VATICAN - Cardinal Sepe presides ordination of new Vicar Apostolic of Kuwait: “the duty to proclaim the Gospel belongs in a special way to the bishop who assumes it as a primary duty on the day of his Ordination”.

Friday, 2 September 2005

Kuwait City (Agenzia Fides) - “I turn to you dear Father Camillo, and I wish to thank you for having accepted the Holy Father’s decision in faith - in Verbo Tuo - as your motto indicates, and for wanting to be ordained here in the cathedral in Kuwait City before your chosen people. As Jesus said to the apostles on the banks of the Sea of Galilee he says to you today: "come, follow me!" In your youth you received the gift of the priesthood and in the spirit of the founder of your religious institute, Saint Daniel Comboni dedicated yourself to mission ad gentes. Today spiritually mature you will receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders in its fulness”.
This was how Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples addressed the new Vicar Apostolic of Kuwait, Italian Comboni Fr Camillo Ballin, during a solemn concelebration of the Eucharist for the latter’s episcopal ordination at the Catholic cathedral in Kuwait City. After greeting those present in Arabic, in his homily delivered in English Cardinal Sepe thanked “Bishop Francis Mícallef who led the Church in Kuwait for 24 years with faith, responsiblity and great charity … helping this community to flourish. Today it numbers 160,000 Catholics and is well organised” and also Archbishop Giuseppe De Andrea the Holy Father’s representative in this country, at the end of his mandate termine, to whom“the Holy See, our Congregation and this local Church are all very grateful”. Greeting the civil authorities the Cardinal said he was happy that the “country assures religious freedom and work opportunities for all” and after greeting men and women religious and members of Fr Ballin’s family present for the occasion, Cardinal Sepe said: “I bring to the Bishop elect and to you all the paternal greetings of the Holy Father present among us with his prayers and his blessing”.
Cardinal Sepe then illsutrated the Bishop’s tasks and duties: “The Bishop is called to promote mature fruits of communion in the Church … In a world of individualism the Church must shine like a beacon of communion, brotherhood and peace… it will be necessary therefore to promote in this community in Kuwait City rich in many different nationalities, languages, cultures and rites, a spirituality of communion built day after day with love and truth in the awareness that truth without love generates conflict and division and that love without truth produces falsity”.
“Be aware - the Cardinal told the new Bishop - that the duty to proclaim the Gospel belongs in a special way to the bishop who assumes it as a primary duty on the day of his Ordination, as you do today. You must teach and sanctify the faithful and lead them to the house of the Father.” Lastly the commitment of prayer “a primary good of every believer, essential for the bishop and for all who receive the gift of a vocation to a life of special consecration”.
At the end of his homily Cardinal Sepe urged the new Bishop to start his ministry among his people with these words: “Lead them to the source of Grace, quench their thirst with the fresh Word of salvation, nourish them with the bread of the Eucharist, keep alive in them a longing for the Father in Heaven. May you be accompanied by the maternal protection of Most Holy Mary, Mother of the Redeemer and Star of new evangelisation.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 2/9/2005, righe 41, parole 578)


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