RUSSIA
The 24th plenary session of the Conference of Catholic bishops in Russia was recently held in St. Petersburg. The Russian bishops have called 2007 the “Year of Charity”. The motto they have chosen for the pastoral year is: “Hasten to do good”, taken from the words of the famous Russian physician, Feodor Gaza, protector of the condemned, for whom the process of beatification has already been opened. In this context, and on the anniversary of the first encyclical of Benedict XVI, the Archbishop of Moscow, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, has written a pastoral letter with the title “Charity – sign of the times”. Charity – writes the archbishop – is love in practice and as such requires concrete gestures. In this sense charitable activity is at the same time also a spiritual activity”. On 29 January, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz ordained two new Russian deacons who will become priests. Unfortunately – said the archbishop during the ceremony – technological development in our time has not yet given us a real humanism and often we have to use a politically correct language also for religious questions. All the more, then – concluded Kondrusiewicz -, have we a need for new and true witnesses of the Gospel”.
