{"id":3810,"date":"2006-12-22T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2006-12-22T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/christmas-message-1.html"},"modified":"2006-12-22T09:00:40","modified_gmt":"2006-12-22T09:00:40","slug":"christmas-message-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/christmas-message-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Message"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, the Pope’s annual speech to the members of the Curia made news for two reason: one, there was a notable delay in the release of its text. Secondly, in it, Benedict reflected on the need to re-evaluate and resituate the Second Vatican Council within the broader context of 2000 years of Catholic tradition and life. <\/p>\n

Here is the text of this year’s speech – in Italian. <\/a>I have no idea what it says, and absolutely no time to figure it out. A quick look indicates that he goes through his major trips of the year and pulls out the important points from those journeys. Nothing has come through any of the usual news sources indicating the content…so perhaps later this afternoon, someone will have reported. Teresa Benedetta is working on translating it so you might keep your eyes on this place<\/a> and on VIS, which will probably provide some highlights.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s an account from AsiaNews:<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cBringing God back into play as a reality\u201d: this is the way ahead to find peace in the Holy Land, to restore Europe\u2019s courage to have children, to give a boost to ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue, and to understand the true meaning of ecclesial celibacy. Prompting the world to \u201clean upon God in the most concrete and radical way possible\u201d is a thread that has run through all the steps taken by Benedict XVI in the year coming to a close. It is a point he came back to, especially when dwelling upon his international trips, in an \u201cassessment\u201d he gave during an address to cardinals, members of the pontifical family and the Roman curia, who met today for the delivery of Christmas greetings. <\/p>\n

In a long and fluent speech, the pope also tackled issues like de facto couples and PACS \u2013 reasserting the right of the Church to condemn legislation that permits them \u2013 and the relationship between faith and reason, central to the \u201clectio\u201d in Regensburg. For this, \u201cfaith in that God who is in person the Reason creator of the universe must be welcomed by science in a new way as a challenge and chance. Reciprocally, this faith must newly acknowledge its intrinsic vastness and own reason\u201d. <\/p>\n

The pope said: \u201cThe year coming to a close is imprinted in our memory with the deep marks of the horrors of war around the Holy Land as well as, in general, the danger of a clash between cultures and religions \u2013 a danger that still now hangs threateningly over this historic moment of ours. The problem of paths to peace has thus become a challenge of chief importance for all those who are concerned about mankind. This goes especially for the Church \u2013 the promise that has accompanied it from the beginning signifies both a responsibility and a task: \u2018Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours\u2019 (Lk 2:14). <\/p>\n

This greeting of the angel to the shepherds on the night of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem reveals an inseparable connection between the relationship of men with God and their mutual relationship. Peace on earth cannot be found without reconciliation with God, without harmony between heaven and earth. This correlation of the theme \u2018God\u2019 with the theme \u2018peace\u2019 has been the determining factor of this year\u2019s four Apostolic Journeys and it is to them that I wish to return now.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, the Pope’s annual speech to the members of the Curia made news for two reason: one, there was a notable delay in the release of its text. Secondly, in it, Benedict reflected on the need to re-evaluate and resituate the Second Vatican Council within the broader context of 2000 years of Catholic tradition…<\/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-3810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChristmas Message - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/christmas-message-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christmas Message - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last year, the Pope’s annual speech to the members of the Curia made news for two reason: one, there was a notable delay in the release of its text. 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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\/3810","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=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}