VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 017
DATE 23-01-2015

Summary:
- To the Tribunal of the Roman Rota: do not ensnare salvation in the
constraints of legalism
- Pope's Message for 49th World Communications Day
- The wisdom of parents must guide children in the digital world
- Decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
- Audiences

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 To the Tribunal of the Roman Rota: do not ensnare salvation in the
constraints of legalism
 Vatican City, 23 January 2015 (VIS) - Pope Francis today received in audience
the dean, prelate auditors, officials and collaborators of the Tribunal of the
Roman Rota, in order to inaugurate the legal year. In his address, the Holy
Father focused on the human and cultural context in which matrimonial intent
is formed. He emphasised that the crisis of values in society is not a recent
phenomenon, and recalled that forty years ago Pope Paul VI had already
denounced the ailments of modern man, "at times wounded by a systematic
relativism, that bends to the easiest choices of circumstance, of demagogy, of
fashion, of passion, of hedonism, of selfishness, so that externally he
attempts to dispute the mastery of the law, and internally, almost without
realising, substitutes the empire of moral conscience with the whim of
psychological consciousness".
 The Pope highlighted the role of the judge, who is require to perform his
judicial analysis where there is doubt regarding the validity of marriage, to
ascertain whether there was an original shortcoming in consent, either
directly in terms of a defect in the validity of intention or a grave deficit
in the understanding of marriage itself to the extent of determining will. The
crisis in marriage, indeed, not infrequently has at its root the crisis in
knowledge enlightened by faith, or rather by adhesion to God and His plan of
love realised in Jesus Christ".
 "Pastoral experience teaches us that today there is a great number of
faithful in irregular situations, whose histories have been strongly
influenced by the widespread worldly mentality", he continued. "There exists,
indeed, a sort of spiritual worldliness, which hides behind the appearance of
piety and even love for the Church, and which leads to the pursuit not of the
glory of God, but rather of personal well-being. One of the consequences of
this attitude is a faith hemmed in by subjectivism, interested solely in a
given experience or a series of arguments and areas of knowledge believed to
console or enlighten, but in which the subject in reality remains imprisoned
by the immanence of his or her own reason or emotions. ... Therefore, the
judge, in evaluating the validity of the consent given, must take into account
the context of values and faith".
 Pope Francis urged greater commitment and passion in the ministry of the
judge, whose role is "to protect the unity of the jurisprudence of the
Church", and "pastoral work for the good of many couples, and many children,
who are often the victims of these situations. Here too there is a need for
pastoral conversion on the part of ecclesiastical structures to be able to
offer the opus iustitiae to all those who turn to the Church to shed light on
their matrimonial situation. This is your difficult mission: ... do not
ensnare salvation in the constrictions of legalism. The function of law is
guided towards the salus animarum on the condition that, avoiding sophisms
distant from the living flesh of people in difficulty, it may help to
establish the truth of the moment of consent".
 The Pope stressed the importance of the presence at every ecclesiastical
Tribunal of persons competent to offer sound advice on the possibility of
initiating a suit for the annulment of marriage. "In the hope that in every
Tribunal these figures may be present to encourage real access to the justice
of the Church for all the faithful, I would like to underline that a
significant number of cases dealt with before the Roman Rota are enabled by
legal aid granted to those whose economic situation would not otherwise allow
them to engage the services of lawyer".

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 Pope's Message for 49th World Communications Day
 Vatican City, 23 January 2015 (VIS) - The Pope's message for the 49th annual
World Communications Day was published today, the vigil of the feast day of
St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. The Day will be celebrated
on Sunday 17 May 2015, and this year's theme is "Communicating the family: a
privileged place of encounter with the gift of love". The message was
published in English, French ,German, Portuguese and Spanish.
 The full text of the message is reproduced below:
 "The family is a subject of profound reflection by the Church and of a
process involving two Synods: the recent extraordinary assembly and the
ordinary assembly scheduled for next October. So I thought it appropriate that
the theme for the next World Communications Day should have the family as its
point of reference. After all, it is in the context of the family that we
first learn how to communicate. Focusing on this context can help to make our
communication more authentic and humane, while helping us to view the family
in a new perspective.
 "We can draw inspiration from the Gospel passage which relates the visit of
Mary to Elizabeth. 'When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in
her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit cried out in a loud voice
and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your
womb"'. This episode first shows us how communication is a dialogue
intertwined with the language of the body. The first response to Mary's
greeting is given by the child, who leaps for joy in the womb of Elizabeth.
Joy at meeting others, which is something we learn even before being born, is,
in one sense, the archetype and symbol of every other form of communication.
The womb which hosts us is the first 'school' of communication, a place of
listening and physical contact where we begin to familiarise ourselves with
the outside world within a protected environment, with the reassuring sound of
the mother's heartbeat. This encounter between two persons, so intimately
related while still distinct from each other, an encounter so full of promise,
is our first experience of communication. It is an experience which we all
share, since each of us was born of a mother.
 "Even after we have come into the world, in some sense we are still in a
'womb', which is the family. A womb made up of various interrelated persons:
the family is 'where we learn to live with others despite our differences'.
Notwithstanding the differences of gender and age between them, family members
accept one another because there is a bond between them. The wider the range
of these relationships and the greater the differences of age, the richer will
be our living environment. It is this bond which is at the root of language,
which in turn strengthens the bond. We do not create our language; we can use
it because we have received it. It is in the family that we learn to speak our
'mother tongue', the language of those who have gone before us. In the family
we realise that others have preceded us, they made it possible for us to exist
and in our turn to generate life and to do something good and beautiful. We
can give because we have received. This virtuous circle is at the heart of the
family's ability to communicate among its members and with others. More
generally, it is the model for all communication.
 "The experience of this relationship which 'precedes' us enables the family
to become the setting in which the most basic form of communication, which is
prayer, is handed down. When parents put their newborn children to sleep, they
frequently entrust them to God, asking that he watch over them. When the
children are a little older, parents help them to recite some simple prayers,
thinking with affection of other people, such as grandparents, relatives, the
sick and suffering, and all those in need of God's help. It was in our
families that the majority of us learned the religious dimension of
communication, which in the case of Christianity is permeated with love, the
love that God bestows upon us and which we then offer to others.
 "In the family, we learn to embrace and support one another, to discern the
meaning of facial expressions and moments of silence, to laugh and cry
together with people who did not choose one other yet are so important to each
other. This greatly helps us to understand the meaning of communication as
recognising and creating closeness. When we lessen distances by growing closer
and accepting one another, we experience gratitude and joy. Mary's greeting
and the stirring of her child are a blessing for Elizabeth; they are followed
by the beautiful canticle of the Magnificat, in which Mary praises God's
loving plan for her and for her people. A 'yes' spoken with faith can have
effects that go well beyond ourselves and our place in the world. To 'visit'
is to open doors, not remaining closed in our little world, but rather going
out to others. So too the family comes alive as it reaches beyond itself;
families who do so communicate their message of life and communion, giving
comfort and hope to more fragile families, and thus build up the Church
herself, which is the family of families.
 "More than anywhere else, the family is where we daily experience our own
limits and those of others, the problems great and small entailed in living
peacefully with others. A perfect family does not exist. We should not be
fearful of imperfections, weakness or even conflict, but rather learn how to
deal with them constructively. The family, where we keep loving one another
despite our limits and sins, thus becomes a school of forgiveness. Forgiveness
is itself a process of communication. When contrition is expressed and
accepted, it becomes possible to restore and rebuild the communication which
broke down. A child who has learned in the family to listen to others, to
speak respectfully and to express his or her view without negating that of
others, will be a force for dialogue and reconciliation in society.

--- MPost/386 v1.21
 * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)