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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Sun. 01/25/09 07:16:52 PM
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Fifty Years Ago Today Bl. John XXIII announced his intention to convoke an ecumenical council. Here is a partial English translation of his Allocution to Cardinals on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Sunday, January 25, 1959. + + + + + All of this — we mean, this progress — while distracting from the pursuit of higher gifts, weakens the energies of the spirit, leads to the softening of the structure, of the discipline, and of the good ancient order, to the great detriment of that which constituted the strength of the resistance of the Church and of her sons to errors, which, in reality, always in the history of Christianity, led to fatal and pernicious divisions, to spiritual and moral decay, to the ruin of nations. This assessment awakens in the heart of the humble priest, which the manifest choice of Divine Providence led, though most unworthy, to this highness of the Supreme Pontificate, it awakens — we say — a resolution influenced by the memory of some ancient forms of doctrinal affirmation and of wise orientations of ecclesiastical discipline which, in the history of the Church, at times of renewal, brought forth fruits of extraordinary efficacy, for the clarity of thought, for the compactness of religious unity, for the livelier fire of Christian fervor, which we continue to recognize, also in reference to the welfare of life down here, an abundant wealth "of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth" (Gen. XXVII, 28). Venerable Brothers and Our Dear Children! We pronounce before you, certainly trembling somewhat out of emotion, but also with humble resolve of purpose, the name and the proposal of the double celebration: of a Diocesan Synod for the City, and that of an Ecumenical Council for the universal Church.+ + + + + Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 01/25/09 07:16:52 PM |
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