EUROPE/ITALY - “The Church is called to carry on the great work of discerning and prophetic orientating undertaken so fruitfully by Vatican II”: Message to youth from Italian Bishops to mark the Council’s 40th anniversary

Assisi (Fides Service) - In a special message to mark the 40th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Bishops of Italy entrusted the heritage of the Council to the new generations. “We feel the legacy of the Council must be handed to our Christian communities, the young people in particular. It is our deep desire to give new impulse to the work of striving for communion with God - infinite love - and communion among all people. This task we entrust to you dear young people” the Bishops wrote in the message drafted during their general assembly in Assisi. The message was symbolically handed to 16 young representatives of the new generations during Vespers in the church of Saint Rufino in Assisi.
“We hold in our hearts the desires, expectations and hopes stirred by the Council” the Bishops write, underlining how “reception, assimilation and implementation in the life and mission of the Church has been complex and often travailed; however many the positive fruits far outweigh the difficulties encountered”. Referring to Conciliar renewal in Italy the Bishops said “it has had a profound effect on the image and reality of our Church and on the ways and forms of Christian presence in the life of the country: although it has been impossible to halt the process of secularisation and sad to say de-Christianisation, Conciliar renewal undoubtedly helped understand the roots of these phenomena and more important, to promote pastoral and cultural response in the key of mission and evangelisation”.
In the message the Bishops recalled the four Constitutions issued by the Council: “Mankind is not alone, abandoned in the cold immensity of the universe, we are called to build a world worthy of mankind and of God” (Dei Verbum); “The Mystery of Christ is not a thing of the past, a fact of history, it is living, present, effective as God’s act of salvation. This is why the Church never ceases her celebration of the liturgy down through the centuries” (Sacrosanctum Concilium); “made up of men and women with their gifts and limits the Church is God’s gift taken from the world, filled with the Spirit of the Risen Lord, built as a communion of faith ad love to be a sign and means of unity” (Lumen gentium); “The Church lives in history at the service of salvation for the glory of God: this inspired the Council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, which offers a confident panorama of human existence and discerns in cultures the longing for unity and communion, to valorise all the seeds of goodness, to multiply the experience of giving, of love.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 17/11/2005 - Righe 31; Parole 452)