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Click for information on the U.S. Visit of Pope Benedict
XVI |
I. Introduction
1. Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to proclaim the Gospel,
calling all people to conversion and faith (cf. Mk 1:14-15). After
his resurrection, he entrusted the continuation of his mission of
evangelization to the Apostles (cf. Mt 28:19-20; Mk 16:15; Lk
24:4-7; Acts 1:3): “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn
20:21, cf. 17:18). By means of the Church, Christ wants to be
present in every historical epoch, every place on earth and every
sector of society, in order to reach every person, so that there may
be one flock and one shepherd (cf. Jn 10:16): “Go out into the whole
world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and
is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be
condemned” (Mk 16:15-16).The Apostles, therefore, “prompted by the
Spirit, invited all to change their lives, to be converted and to be
baptized”, because the “pilgrim Church is necessary for salvation”.
It is the same Lord Jesus Christ who, present in his Church, goes
before the work of evangelizers, accompanies it, follows it, and
makes their labors bear fruit: what took place at the origins of
Christian history continues throughout its entire course. At the
beginning of the third millennium, the call which Peter and his
brother Andrew, as well as the other first disciples, heard from
Jesus continues to resound in the world: “put out into the deep and
lower your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4). And after the miracle of a
huge catch of fish, the Lord revealed to Peter that he would become
“a fisher of men” (Lk 5:10).
2. The term evangelization has a very rich meaning. In the broad
sense, it sums up the Church’s entire mission: her whole life
consists in accomplishing the traditio Evangelii, the proclamation
and handing on of the Gospel, which is “the power of God for the
salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16) and which, in the
final essence, is identified with Jesus Christ himself (cf. 1 Cor
1:24). Understood in this way, evangelization is aimed at all of
humanity. In any case, to evangelize does not mean simply to teach a
doctrine, but to proclaim Jesus Christ by one’s words and actions,
that is, to make oneself an instrument of his presence and action in
the world.“Every person has the right to hear the ‘Good News’ of the
God who reveals and gives himself in Christ, so that each one can
live out in its fullness his or her proper calling”. It a right
which the Lord himself confers on every person, so that every man
and woman is able truly to say with Saint Paul: Jesus Christ “loved
me and gave himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). This right implies the
corresponding duty to evangelize: “If I preach the Gospel, this is
no reason for me to boast; it is a duty for me. Woe to me if I do
not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16; cf. Rom 10:14). Thus, it is
evident how every activity of the Church has an essential
evangelizing dimension and must never be separated from the
commitment to help all persons to meet Christ in faith, which is the
primary objective of evangelization: “Social issues and the Gospel
are inseparable. When we bring people only knowledge, ability,
technical competence and tools, we bring them too little”.
3. There is today, however, a growing confusion which leads many to
leave the missionary command of the Lord unheard and ineffective
(cf. Mt 28:19). Often it is maintained that any attempt to convince
others on religious matters is a limitation of their freedom. From
this perspective, it would only be legitimate to present one’s own
ideas and to invite people to act according to their consciences,
without aiming at their conversion to Christ and to the Catholic
faith. It is enough, so they say, to help people to become more
human or more faithful to their own religion; it is enough to build
communities which strive for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity.
Furthermore, some maintain that Christ should not be proclaimed to
those who do not know him, nor should joining the Church be
promoted, since it would also be possible to be saved without
explicit knowledge of Christ and without formal incorporation in the
Church.In the face of these problems, the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith has judged it necessary to publish the present
Note. This document, which presupposes the entirety of Catholic
doctrine on evangelization, as extensively treated in the teaching
of Paul VI and John Paul II, is intended to clarify certain aspects
of the relationship between the missionary command of the Lord and
respect for the conscience and religious freedom of all people. It
is an issue with important anthropological, ecclesiological and
ecumenical implications.
II. Some anthropological
implications
4. “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). God has given human
beings intellect and will so that they might freely seek, know and
love him. Therefore, human freedom is both a resource and a
challenge offered to man by God who has created him: an offer
directed to the human person’s capacity to know and to love what is
good and true. Nothing puts in play human freedom like the search
for the good and the true, by inviting it to a kind of commitment
which involves fundamental aspects of life. This is particularly the
case with salvific truth, which is not only an object of thought,
but also an event which encompasses the entire person –
intelligence, will, feelings, actions and future plans – when a
person adheres to Christ. In the search for the good and the true,
the Holy Spirit is already at work, opening the human heart and
making it ready to welcome the truth of the Gospel, as Thomas
Aquinas stated in his celebrated phrase: omne verum a quocumque
dicatur a Spiritu Sancto est. It is important therefore to
appreciate this action of the Spirit, who creates an affinity for
the truth and draws the human heart towards it, by helping human
knowledge to mature both in wisdom and in trusting abandonment to
what is true. Today, however, with ever-increasing frequency,
questions are being raised about the legitimacy of presenting to
others – so that they might in turn accept it – that which is held
to be true for oneself. Often this is seen as an infringement of
other people’s freedom. Such a vision of human freedom, separated
from its integral reference to truth, is one of the expressions “of
that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as
the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires and under the
semblance of freedom, becomes a prison for each one”. In the various
forms of agnosticism and relativism present in contemporary thought,
“a legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an
undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all
positions are equally valid, which is one of today’s most widespread
symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth. Even certain
conceptions of life coming from the East betray this lack of
confidence, denying truth its exclusive character and assuming that
truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines, even if they
contradict one another”. If man denies his fundamental capacity for
the truth, if he becomes skeptical regarding his ability really to
know what is true, he ends up losing what in a unique way draws his
intelligence and enthralls his heart.
5. In this connection, when it comes to the search for truth,
whoever trusts only in his own individual efforts and does not
recognize the need for help from others, is deceiving himself. Human
beings “from birth, therefore, are immersed in traditions which give
them not only a language and a cultural formation but also a range
of truths in which they believe almost instinctively… Nonetheless,
there are in the life of a human being many more truths which are
simply believed than truths which are acquired by way of personal
verification”. The need to trust in the knowledge handed on by one’s
culture or acquired by others, enriches a person with truths that
could not have been attained on one’s own, as well as by the
interpersonal and social relationships which this process develops.
Spiritual individualism, on the other hand, isolates a person,
hindering him from opening in trust to others – so as both to
receive and to bestow the abundant goods which nourish his freedom –
and jeopardizes the right to manifest one’s own convictions and
opinions in society. In particular, the truth which is capable of
shedding light on the meaning of one’s life and giving it direction,
is similarly attained through trusting acceptance with regard to
those persons who are able to guarantee the certainty and
authenticity of the truth itself: “There is no doubt that the
capacity to entrust oneself and one’s life to another person and the
decision to do so are among the most significant and expressive
human acts”. Although it happens on a deeper level, the acceptance
of revelation which takes place through faith also falls within the
dynamics of the search for truth: “‘The obedience of faith’ (Rom
16:26; cf. Rom 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6) must be given to God who reveals;
by this obedience of faith man freely commits his entire self to
God, offering ‘the full submission of intellect and will to God who
reveals’ and freely assenting to the revelation given by him”. The
Second Vatican Council, after having affirmed the right and the duty
of every person to seek the truth in matters of religion adds: “The
search for truth, however, must be carried out in a manner that is
appropriate to the dignity of the human person and his social
nature, namely, by free enquiry with the help of teaching or
instruction, communication and dialogue. It is by these means that
people share with each other the truth they have discovered, or
think they have discovered, in such a way that they help one another
in the search for truth”. In any case, the truth “does not impose
itself except by the strength of the truth itself”. Therefore, to
lead a person’s intelligence and freedom in honesty to the encounter
with Christ and his Gospel is not an inappropriate encroachment, but
rather a legitimate endeavor and a service capable of making human
relationships more fruitful.
6. Evangelization does not only entail the possibility of enrichment
for those who are evangelized; it is also an enrichment for the one
who does the evangelizing, as well as for the entire Church. For
example, in the process of (inclusion), “the universal Church
herself is enriched with forms of expression and values in the
various sectors of Christian life… She comes to know and to express
better the mystery of Christ, all the while being motivated to
continual renewal”. Indeed, since the day of Pentecost, the Church
has manifested the universality of her mission, welcoming in Christ
the countless riches of peoples from all times and places in human
history. Beyond its intrinsic anthropological value, every encounter
with another person or culture is capable of revealing
potentialities of the Gospel which hitherto may not have been fully
explicit and which will enrich the life of Christians and the
Church. Thanks to this dynamism, “tradition, which comes from the
Apostles, makes progress in the Church by the help of the Holy
Spirit”. It is indeed the Holy Spirit who, after having been
operative in the incarnation of Jesus Christ in the womb of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, animates the maternal action of the Church in
the evangelization of cultures. Although the Gospel is independent
from any culture, it is capable of infusing all cultures, while
never allowing itself to be subservient to them. In this sense, the
Holy Spirit is also the principal agent of the (inclusion) of the
Gospel, presiding in a fruitful way at the dialogue between the Word
of God, revealed in Christ, and the deepest questions which arise
among the multitude of human beings and cultures. In this way, the
Pentecost-event continues in history, in the unity of one and the
same faith, enriched by the diversity of languages and cultures.
7. The communication of religiously significant events and truths in
order that they will be accepted by others is not only in profound
harmony with the human phenomena of dialogue, proclamation and
education, it also corresponds to another important anthropological
fact: the desire, which is proper to the human person, to have
others share in one’s own goods. The acceptance of the Good News in
faith is thus dynamically ordered to such a communication. The truth
which saves one’s life inflames the heart of the one who has
received it with a love of neighbor that motivates him to pass on to
others in freedom what he has freely been given.Although
non-Christians can be saved through the grace which God bestows in
“ways known to him”, the Church cannot fail to recognize that such
persons are lacking a tremendous benefit in this world: to know the
true face of God and the friendship of Jesus Christ, God-with-us.
Indeed “there is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the
Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more
beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship
with him”. The revelation of the fundamental truths about God, about
the human person and the world, is a great good for every human
person, while living in darkness without the truths about ultimate
questions is an evil and is often at the root of suffering and
slavery which can at times be grievous. This is why Saint Paul does
not hesitate to describe conversion to the Christian faith as
liberation “from the power of darkness” and entrance into “the
kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption and the
forgiveness of our sins” (Col 1:13-14). Therefore, fully belonging
to Christ, who is the Truth, and entering the Church do not lessen
human freedom, but rather exalt it and direct it towards its
fulfillment, in a love that is freely given and which overflows with
care for the good of all people. It is an inestimable benefit to
live within the universal embrace of the friends of God which flows
from communion in the life-giving flesh of his Son, to receive from
him the certainty of forgiveness of sins and to live in the love
that is born of faith. The Church wants everyone to share in these
goods so that they may possess the fullness of truth and the
fullness of the means of salvation, in order “to enter into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).
8. Evangelization also involves a sincere dialogue that seeks to
understand the reasons and feelings of others. Indeed, the heart of
another person can only be approached in freedom, in love and in
dialogue, in such a manner that the word which is spoken is not
simply offered, but also truly witnessed in the hearts of those to
whom it is addressed. This requires taking into account the hopes,
sufferings and concrete situations of those with whom one is in
dialogue. Precisely in this way, people of good will open their
hearts more freely and share their spiritual and religious
experiences in all sincerity. This experience of sharing, a
characteristic of true friendship, is a valuable occasion for
witnessing and for Christian proclamation. As in any other field of
human activity, so too in dialogue on religious matters, sin can
enter in. It may sometimes happen that such a dialogue is not guided
by its natural purpose, but gives way instead to deception, selfish
motives or arrogance, thus failing in respect for the dignity and
religious freedom of the partners in dialogue. For this reason, “the
Church severely prohibits forcing people to embrace the faith or
leading or enticing them by improper techniques; by the same token,
she also strongly defends the right that no one be deterred from the
faith by deplorable ill treatment”. The primary motive of
evangelization is the love of Christ for the eternal salvation of
all. The sole desire of authentic evangelizers is to bestow freely
what they themselves have freely received: “From the very origins of
the Church, the disciples of Christ strove to convert men to faith
in Christ the Lord; not, however, through coercion or tactics
unworthy of the Gospel, but above all by the power of the word of
God”. The mission of the Apostles and its continuation in the
mission of the early Church remain the foundational model of
evangelization for all time: it is a mission that has often been
marked by martyrdom, as demonstrated by the history of the twentieth
century. It is precisely martyrdom that gives credibility to
witnesses, who seek neither power nor advantage, but instead lay
down their lives for Christ. Before all the world, they display an
unarmed strength brimming with love for all people, which is
bestowed on those who follow Christ unto the total gift of their
existence. So it is that Christians, from the very dawn of
Christianity up until our own time have suffered persecution on
account of the Gospel, as Jesus himself foretold: “If they
persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20).
III. Some ecclesiological
implications
9. Since the day of Pentecost, one who fully accepts the faith is
incorporated into the community of believers: “those who received
his word [Peter’s] were baptized and that day about three thousand
people were added to them” (Acts 2:41). Since the beginning, the
Gospel, in the power of the Spirit, is proclaimed to all people so
that they might believe and become disciples of Christ and members
of his Church. In the writings of the Fathers of the Church, there
are constant exhortations to fulfill the mission entrusted by Christ
to his disciples. Generally, the term conversion is used in
reference to bringing pagans into the Church. However, conversion (metanoia),
in its precisely Christian meaning, signifies a change in thinking
and in acting, as the expression of the new life in Christ
proclaimed by faith: a continuous reform of thought and deeds
directed at an ever more intense identification with Christ (cf. Gal
2:20), to which the baptized are called before all else. This is, in
the first place, the meaning of the call made by Jesus himself:
“repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15; cf. Mt 4:17).The
Christian spirit has always been animated by a passion to lead all
humanity to Christ in the Church. The incorporation of new members
into the Church is not the expansion of a power-group, but rather
entrance into the network of friendship with Christ which connects
heaven and earth, different continents and ages. It is entrance into
the gift of communion with Christ, which is “new life” enlivened by
charity and the commitment to justice. The Church is the instrument,
“the seed and the beginning” of the Kingdom of God; she is not a
political utopia. She is already the presence of God in history and
she carries in herself the true future, the definitive future in
which God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28); she is a necessary
presence, because only God can bring authentic peace and justice to
the world. The Kingdom of God is not – as some maintain today – a
generic reality above all religious experiences and traditions, to
which they tend as a universal and indistinct communion of all those
who seek God, but it is, before all else, a person with a name and a
face: Jesus of Nazareth, the image of the unseen God. Therefore,
every free movement of the human heart towards God and towards his
kingdom cannot but by its very nature lead to Christ and be oriented
towards entrance into his Church, the efficacious sign of that
Kingdom. The Church, therefore, is the bearer of the presence of God
and thus the instrument of the true humanization of man and the
world. The growth of the Church in history, which results from
missionary activity, is at the service of the presence of God
through his Kingdom: one cannot in fact “detach the Kingdom from the
Church”.
10. However, the Church’s “missionary proclamation is endangered
today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious
pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle)”.
For a long time, the reason for evangelization has not been clear to
many among the Catholic faithful. It is even stated that the claim
to have received the gift of the fullness of God’s revelation masks
an attitude of intolerance and a danger to peace. Those who make
such claims are overlooking the fact that the fullness of the gift
of truth, which God makes by revealing himself to man, respects the
freedom which he himself created as an indelible mark of human
nature: a freedom which is not indifference, but which is rather
directed towards truth. This kind of respect is a requirement of the
Catholic faith itself and of the love of Christ; it is a
constitutive element of evangelization and, therefore, a good which
is to be promoted inseparably with the commitment to making the
fullness of salvation, which God offers to the human race in the
Church, known and freely embraced. Respect for religious freedom and
its promotion “must not in any way make us indifferent towards truth
and goodness. Indeed, love impels the followers of Christ to
proclaim to all the truth which saves”. Such love is the sign of the
authentic presence of the Holy Spirit who, as the principal agent of
evangelization, never ceases to move people’s hearts when they hear
the Gospel, by opening them to receive it. It is a love which lives
in the heart of the Church and from there, as burning charity,
radiates out to the ends of the earth, as far as the heart of every
human being. The entire heart of man awaits the encounter with Jesus
Christ. Thus one understands the urgency of Christ’s invitation to
evangelization and why it is that the mission entrusted by the Lord
to the Apostles involves all the baptized. The words of Jesus “go
therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20), are directed to everyone
in the Church, each according to his own vocation. At the present
time, with so many people in the world living in different types of
desert, above all, in the “desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness
of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human
life”, Pope Benedict XVI has recalled to the world that “the Church
as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead
people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards
friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life,
and life in abundance”. This apostolic commitment is an inalienable
right and duty, an expression of religious liberty, with its
corresponding ethical-social and ethical-political dimensions. It is
a right which in some parts of the world, unfortunately, has not yet
been recognized and which in others is not respected in practice.
11. He who announces the Gospel participates in the charity of
Christ, who loved us and gave himself up for us (cf. Eph 5:2); he is
his ambassador and he pleads in the name of Christ: let yourselves
to be reconciled with God! (cf. 2 Cor 5:20). It is a charity which
is an expression of the gratitude that flows from the heart when it
opens to the love given in Jesus Christ, that Love which, as Dante
wrote, is displayed throughout the universe. This explains the
ardor, the confidence, and the freedom of speech (parrhesia) evident
in the preaching of the Apostles (cf. Acts 4:31; 9:27-28; 26:26,
etc.) and which Agrippa experienced when he heard Paul speaking:
“You will soon persuade me to become a Christian!” (Acts 26:28).
Evangelization is not only accomplished through public preaching of
the Gospel nor solely through works of public relevance, but also by
means of personal witness which is always very effective in
spreading the Gospel. Indeed, “side by side with the collective
proclamation of the Gospel, the other form of handing it on, from
person to person, remains valid and important… It must not happen
that the pressing need to proclaim the Good News to the multitudes
should cause us to forget this form of proclamation whereby an
individual’s personal conscience is reached and touched by an
entirely unique word that he receives from someone else.” In any
case, it needs to be remembered that, in transmitting the Gospel,
word and witness of life go together. Above all, the witness of
holiness is necessary, if the light of truth is to reach all human
beings. If the word is contradicted by behavior, its acceptance will
be difficult. However, even witness by itself is not enough “because
even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run, if
it is not explained, justified – what Peter called ‘giving a reason
for the hope that is in you’ (1 Pet 3:15) – and made explicit by a
clear and unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus”.
IV. Some ecumenical implications
12. From its beginnings, the ecumenical movement has been closely
connected with evangelization. Unity, in fact, is the seal of the
credibility of missionary activity and so the Second Vatican Council
noted with regret that the scandal of division “damages the most
sacred cause of preaching”. Jesus himself, on the night before his
death, prayed “that they all may be one … so that the world may
believe” (Jn 17:21).
The mission of the Church is universal and is not restricted to
specific regions of the earth. Evangelization, however, is
undertaken differently according to the different situations in
which it occurs. In its precise sense, evangelization is the missio
ad gentes directed to those who do not know Christ. In a wider
sense, it is used to describe ordinary pastoral work, while the
phrase “new evangelization” designates pastoral outreach to those
who no longer practice the Christian faith. In addition, there is
evangelization in countries where non-Catholic Christians live,
including those with an ancient Christian tradition and culture. In
this context, what is required is both true respect for the
tradition and spiritual riches of such countries as well as a
sincere spirit of cooperation. Catholics, “avoiding every form of
indifferentism or confusion, as well as senseless rivalry, through a
common profession of faith in God and in Jesus Christ before all
peoples – insofar as this is possible – may collaborate with their
separated brethren in social, cultural, technical and religious
matters in accordance with the Decree on Ecumenism”. Different
dimensions of the work of ecumenism can be distinguished: above all,
there is listening, as a fundamental condition for any dialogue,
then, theological discussion, in which, by seeking to understand the
beliefs, traditions and convictions of others, agreement can be
found, at times hidden under disagreement. Inseparably united with
this is another essential dimension of the ecumenical commitment:
witness and proclamation of elements which are not particular
traditions or theological subtleties, but which belong rather to the
Tradition of the faith itself.
Ecumenism does not have only an institutional dimension aimed at
“making the partial communion existing between Christians grow
towards full communion in truth and charity”. It is also the task of
every member of the faithful, above all by means of prayer, penance,
study and cooperation. Everywhere and always, each Catholic has the
right and the duty to give the witness and the full proclamation of
his faith. With non-Catholic Christians, Catholics must enter into a
respectful dialogue of charity and truth, a dialogue which is not
only an exchange of ideas, but also of gifts, in order that the
fullness of the means of salvation can be offered to one’s partners
in dialogue. In this way, they are led to an ever deeper conversion
to Christ. In this connection, it needs also to be recalled that if
a non-Catholic Christian, for reasons of conscience and having been
convinced of Catholic truth, asks to enter into the full communion
of the Catholic Church, this is to be respected as the work of the
Holy Spirit and as an expression of freedom of conscience and of
religion. In such a case, it would not be a question of proselytism
in the negative sense that has been attributed to this term. As
explicitly recognized in the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second
Vatican Council, “it is evident that the work of preparing and
reconciling those individuals who desire full Catholic communion is
of its nature distinct from ecumenical action, but there is no
opposition between the two, since both proceed from the marvelous
ways of God”. Therefore, the work of ecumenism does not remove the
right or take away the responsibility of proclaiming in fullness the
Catholic faith to other Christians, who freely wish to receive it.
This perspective naturally requires the avoidance of any undue
pressure: “in spreading religious faith and introducing religious
practices, everyone should refrain at all times from any kind of
action which might seem to suggest coercion or dishonest or improper
persuasion, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people”.
The witness to the truth does not seek to impose anything by force,
neither by coercive action nor by tactics incompatible with the
Gospel. By definition, the exercise of charity is free. Love and
witnessing to the truth are aimed above all at convincing others
through the power of the word of God (Cf. 1 Cor 2:3-5; 1 Thess
2:3-5). The Christian mission resides in the power of the Holy
Spirit and in the truth itself which is proclaimed.
V. Conclusion
13. The Church’s commitment to evangelization can never be lacking,
since according to his own promise, the presence of the Lord Jesus
in the power of the Holy Spirit will never be absent from her: “I am
with you always, even until the end of the world” (Mt 28:20). The
relativism and irenicism prevalent today in the area of religion are
not valid reasons for failing to respond to the difficult, but
awe-inspiring commitment which belongs to the nature of the Church
herself and is indeed the Church’s “primary task”. “Caritas Christi
urget nos – the love of Christ impels us” (2 Cor 5:14): the lives of
innumerable Catholics bear witness to this truth. Throughout the
entire history of the Church, people motivated by the love of Jesus
have undertaken initiatives and works of every kind in order to
proclaim the Gospel to the entire world and in all sectors of
society, as a perennial reminder and invitation to every Christian
generation to fulfill with generosity the mandate of Christ.
Therefore, as Pope Benedict XVI recalls, “the proclamation of and
witness to the Gospel are the first service that Christians can
render to every person and to the entire human race, called as they
are to communicate to all God’s love, which was fully manifested in
Jesus Christ, the one Redeemer of the world”. The love which comes
from God unites us to him and “makes us a ‘we’ which transcends our
divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is ‘all in all’ (1
Cor 15:28)”.
The Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XVI, in the Audience granted to the
undersigned Cardinal Prefect on 6 October 2007, approved the present
Doctrinal Note, adopted in the Ordinary Session of this
Congregation, and ordered its publication. Rome, from the
Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 3
December 2007, Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, Patron of the
Missions.
William Cardinal Levada
PrefectAngelo Amato, SDB Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary |
