The
Pope affirmed this in a letter sent through his secretary of state,
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to the members of the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal (Rinnovamento nello Spirito). The movement members are gathered
near Rimini, Italy, for their 31st meeting. The annual celebration
began Thursday and is focusing on the theme "Regenerated by the Word of
God" (1 Peter 1:23).
More than 20,000 people are participating in
the meeting. In Italy alone, the Charismatic Renewal has more than
200,000 members, among 1,900 groups and communities.
The papal
letter stated that "His Holiness praises and encourages the commitment
with which the Charismatic Renewal makes its own and carries forward
the effort to promote communion and collaboration among the diverse
realities that the same Spirit has brought about in the Church."
The
letter emphasized that the Holy Father "always follows the journey of
the ecclesial movements with special pastoral solicitude" and that he
exhorts the members of the Charismatic Renewal always to "unite with
prayer their effective attention to the world's needs and the good of
men."
Leaven
The president of the Italian bishops' conference,
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, and the conference secretary, Monsignor
Giuseppe Bertori, also sent a letter in which they recall the "horizon
of joyous hope" in which the Charismatic Renewal's "precious work of
evangelization" moves.
The national president of the Charismatic
Renewal in Italy, Salvatore Martinez, told the Avvenire newspaper that
the prophetic word that will inspire the meeting at Rimini "is St.
Paul's confession of praise -- St. Paul, a man surrendered to Christ,
reborn in him, who lived a new life to make the beauty and the power of
the name of Christ known."
The national meeting, Martinez said,
will in fact focus on the binomial "word-life" as a "meaningful answer
to the great Christian challenge of every century: breaking down the
division between faith and life, between that which we say we believe
and that which we let the world ‘see' and ‘feel' of Christ."
"Word
and life reciprocally answer, condition and complete each other," he
said. "Without the word, life is emptied out; without a life -- ours --
in which the Word can take flesh, Jesus remains a mere history lesson
or a hero to be commemorated."
On Thursday, Cardinal Angelo
Scola, patriarch of Venice, presiding at the Eucharist, invited those
present to be "witnesses of the power and the regenerative force that
the Spirit of the risen Jesus never fails to make present in history."
Friday included "lectio divina" about the mercy of God, led by Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto.
On
Friday afternoon there was a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of
Pope John Paul II's 1998 meeting with the ecclesial movements and
communities.
In this context, talks were given by
representatives of the Community of Sant'Egidio, the Focolare Movement,
and Communion and Liberation on the theme "The Church Counts on Each
One of You."
