Asia. The announcement was made by Benedict XVI at the end of his general audience.
"The Cardinals - said the Pope - have the task of helping the Successor of Peter in the performance of his ministry of confirming the brethren in the faith, and that of being the principle and foundation of unity and communion of the Church." The new cardinals - he added - "fulfil their ministry in the service of the Holy See or as fathers and pastors of particular Churches in various parts of the world."
The new cardinals are Msgr. James Michael Harvey, Prefect of the Pontifical House, who will be appointed archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Raï, Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites (Lebanon), His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, Major Archbishop of Trivandrum of the Syro- Malankara (India), Mgr. John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja (Nigeria), Mgr. Ruben Salazar Gomez, Archbishop of Bogota (Colombia), Mgr. Luis Antonio Tagle, Archbishop of Manila (Philippines).
Prior to the announcement of the consistory, Benedict XVI continued the series of catechesis, in this Year of Faith, devoted to the faith. The question he put today to the 25 thousand people in St Peter's Square for the general audience is what is faith today, in a world where science and technology have opened up horizons that were once unthinkable, but in which "no one seems to have grown any freer" and where there are many forms of exploitation, violence and injustice," a spreading spiritual desert. Sometimes, the events we hear about in the news every day, give us the feeling that the world is not projected toward building a more fraternal and peaceful community; the very ideas of progress and well-being show their darker shadows. "
In this world, he noted, on the one hand there is a culture that " has educated us to move only within the horizon of things, of the feasible, to believe only what we can see and touch with our hands," but on the other, there is also increasing the number of people who feel disoriented and, in seeking to go beyond a purely horizontal reality, believe everything and its opposite. "
" In this context, some fundamental questions emerge, which are much more concrete than they appear at first sight: What is the meaning of life? Is there a future for the man, for us and for future generations? Where should we direct the choices of our freedom for a successful and happy life? What awaits us beyond the threshold of death?". "These unrelenting questions reveal how the world of planning, of exact calculation and experimentation, in a word, the knowledge of science, while important for human life, is not enough. We need not only material bread, we need love, meaning and hope, a sure foundation, a solid ground to help us live with an authentic sense even moments of crisis, darkness, difficulties and daily problems.. "
Faith gives us just that. " We need not only material bread, we need love, meaning and hope, a sure foundation, a solid ground to help us live with an authentic sense even moments of crisis, darkness, difficulties and daily problems. Faith gives us just that: it is a confident trust in a "You", that is God, who gives me a different but no less solid certainty, than that which comes from exact calculation or science. Faith is not a mere intellectual assent to the special truths of God, it is an act by which I entrust myself freely to a God who is our Father and loves me, it is adherence to a "You" that gives me hope and confidence.. "
Faith is encountering this "You", this "indestructible love that not only aspires to eternity, but gifts it; it is entrusting myself to God with the attitude of a child, who knows that all his difficulties, all his troubles are safe in the "You" of the mother. And this possibility of salvation through faith is a gift that God offers to all men. I think we should meditate more often - in our daily lives, characterized by problems and sometimes tragic situations - that Christian believing means this confident abandonment to this profound sense that supports me and the world, a sense that we are not able to give ourselves us, but only to receive as a gift, and that is the foundation on which we can live without fear. And we must be able to proclaim this liberating and reassuring certainty of faith by word and show it with our lives as Christians. "