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ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE NEW CARDINALS, TOGETHER WITH THEIR RELATIVES AND THOSE WHO TRAVELLED TO ROME FOR THE CONSISTORY

Paul VI Audience Hall
Monday, 27 March 2006

 


Your Eminences,
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate
and in the Presbyterate,
Dear Friends,

After the solemn celebration of the Consistory, which gave us the opportunity to spend moments of prayer and intense brotherhood, I am pleased also to meet you today. With hearts grateful to the Lord for this happy event, let us ask him to sustain the new Cardinals and to protect them in the fulfilment of the various ministries they carry out in the Church. Let us in particular ask Jesus the Good Shepherd to continue to accompany them with his grace. To all of you present here, the relatives and faithful who have come to share these days of festivity with the new Cardinals, I address my most cordial welcome.

I greet you, first of all, venerable Italian Cardinals; I greet you, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; I greet you, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop of Bologna; I greet you, Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, Archpriest of the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls.

Venerable Brothers, today you are encircled by all these beloved people whose presence, as well as being a sign of friendship and affection, is also a visible expression of the communion, fertile with good, that gives life to the Church. May the Lord make each one of you an ever more generous witness of his love.

I cordially greet the new Cardinal Albert Vanhoye as well as his Jesuit confreres, his loved ones and all the French-speaking pilgrims who have come on the occasion of the Consistory at which I also created a Cardinal Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, the esteemed President of the Bishops' Conference of France. I give thanks for the fruitful exegesis of Cardinal Vanhoye, who has been devoted to examining the Word of God and passing on his knowledge patiently to numerous generations of young people, thereby providing them with the means to live on the Gospel and be its witnesses. May you all take the time to nourish yourselves regularly on Scripture.

I extend warm greetings to the newly created English-speaking Cardinals:  Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Archbishop of Manila, The Philippines; Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jinsuk, Archbishop of Seoul, Korea; Cardinal Sean O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Boston, United States of America; Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, S.D.B., Bishop of Hong Kong, China; and Cardinal Peter Dery, Archbishop emeritus of Tamale, Ghana.

Venerable and dear Brothers, in renewing to you my fraternal greetings and offering my fervent prayers for the mission that has been entrusted to you for the service of the universal Church, I once again commend you to the protection of Mary, Mother of the Church.

I also wish to greet the family members and friends of our newly created Cardinals, together with the lay faithful who have accompanied them to Rome for the solemn celebrations of last Friday and Saturday. I trust that your time here in the Eternal City will deepen your love of the Church and strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord! I encourage you to continue to pray for our Cardinals and to support them with your love and affection. May God bless you all!

I greet the new Spanish-speaking Cardinals and all the faithful of Latin America and Spain who have accompanied them. I greet in particular their relatives, their Brother Bishops, priests, Religious and seminarians, especially those from the Seminary of Toledo.

Venezuela rejoices in its Cardinal, Archbishop Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino of Caracas, who is also accompanied by his elderly mother. In Valencia and now also in the Capital, he has carried out many pastoral initiatives for the good of his beloved Nation.

Spain is being honoured by Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Archbishop of Toledo, who formerly carried out a fruitful ministry in Avila and in Granada, giving proof of the constant gift of devotion to their respective Ecclesial Communities.

Your peoples are distinguished by fidelity to the Successor of Peter and by their devotion to the Virgin Mary. May she always be the Star that guides your particular Churches in the task of evangelization.

I greet Cardinal Stanis³aw Dziwisz, his family, his friends and his guests. With you I express gratitude to the new Cardinal for all the years he spent beside John Paul II and for all that this service contributed to the universal Church. I pray that his future ministry will be equally fruitful. With all my heart I bless all of you present here.

I address a cordial welcome to Cardinal Franc Rodé, to his compatriots and to his friends, and especially to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Ljubljana, of which he was Pastor until very recently. I am pleased to note that the Church in Slovenia is also making her contribution to the mission of the Apostolic See in the person of the newly-appointed Cardinal. His office as Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life is of great importance. Continue to accompany him in his service with prayers, so that the Church may progress better and better on her journey to holiness!

Dear Brothers, thank you again for coming! Your Eminences, my fraternal greeting, I wish to assure you that I will continue to accompany you with prayer. For my part, I know that I can always count on your collaboration, of which I feel in need. The meetings of the entire College of Cardinals with the Successor of Peter, like the one last Thursday, will continue to be privileged opportunities to seek together to improve our service to the Church, which Christ entrusted to our care.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, and Sts Peter and Paul watch over each one of you and over your daily work. With these sentiments, I wholeheartedly impart my Apostolic Blessing to you and willingly extend it to all those who surround you with so much joy and affection.

 

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