Malta: Cardinal Antonelli to close the Pauline YearCardinal Ennio Antonelli, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, will participate as special envoy of Benedict XVI in the celebrations marking the end of the Pauline Year, due to be held in Malta and Gozo from 27 to 30 June. On the programme, on the evening of 27 June, is a pilgrimage to “St. Paul’s Cave” at Rabat, where John Paul II long remained in prayer during his first pastoral visit to Malta in 1990. On Sunday 28 June Cardinal Antonelli will board a special boat from “St. Paul’s Bay” to sail to the island of Gozo where, after a eucharistic celebration in the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Nadur, he will meet families and diocesan associations. He will return to Malta in the afternoon. On Monday 29 June, which the Church celebrates as the feast-day of the apostles Peter and Paul, after further meetings with various groups of the local Church, the Pope’s envoy will preside over a solemn celebration to conclude the Pauline Year in the square in front of the Co-Cathedral of Valletta. “In one of the most dramatic moments of his life” Paul arrived in Malta” where “he only remained for three months – recalls Cardinal Antonelli -, “but those months proved decisive and would mark the history of Malta for all time. Nineteen and a half centuries have passed since then” and in spite of the fact that the population has “gone through many trials and tempests” it has remained “faithful to Paul and to Christ”. Referring to the “tempests” that afflict “also our times, especially materialism and moral decline”, the envoy of Benedict XVI exhorts “the Christians of Malta” to bear witness to the faith, practice it in their lives and remain “in communion with Christ and with the Church”. Recalling words pronounced by John Paul II on the island, he repeats: “Europe needs the witness of Malta”.Ukraine: Cardinal Husar meets European media and Bible societiesIn recent days the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, met representatives of European media and executives of united Bible Societies. The former went to the country to promote greater media coverage of events regarding the rebirth of society, civil liberties and religious confessions. According to a report of the Department of Information of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishops’ Conference, a great deal of emphasis will be placed on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany on 9 November. Addressing those present at the meeting, Cardinal Lubomyr stressed the historical importance of these events and the ways in which they have changed the mentality of society. He compared the impressions of his first visit to Ukraine, during the Soviet era, and his return to the country in the 1990s. “Today – said the patriarch – one of the priorities of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is to ensure that the Bible be present in every home” and that “various social groups (the elderly, invalids, members of the armed forces, prison inmates) have access to the Word of God”. To this end, Cardinal Husar said, “the Commission for Catechesis of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church has published 60,000 copies of a Bible with commentary”. There are now 206 Bible Circles in Ukraine.France: promoting appreciation of sacred art”Providing genuine catechesis through the channel of art”: that’s the objective of Narthex, a bi-media initiative launched in recent days by the national Service for Liturgical Ministry of the French Bishops’ Conference in collaboration with the Bayard group. “A great interest in art, and in particular religious art, is being registered today – explains Mgr. Jean Legrez, Bishop of Saint Claude and delegate for sacred art of the Bishops’ Committee for liturgy and sacramental ministry -. So it seemed to us important to respond to this need with an original and innovative means”. Apart from the website www.narthex.fr, the initiative involves various publications which will begin to appear in the autumn. “Fostering all the components of sacred art through sound, images and texts: music, goldsmith’s work, liturgical vestments, architecture and painting”, continues Mgr. Legrez, is the aim of the website which “also provides an opportunity to involve a far larger public than that reached by journals of sacred art; these are people who are seeking to understand sacred art, but no longer know what it means or the language and signs it uses”. Blogs are also planned to provide a forum for dialogue for surfers, artists, art critics and historians, theologians and ordinary people. Narthex covers all fields of sacred art – architecture, sculpture, painting, music, literature and cinema – and provides information on events and initiatives aimed at promoting knowledge and appreciation of “the religious heritage and the fruitfulness of the contemporary output of sacred art”. A first editorial joint venture was begun with the weekly “Pèlerin”, which from 9 July to 3 September will publish the Narthex cultural agenda in its columns: three events per week, including exhibitions, festivals and cultural visits in all the regions of the country: activities also suitable for families, in the perspective, concludes Mgr. Legrez, of “a formative experience for all generations, from young children to grandparents”.
