Ver­non Khelawan

To­day, the Ro­man Catholic Church stands with­out a sit­ting Pope. Last Thurs­day, Pope Bene­dict XVI demit­ted of­fice, the first Pon­tiff to do so in 600 years–the last be­ing Pope Gre­go­ry in 1415.

Sad­ly, as the uni­ver­sal church comes to terms with the de­par­ture of Pope Bene­dict, fo­cus must be placed on one of his last great acts–de­clar­ing The Year of Faith.When Pope Bene­dict XVI pro­claimed last Oc­to­ber that for the next 12 months, the church would pay greater at­ten­tion to faith, fo­cus­ing on its de­vel­op­ment and growth, the Pon­tif­i­cal Coun­cil for Pro­mot­ing the New Evan­ge­li­sa­tion, pre­pared an en­tire Vat­i­can pro­gramme of events to mark this process.

In our Arch­dio­cese some planned events have al­ready been suc­cess­ful­ly ac­com­plished through the work of parish­es with vi­brant evan­ge­li­sa­tion com­mit­tees, as well as a few pro­mot­ed by re­li­gious groups. But the year is al­most half com­plete, and there is still much to be done to en­sure that full ad­van­tage is tak­en of the sit­u­a­tion by cre­at­ing and or­gan­is­ing spe­cial fo­cus themes.

In Rome the events as an­nounced by the Pon­tif­i­cal Coun­cil in­clude for March 24, (Palm Sun­day), a spe­cial day ded­i­cat­ed to the Catholic youth in prepa­ra­tion for World Youth Day on Ju­ly 28. The week-long event be­gins on Ju­ly 15. One no­table ab­sen­tee, cer­tain­ly not in his for­mer dis­pen­sa­tion, would be Pope Emer­i­tus Bene­dict XVI.

A two-day event (April 27-28) marks the April of­fer­ing day for those to be con­firmed and for those al­ready con­firmed, while two events are sched­uled for May. The first will be (May 3-5) Day of Con­fra­ter­ni­ties and of the Pop­u­lar Piety and on May 18-19 Day of Move­ments, the As­so­ci­a­tions and the Lay As­so­ci­a­tions. Both of these will be held in St Pe­ter's Square in Rome.

On June 2, the ob­ser­vance of the Solem­ni­ty of Cor­pus Christi, there will be a world­wide Solemn Eu­charis­tic Ado­ra­tion with the main event be­ing at St Pe­ter's Basil­i­ca. In Port-of-Spain there will be the usu­al Cor­pus Christi pro­ces­sion, which can some­how be linked to the world­wide cel­e­bra­tions.

Two oth­er events have been planned for June, a con­cert ti­tled A Great Con­cert of Clas­si­cal Mu­sic, which takes place on June 22 in St Pe­ter's Square, while on June 15-16 a day has been planned to cel­e­brate Evan­geli­um Vi­tae (The Gospel of Life), this too, is card­ed for St Pe­ter's Square.

This might be a good clue for a lo­cal con­cert sim­i­lar to Make a Joy­ful Noise, brain­child of Arch­bish­op Har­ris, which proved to be very a suc­cess­ful con­cert se­ries.The sin­gle event for Ju­ly is a four-day gath­er­ing of sem­i­nar­i­ans, novices and those on a vo­ca­tion­al jour­ney, which takes place from Ju­ly 4-7. Cat­e­chists will have their day on Sep­tem­ber 28-29 with a spe­cial pro­gramme in St Pe­ter's Square.

There will be a Mar­i­an Day across two days (Oc­to­ber 12-14) and a Day for the Fam­i­ly on Oc­to­ber 26 and 27. An­oth­er Great Con­cert of Clas­si­cal Mu­sic (Aula Pao­lo VI) is sched­uled for No­vem­ber 16.

The "Year of Faith" comes to an end on No­vem­ber 24 with spe­cial ser­vices and cer­e­monies on the Solem­ni­ty of the Feast of Christ the King–No­vem­ber 24.

�2 Ver­non Khelawan is the me­dia re­la­tions of­fi­cer of Catholic Me­dia Ser­vices Ltd (Cam­sel), the of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions arm of the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain. Its of­fices are at 31 In­de­pen­dence Square. Tele­phone: 623-7620.