APOSTOLIC LETTER GIVEN MOTU PROPRIO
PORTA FIDEI
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
FOR THE INDICTION OF THE YEAR OF FAITH
1. The “door of faith” (Acts 14:27)
is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God
and offering entry into his Church. It is possible to cross that
threshold when the word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself
to be shaped by transforming grace. To enter through that door is to
set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime. It begins with baptism (cf. Rom6:4),
through which we can address God as Father, and it ends with the
passage through death to eternal life, fruit of the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, whose will it was, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, to draw
those who believe in him into his own glory (cf. Jn 17:22). To profess faith in the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is to believe in one God who is Love (cf. 1 Jn4:8):
the Father, who in the fullness of time sent his Son for our salvation;
Jesus Christ, who in the mystery of his death and resurrection redeemed
the world; the Holy Spirit, who leads the Church across the centuries
as we await the Lord’s glorious return.
2.
Ever since the start of my ministry as Successor of Peter, I have
spoken of the need to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever
clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with
Christ. During the homily at the Mass marking the inauguration of my
pontificate I said: “The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like
Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place
of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who
gives us life, and life in abundance.”[1] It
often happens that Christians are more concerned for the social,
cultural and political consequences of their commitment, continuing to
think of the faith as a self-evident presupposition for life in society.
In reality, not only can this presupposition no longer be taken for
granted, but it is often openly denied.[2]Whereas
in the past it was possible to recognize a unitary cultural matrix,
broadly accepted in its appeal to the content of the faith and the
values inspired by it, today this no longer seems to be the case in
large swathes of society, because of a profound crisis of faith that has
affected many people.
3. We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden (cf. Mt 5:13-16).
The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well,
like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to
believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up
within him (cf. Jn 4:14). We must rediscover a taste for feeding
ourselves on the word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and
on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples (cf. Jn 6:51).
Indeed, the teaching of Jesus still resounds in our day with the same
power: “Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food
which endures to eternal life” (Jn 6:27). The question posed by his listeners is the same that we ask today: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (Jn 6:28). We know Jesus’ reply: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn 6:29). Belief in Jesus Christ, then, is the way to arrive definitively at salvation.
4.
In the light of all this, I have decided to announce a Year of Faith.
It will begin on 11 October 2012, the fiftieth anniversary of the
opening of the Second Vatican Council, and it will end on the Solemnity
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on 24 November 2013. The
starting date of 11 October 2012 also marks the twentieth anniversary of
the publication of theCatechism of the Catholic Church, a text promulgated by my Predecessor, Blessed John Paul II,[3] with
a view to illustrating for all the faithful the power and beauty of the
faith. This document, an authentic fruit of the Second Vatican Council,
was requested by the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985 as an
instrument at the service of catechesis[4] and
it was produced in collaboration with all the bishops of the Catholic
Church. Moreover, the theme of the General Assembly of the Synod of
Bishops that I have convoked for October 2012 is “The New Evangelization
for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”. This will be a good
opportunity to usher the whole Church into a time of particular
reflection and rediscovery of the faith. It is not the first time that
the Church has been called to celebrate a Year of Faith. My venerable
Predecessor the Servant of God Paul VI announced one in 1967, to
commemorate the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul on the 19th centenary
of their supreme act of witness. He thought of it as a solemn moment
for the whole Church to make “an authentic and sincere profession of the
same faith”; moreover, he wanted this to be confirmed in a way that was
“individual and collective, free and conscious, inward and outward,
humble and frank”.[5] He
thought that in this way the whole Church could reappropriate “exact
knowledge of the faith, so as to reinvigorate it, purify it, confirm it,
and confess it”.[6] The great upheavals of that year made even more evident the need for a celebration of this kind. It concluded with the Credo of the People of God,[7] intended
to show how much the essential content that for centuries has formed
the heritage of all believers needs to be confirmed, understood and
explored ever anew, so as to bear consistent witness in historical
circumstances very different from those of the past.
5. In some respects, my venerable predecessor saw this Year as a “consequence and a necessity of the postconciliar period”,[8] fully
conscious of the grave difficulties of the time, especially with regard
to the profession of the true faith and its correct interpretation. It
seemed to me that timing the launch of the Year of Faith to coincide
with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican
Council would provide a good opportunity to help people understand that
the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed
John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance.
They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as
important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church's
Tradition ... I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the
Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.”[9] I
would also like to emphasize strongly what I had occasion to say
concerning the Council a few months after my election as Successor of
Peter: “if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic,
it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary
renewal of the Church.”[10]
6.
The renewal of the Church is also achieved through the witness offered
by the lives of believers: by their very existence in the world,
Christians are called to radiate the word of truth that the Lord Jesus
has left us. The Council itself, in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, said this: While “Christ, ‘holy, innocent and undefiled’ (Heb 7:26) knew nothing of sin (cf. 2 Cor 5:21), but came only to expiate the sins of the people (cf. Heb 2:17)...
the Church ... clasping sinners to its bosom, at once holy and always
in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and
renewal. The Church, ‘like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward
amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God’,
announcing the cross and death of the Lord until he comes (cf. 1 Cor 11:26).
But by the power of the risen Lord it is given strength to overcome, in
patience and in love, its sorrow and its difficulties, both those that
are from within and those that are from without, so that it may reveal
in the world, faithfully, although with shadows, the mystery of its Lord
until, in the end, it shall be manifested in full light.”[11]
The
Year of Faith, from this perspective, is a summons to an authentic and
renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Saviour of the world. In the
mystery of his death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness
the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the
forgiveness of sins (cf. Acts 5:31). For Saint Paul, this Love
ushers us into a new life: “We were buried ... with him by baptism into
death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Through
faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to
the radical new reality of the resurrection. To the extent that he
freely cooperates, man’s thoughts and affections, mentality and conduct
are slowly purified and transformed, on a journey that is never
completely finished in this life. “Faith working through love” (Gal 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man’s life (cf. Rom 12:2; Col 3:9-10; Eph 4:20-29; 2 Cor 5:17).
7. “Caritas Christi urget nos” (2 Cor 5:14):
it is the love of Christ that fills our hearts and impels us to
evangelize. Today as in the past, he sends us through the highways of
the world to proclaim his Gospel to all the peoples of the earth (cf. Mt 28:19).
Through his love, Jesus Christ attracts to himself the people of every
generation: in every age he convokes the Church, entrusting her with the
proclamation of the Gospel by a mandate that is ever new. Today too,
there is a need for stronger ecclesial commitment to new evangelization
in order to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for
communicating the faith. In rediscovering his love day by day, the
missionary commitment of believers attains force and vigour that can
never fade away. Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love
received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy.
It makes us fruitful, because it expands our hearts in hope and enables
us to bear life-giving witness: indeed, it opens the hearts and minds of
those who listen to respond to the Lord’s invitation to adhere to his
word and become his disciples. Believers, so Saint Augustine tells us,
“strengthen themselves by believing”.[12] The
saintly Bishop of Hippo had good reason to express himself in this way.
As we know, his life was a continual search for the beauty of the faith
until such time as his heart would find rest in God.[13] His
extensive writings, in which he explains the importance of believing
and the truth of the faith, continue even now to form a heritage of
incomparable riches, and they still help many people in search of God to
find the right path towards the “door of faith”.
Only
through believing, then, does faith grow and become stronger; there is
no other possibility for possessing certitude with regard to one’s life
apart from self-abandonment, in a continuous crescendo, into the hands
of a love that seems to grow constantly because it has its origin in
God.
8.
On this happy occasion, I wish to invite my brother bishops from all
over the world to join the Successor of Peter, during this time of
spiritual grace that the Lord offers us, in recalling the precious gift
of faith. We want to celebrate this Year in a worthy and fruitful
manner. Reflection on the faith will have to be intensified, so as to
help all believers in Christ to acquire a more conscious and vigorous
adherence to the Gospel, especially at a time of profound change such as
humanity is currently experiencing. We will have the opportunity to
profess our faith in the Risen Lord in our cathedrals and in the
churches of the whole world; in our homes and among our families, so
that everyone may feel a strong need to know better and to transmit to
future generations the faith of all times. Religious communities as well
as parish communities, and all ecclesial bodies old and new, are to
find a way, during this Year, to make a public profession of the Credo.
9. We want this Year to arouse in every believer the aspiration to profess the
faith in fullness and with renewed conviction, with confidence and
hope. It will also be a good opportunity to intensify the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, which is “the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed; ... and also the source from which all its power flows.”[14] At the same time, we make it our prayer that believers’ witness of life may grow in credibility. To rediscover the content of the faith that is professed, celebrated, lived and prayed,[15] and to reflect on the act of faith, is a task that every believer must make his own, especially in the course of this Year.
Not
without reason, Christians in the early centuries were required to
learn the creed from memory. It served them as a daily prayer not to
forget the commitment they had undertaken in baptism. With words rich in
meaning, Saint Augustine speaks of this in a homily on the redditio symboli,
the handing over of the creed: “the symbol of the holy mystery that you
have all received together and that today you have recited one by one,
are the words on which the faith of Mother Church is firmly built above
the stable foundation that is Christ the Lord. You have received it and
recited it, but in your minds and hearts you must keep it ever present,
you must repeat it in your beds, recall it in the public squares and not
forget it during meals: even when your body is asleep, you must watch
over it with your hearts.”[16]
10.
At this point I would like to sketch a path intended to help us
understand more profoundly not only the content of the faith, but also
the act by which we choose to entrust ourselves fully to God, in
complete freedom. In fact, there exists a profound unity between the act
by which we believe and the content to which we give our assent. Saint
Paul helps us to enter into this reality when he writes: “Man believes
with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and
so is saved” (Rom 10:10). The heart indicates that the first act
by which one comes to faith is God’s gift and the action of grace which
acts and transforms the person deep within.
The
example of Lydia is particularly eloquent in this regard. Saint Luke
recounts that, while he was at Philippi, Paul went on the Sabbath to
proclaim the Gospel to some women; among them was Lydia and “the Lord
opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14).
There is an important meaning contained within this expression. Saint
Luke teaches that knowing the content to be believed is not sufficient
unless the heart, the authentic sacred space within the person, is
opened by grace that allows the eyes to see below the surface and to
understand that what has been proclaimed is the word of God.
Confessing
with the lips indicates in turn that faith implies public testimony and
commitment. A Christian may never think of belief as a private act.
Faith is choosing to stand with the Lord so as to live with him. This
“standing with him” points towards an understanding of the reasons for
believing. Faith, precisely because it is a free act, also demands
social responsibility for what one believes. The Church on the day of
Pentecost demonstrates with utter clarity this public dimension of
believing and proclaiming one’s faith fearlessly to every person. It is
the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes us fit for mission and
strengthens our witness, making it frank and courageous.
Profession
of faith is an act both personal and communitarian. It is the Church
that is the primary subject of faith. In the faith of the Christian
community, each individual receives baptism, an effective sign of entry
into the people of believers in order to obtain salvation. As we read in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “ ‘I believe’ is the faith
of the Church professed personally by each believer, principally during
baptism. ‘We believe’ is the faith of the Church confessed by the
bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical
assembly of believers. ‘I believe’ is also the Church, our mother,
responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both ‘I believe’ and
‘we believe’.”[17]
Evidently, knowledge of the content of faith is essential for giving one’s own assent,
that is to say for adhering fully with intellect and will to what the
Church proposes. Knowledge of faith opens a door into the fullness of
the saving mystery revealed by God. The giving of assent implies that,
when we believe, we freely accept the whole mystery of faith, because
the guarantor of its truth is God who reveals himself and allows us to
know his mystery of love.[18]
On
the other hand, we must not forget that in our cultural context, very
many people, while not claiming to have the gift of faith, are
nevertheless sincerely searching for the ultimate meaning and definitive
truth of their lives and of the world. This search is an authentic
“preamble” to the faith, because it guides people onto the path that
leads to the mystery of God. Human reason, in fact, bears within itself a
demand for “what is perennially valid and lasting”.[19] This
demand constitutes a permanent summons, indelibly written into the
human heart, to set out to find the One whom we would not be seeking had
he not already set out to meet us.[20] To this encounter, faith invites us and it opens us in fullness.
11. In order to arrive at a systematic knowledge of the content of the faith, all can find in theCatechism of the Catholic Church a precious and indispensable tool. It is one of the most important fruits of the Second Vatican Council. In the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum,
signed, not by accident, on the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of
the Second Vatican Council, Blessed John Paul II wrote: “this catechism
will make a very important contribution to that work of renewing the
whole life of the Church ... I declare it to be a valid and legitimate
instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the
faith.”[21]
It
is in this sense that that the Year of Faith will have to see a
concerted effort to rediscover and study the fundamental content of the
faith that receives its systematic and organic synthesis in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Here, in fact, we see the wealth of teaching that the Church has
received, safeguarded and proposed in her two thousand years of history.
From Sacred Scripture to the Fathers of the Church, from theological
masters to the saints across the centuries, the Catechism provides
a permanent record of the many ways in which the Church has meditated
on the faith and made progress in doctrine so as to offer certitude to
believers in their lives of faith.
In its very structure, the Catechism of the Catholic Church follows
the development of the faith right up to the great themes of daily
life. On page after page, we find that what is presented here is no
theory, but an encounter with a Person who lives within the Church. The
profession of faith is followed by an account of sacramental life, in
which Christ is present, operative and continues to build his Church.
Without the liturgy and the sacraments, the profession of faith would
lack efficacy, because it would lack the grace which supports Christian
witness. By the same criterion, the teaching of the Catechism on the moral life acquires its full meaning if placed in relationship with faith, liturgy and prayer.
12. In this Year, then, the Catechism of the Catholic Church will
serve as a tool providing real support for the faith, especially for
those concerned with the formation of Christians, so crucial in our
cultural context. To this end, I have invited the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, by agreement with the competent Dicasteries of
the Holy See, to draw up a Note, providing the Church and
individual believers with some guidelines on how to live this Year of
Faith in the most effective and appropriate ways, at the service of
belief and evangelization.
To
a greater extent than in the past, faith is now being subjected to a
series of questions arising from a changed mentality which, especially
today, limits the field of rational certainties to that of scientific
and technological discoveries. Nevertheless, the Church has never been
afraid of demonstrating that there cannot be any conflict between faith
and genuine science, because both, albeit via different routes, tend
towards the truth.[22]
13.
One thing that will be of decisive importance in this Year is retracing
the history of our faith, marked as it is by the unfathomable mystery
of the interweaving of holiness and sin. While the former highlights the
great contribution that men and women have made to the growth and
development of the community through the witness of their lives, the
latter must provoke in each person a sincere and continuing work of
conversion in order to experience the mercy of the Father which is held
out to everyone.
During this time we will need to keep our gaze fixed upon Jesus Christ, the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2):
in him, all the anguish and all the longing of the human heart finds
fulfilment. The joy of love, the answer to the drama of suffering and
pain, the power of forgiveness in the face of an offence received and
the victory of life over the emptiness of death: all this finds
fulfilment in the mystery of his Incarnation, in his becoming man, in
his sharing our human weakness so as to transform it by the power of his
resurrection. In him who died and rose again for our salvation, the
examples of faith that have marked these two thousand years of our
salvation history are brought into the fullness of light.
By
faith, Mary accepted the Angel’s word and believed the message that she
was to become the Mother of God in the obedience of her devotion (cf. Lk 1:38).
Visiting Elizabeth, she raised her hymn of praise to the Most High for
the marvels he worked in those who trust him (cf. Lk 1:46-55). With joy and trepidation she gave birth to her only son, keeping her virginity intact (cf. Lk2:6-7). Trusting in Joseph, her husband, she took Jesus to Egypt to save him from Herod’s persecution (cf. Mt 2:13-15). With the same faith, she followed the Lord in his preaching and remained with him all the way to Golgotha (cf. Jn 19:25-27). By faith, Mary tasted the fruits of Jesus’ resurrection, and treasuring every memory in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19, 51), she passed them on to the Twelve assembled with her in the Upper Room to receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts1:14; 2:1-4).
By faith, the Apostles left everything to follow their Master (cf. Mk 10:28). They believed the words with which he proclaimed the Kingdom of God present and fulfilled in his person (cf. Lk11:20).
They lived in communion of life with Jesus who instructed them with his
teaching, leaving them a new rule of life, by which they would be
recognized as his disciples after his death (cf. Jn 13:34-35). By faith, they went out to the whole world, following the command to bring the Gospel to all creation (cf. Mk 16:15) and they fearlessly proclaimed to all the joy of the resurrection, of which they were faithful witnesses.
By
faith, the disciples formed the first community, gathered around the
teaching of the Apostles, in prayer, in celebration of the Eucharist,
holding their possessions in common so as to meet the needs of the
brethren (cf. Acts 2:42-47).
By
faith, the martyrs gave their lives, bearing witness to the truth of
the Gospel that had transformed them and made them capable of attaining
to the greatest gift of love: the forgiveness of their persecutors.
By
faith, men and women have consecrated their lives to Christ, leaving
all things behind so as to live obedience, poverty and chastity with
Gospel simplicity, concrete signs of waiting for the Lord who comes
without delay. By faith, countless Christians have promoted action for
justice so as to put into practice the word of the Lord, who came to
proclaim deliverance from oppression and a year of favour for all (cf. Lk 4:18-19).
By faith, across the centuries, men and women of all ages, whose names are written in the Book of Life (cf. Rev 7:9,
13:8), have confessed the beauty of following the Lord Jesus wherever
they were called to bear witness to the fact that they were Christian:
in the family, in the workplace, in public life, in the exercise of the
charisms and ministries to which they were called.
By faith, we too live: by the living recognition of the Lord Jesus, present in our lives and in our history.
14.
The Year of Faith will also be a good opportunity to intensify the
witness of charity. As Saint Paul reminds us: “So faith, hope, love
abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).
With even stronger words – which have always placed Christians under
obligation – Saint James said: “What does it profit, my brethren, if a
man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a
brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you
says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled’, without giving them
the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself,
if it has no works, is dead. But some one will say, ‘You have faith and
I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my
works will show you my faith” (Jas 2:14-18).
Faith
without charity bears no fruit, while charity without faith would be a
sentiment constantly at the mercy of doubt. Faith and charity each
require the other, in such a way that each allows the other to set out
along its respective path. Indeed, many Christians dedicate their lives
with love to those who are lonely, marginalized or excluded, as to those
who are the first with a claim on our attention and the most important
for us to support, because it is in them that the reflection of Christ’s
own face is seen. Through faith, we can recognize the face of the risen
Lord in those who ask for our love. “As you did it to one of the least
of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). These words
are a warning that must not be forgotten and a perennial invitation to
return the love by which he takes care of us. It is faith that enables
us to recognize Christ and it is his love that impels us to assist him
whenever he becomes our neighbour along the journey of life. Supported
by faith, let us look with hope at our commitment in the world, as we
await “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:13; cf. Rev 21:1).
15. Having reached the end of his life, Saint Paul asks his disciple Timothy to “aim at faith” (2 Tim 2:22) with the same constancy as when he was a boy (cf. 2 Tim 3:15).
We hear this invitation directed to each of us, that none of us grow
lazy in the faith. It is the lifelong companion that makes it possible
to perceive, ever anew, the marvels that God works for us. Intent on
gathering the signs of the times in the present of history, faith
commits every one of us to become a living sign of the presence of the
Risen Lord in the world. What the world is in particular need of today
is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the
word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to
the desire for God and for true life, life without end.
“That the word of the Lord may speed on and triumph” (2 Th 3:1):
may this Year of Faith make our relationship with Christ the Lord
increasingly firm, since only in him is there the certitude for looking
to the future and the guarantee of an authentic and lasting love. The
words of Saint Peter shed one final ray of light on faith: “In this you
rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various
trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold
which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and
glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Without having seen
him you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and
rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith
you obtain the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:6-9). The life
of Christians knows the experience of joy as well as the experience of
suffering. How many of the saints have lived in solitude! How many
believers, even in our own day, are tested by God’s silence when they
would rather hear his consoling voice! The trials of life, while helping
us to understand the mystery of the Cross and to participate in the
sufferings of Christ (cf. Col 1:24), are a prelude to the joy and hope to which faith leads: “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).
We believe with firm certitude that the Lord Jesus has conquered evil
and death. With this sure confidence we entrust ourselves to him: he,
present in our midst, overcomes the power of the evil one (cf. Lk 11:20);
and the Church, the visible community of his mercy, abides in him as a
sign of definitive reconciliation with the Father.
Let us entrust this time of grace to the Mother of God, proclaimed “blessed because she believed” (Lk 1:45).
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 11 October in the year 2011, the seventh of my Pontificate.
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
[1] Homily for the beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome (24 April 2005):AAS 97 (2005), 710.
[2] Cf. Benedict XVI, Homily at Holy Mass in Lisbon’s “Terreiro do Paço” (11 May 2010):Insegnamenti VI:1 (2010), 673.
[3] Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum (11 October 1992): AAS 86 (1994), 113-118.
[4] Cf. Final Report of the Second Extraordinary Synod of Bishops (7 December 1985), II, B, a, 4 in Enchiridion Vaticanum, ix, n. 1797.
[5] Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Petrum et Paulum Apostolos on the XIX centenary of the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul (22 February 1967): AAS 59 (1967), 196.
[6] Ibid., 198.
[7] Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, cf. Homily
at Mass on the XIX centenary of the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul
at the conclusion of the “Year of Faith” (30 June 1968):AAS 60 (1968), 433-445.
[8] Paul VI, General Audience (14 June 1967): Insegnamenti V (1967), 801.
[9] John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (6 January 2001), 57: AAS 93 (2001), 308.
[10] Address to the Roman Curia (22 December 2005): AAS 98 (2006), 52.
[11] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 8.
[12] De Utilitate Credendi, I:2.
[13] Cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, I:1.
[14] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10.
[15] Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum (11 October 1992): AAS 86 (1994), 116.
[16] Sermo 215:1.
[17] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 167.
[18] Cf. First Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith Dei Filius, chap. III: DS 3008-3009: Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 5.
[19] Benedict XVI, Address at the Collège des Bernardins, Paris (12 September 2008): AAS100 (2008), 722.
[20] Cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, XIII:1.
[21] John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum (11 October 1992): AAS 86 (1994), 115 and 117.
[22] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), 34, 106: AAS 91 (1999), 31-32, 86-87.
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