From the Vatican Information Service:<\/p>\n
\n\nVATICAN CITY, OCT 3, 2005 (VIS) – This morning in the Synod Hall, the first General Congregation of the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was held. The meeting was presided by the Pope, and 241 Synod Fathers were present.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>"One of the functions of collegiality," said Benedict XVI, addressing some words of greeting to the assembled prelates, "is to help us to know our own shortcomings, which we do not want to see. It is never easy to contemplate one’s own defects, and others notice them better than we do."<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\n<\/span>In this context, he went on, "fraternal correction helps us become more open, …. (it helps) each person find his own truth, his own integrity as an instrument of God. All this calls for humility, not placing ourselves above others, but helping one another."<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>In this way "we can help ourselves with a great act of love, an act of true collegial affection. When someone is desperate, he cannot see how to keep going, he needs consolation, someone to be with him, to give him courage, to play the role of the consoling Holy Spirit."<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>"This is an invitation for us to carry out the work of the Holy Spirit Paraclete," said Benedict XVI, asking "how can we do so if we do not share together the faith that was not invented by any one of us, but is the faith of the Church?"<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>"The faith is the common foundation upon which we stand and work." The words of St. Paul contain "an invitation to always remain upon this foundation that precedes us, to maintain this shared faith. … Each person must experience the faith in his or her own uniqueness, but always knowing that this faith precedes us."<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>The Holy Father concluded his greetings by encouraging the participants in the Synod to be "instruments of Christ," and to "enter into the thoughts and feelings of the Lord."<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In other words: Admit your mistakes. Let the fraternal correction fly!<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the Vatican Information Service: VATICAN CITY, OCT 3, 2005 (VIS) – This morning in the Synod Hall, the first General Congregation of the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was held. The meeting was presided by the Pope, and 241 Synod Fathers were present. "One of the functions of collegiality,"…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}