VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 067
DATE 09-04-2015

Summary:
- Francis receives the president of the Slovak Republic, 25 years after the
restoration of diplomatic relations with the Holy See
- The Holy Father addresses the Patriarchal Synod of the Armenian Catholic
Church
- Presentation of the Holy See pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale
- Audiences

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 Francis receives the president of the Slovak Republic, 25 years after the
restoration of diplomatic relations with the Holy See
 Vatican City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father Francis
received in audience, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the president of the
Slovak Republic, Andrej Kiska, who subsequently met with Msgr. Antoine
Camilleri, Under-Secretary for Relations with States, in the Secretariat of
State.
 During the cordial discussions, which took place shortly before the 25th
anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and
the then Czech and Slovak Federative Republic on 19 April 1990 following St.
John Paul II's visit to the country, satisfaction was expressed for the good
bilateral relations sealed by the Agreements in force and by the fruitful
dialogue between the Church and the civil authorities.
 The Parties then turned their attention to the current International context,
with particular attention to the challenges affecting certain areas of the
world, especially the Middle East, and the importance of the protection of the
dignity of the human person.

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 The Holy Father addresses the Patriarchal Synod of the Armenian Catholic
Church
 Vatican City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) - This morning Pope Francis received in
audience twenty bishops of the Synod of the Armenian Catholic Church, who will
attend next Sunday's Holy Mass to be celebrated for faithful of Armenian rite
in
St. Peter's Basilica, during which St. Gregory of Narek will be proclaimed a
Doctor of the Church.
 In the discourse he addressed to the bishops, the Holy Father remarked that on
Sunday they will "raise a prayer of Christian intercession for the sons and
daughters of your beloved people, who were made victims a hundred years ago",
and invoked Divine Mercy "so that it might help all, in the love for truth and
justice, to heal every wound and to expedite concrete gestures of
reconciliation
and peace between the nations that still have not managed to reach a reasonable
consensus on the interpretation of these sad events".
 Francis greeted all the clergy and lay faithful of the Armenian Catholic
Church, many of whom have accompanied the bishops to Rome in these days, as
well
as "those who live in the countries of the diaspora, such as the United States,
Latin America, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, up to the Motherland". He added, "I
think with particular sadness of those areas, such as that of Aleppo, that a
hundred years ago were a safe haven for the few survivors. In such regions the
stability of Christians, not only Armenians, has latterly been placed in
danger".
 "Your people, whom tradition recognises as the first to convert to
Christianity
in 301, has a two thousand-year history and preserves an admirable patrimony of
spirituality and culture, united with a capacity for recovery amid the many
persecutions and trials to which it has been subjected. I invite you always to
cultivate a sentiment of acknowledgement of the Lord, for having been capable
of
maintaining fidelity to Him even during the most difficult periods. It is
important, furthermore, to ask of God the gift of wisdom of the heart: the
commemoration of the victims of a hundred years ago indeed places us before the
darkness of the mysterium iniquitatis".
 "As the Gospel tells us, from the depths of the human heart there may emerge
the darkest powers, capable of planning the systematic annihilation of one's
brother, of considering him an enemy, an adversary, or even without the same
human dignity", he observed. "But for believers the issue of the evil committed
by man also introduces the mystery of participation in the redemptive Passion:
a
number of sons and daughters of the Armenian nation were capable of pronouncing
Christ's name to the point of shedding their blood or of death by starvation
during the interminable exodus they were forced to undertake".
 "The painful pages in the history of your people continue, in a certain sense,
the Passion of Christ, but in each one of these there is also the germ of the
Resurrection. There is no lack of commitment among you, Pastors, to the
education of the lay faithful to enable them to interpret reality with new
eyes,
in order to be able to say every day: my people consists not only of those who
suffer for Christ, but above all of those who are risen in Him. Therefore it is
important to remember the past, in order to draw from it the new lymph needed
to
nurture the present with the glorious announcement of the Gospel and with the
witness of charity. I encourage you to support the path of continuing formation
of priests and consecrated persons. They are your first collaborators; the
communion between them and you will be strengthened by the exemplary fraternity
they may observe in the Synod and with the Patriarch".
 The Pope expressed his gratitude to those who made efforts to alleviate the
sufferings of their ancestors, making special reference to Pope Benedict XV
"who
intervened before the Sultan Mehmet V to bring an end to the massacre of the
Armenians", and who was "a great friend of the Christian Orient: he established
the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Oriental
Institute, and in 1920 he inscribed St. Ephrem the Syrian among the Doctors of
the Universal Church". Francis continued, "I am pleased that our meeting takes
place on the eve of the same gesture I will have the pleasure of performing on
Sunday regarding the great figure of St. Gregory of Narek".
 "To his intercession, I entrust in particular the ecumenical dialogue between
the Catholic Armenian Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church, aware of the
fact that the 'ecumenism of blood' has already been achieved through the
martyrdom and persecution that took place one hundred years ago", he concluded.
"I now invoke the Lord's blessing upon you and your faithful, and I ask you not
to forget to pray for me".

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 Presentation of the Holy See pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale
 Vatican City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) - "In the beginning ... the Word became
Flesh"
is the name of the Holy See's pavilion at the upcoming 56th Venice Biennale of
Art (9 May to 22 November 2015), which was presented this morning by Cardinal
Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and
commissioner of the Pavilion, along with Paolo Baratta, president of the
Biennale and Micol Forte, curator of the Vatican Museums Collection of
Contemporary Art and of the pavilion.
 During the press conference, held in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal
Ravasi
explained that, continuing from the theme of the Holy See's first contribution
to the 2013 Venice Biennale, the 2015 pavilion will see to re-establish the
dialogue between art and faith and the need to examine, especially at an
international level, the relationship between the Church and contemporary art.
"Continuing from the first edition, the Holy See pavilion of the 56th Venice
Biennale will develop the theme of the 'Beginning', with an itinerary leading
from the Old to the New Testament, making 'logos' and 'flesh' the terms of a
relationship constantly in progress".
 "The reference to Genesis, understood as Creation, De-Creation, Re-Creation,
in
2013 constituted the object of a reflection that is now further developed in
the
Prologue of the Gospel of John. In this latter, two essential poles are
highlighted: the transcendent Word that is 'in the Beginning', and at the same
time, reveals the dialogical and communicational nature of the God of Jesus
Christ; and the Word that becomes 'flesh', body, bringing the presence of God
into the essence of humanity, especially where it appears to be wounded and
suffering. The 'vertical-transcendent' dimension and the 'horizontal-immanent'
dimension of flesh thus constitute in this sense the axes of research. It is
necessary to refer to these axes - and their intersection - to understand the
individual works and the dialogue that is interwoven between them within the
exhibition space.
 Micol Forti presented the works and artists represented in the Pavilion,
remarking that the "indissoluble bond between 'logos' and 'flesh' produces a
dialectic dynamism ... that inspires, in artists as well as in the public,
reflection on the binomial that is at the root of humanity. The three artists,
all young, of differing provenance, experience, ethical and aesthetic vision,
have been required to flesh out the idea evoked in the Prologue of the Gospel
of
John". They include the Colombian Monika Bravo who, Forti explained, "has
developed a narrative, deconstructed and recomposed on six screens and the same
number of transparent panels, positioned on strongly coloured walls. In each
composition, Nature, the Word (written and spoken) and artistic abstraction are
presented as active elements of heuristic vision, open to a margin of
experimental indeterminacy in the development of a new perceptive space and
sensory fullness".
 The Macedonian Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva has designed a "monumental, architectural
installation, whose 'fabric', almost a sort of skin or mantle, welcomes the
visitor in a dimension that is simultaneously physical and symbolic. [The work
is] made of organic waste material, in a journey from 'ready-made' to
're-made'". Forti continued, "Flesh transforms into history in the reality
offered without falsification" by the photographer Mario Macilau, from
Mozambique. The series of nine black and white photographs taken in Maputo,
capital of Mozambique, depicts the street children who at a young age are
compelled to face life in terms of survival. "It is not a photo-reportage, but
rather a poetic work that reverses the connections between now and before, near
and far, the visible and what cannot be seen".

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 Audiences
 Vatican City, 9 April 2015 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in
audience:
 - Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secreteriat for the Economy;
 - Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, archbishop of Perugia - Citta della Pieve,
Italy;
 - Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana, apostolic nuncio in Australia;
 - Msgr. Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council "Cor
Unum".

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