VATICAN CITY, 28 JUN 2008 (VIS) - At 6 p.m. today in the basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls, Benedict XVI presided at the celebration of first Vespers for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles, which also marked the opening of the Pauline Year. Among those participating in the ceremony were the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and representatives from other Churches and Christian communities.
 
  The Holy Father, Bartholomew I, delegates from other Christian confessions, and monks from the abbey of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls walked in procession to the portico of the basilica where, before the statue of the saint, the Pope lit a candle from a brazier which will remain burning for the entire Pauline year. After the Pope the ecumenical patriarch and the representative of the primate of the Anglican communion also lit candles. The procession then entered the basilica through the Pauline Door.
 
  "We are gathered around the tomb of St. Paul, who was born 2000 years ago in Tarsus in Cilicia, in modern-day Turkey", said the Pope in his homily. "For us, Paul is not a figure of the past whom we recall with veneration. He is also our master, the Apostle and announcer of Jesus Christ to us too. Hence we are gathered here not to reflect upon a past history which has been left irrevocably behind. Paul wishes to speak to us today". Thus, the Pope explained, the Pauline Year serves "to listen to him and to learn from him, as from a master, the faith and the truth in which the reasons for the unity of Christ's disciples are rooted".
 
  "It is of great joy to me", said the Holy Father, "that the opening of the Pauline year should have a particularly ecumenical character, thanks to the presence of many delegates and representatives of Churches and ecclesial communities, whom I welcome with all my heart". They include "the Patriarch Bartholomew I, ... fraternal delegates of Churches that have especially close ties to the Apostle Paul (Jerusalem, Antioch, Cyprus, Greece) and that form the geographical setting of the Apostle's life before his arrival in Rome, ... and brethren from various Churches and ecclesial communities of East and West".
 
  "We are gathered here to ask ourselves about the great Apostle of the Gentiles. We ask ourselves not just who Paul was, but above all who he is. ... His faith was the experience of being loved by Jesus Christ with an entirely personal love; it was an awareness of the fact that Christ faced death not for some unidentified cause, but for love of him - of Paul - and that, being Risen, He loves him still. Christ gave Himself for him. ... His faith was not a theory, an opinion on God and on the world, His faith was the impact of God's love on his heart. And so this faith was love for Jesus Christ".
 
  The Holy Father then recalled how many people see Paul as "combative" noting that, "in fact, there was no lack of disputes on the Apostle's path. He did not seek superficial harmony. ... The truth was too great for him to be disposed to sacrifice it in the name of exterior success. The truth he experienced in his encounter with the Risen One was, for him, well worth struggle, persecution and suffering. But his deepest motivations were the fact that he was loved by Jesus Christ and his desire to transmit this love to others. ... Only on this basis can the fundamental concepts of his message be understood".
 
  Focusing then on one of Paul's "keywords: freedom", the Pope explained that "Paul, as a man loved by God, was free. ... This love was the 'law' of his life and, thus, it was the freedom of his life". Paul "spoke and acted moved by the responsibility of love. Freedom and responsibility are inseparably united. ... Those who love Christ as Paul loved Him can truly do as they please, because their love is united to the will of Christ and thus to the will of God; because their will is anchored in truth and because their will is not simply their own will - the decisions of an autonomous 'I' - but is integrated into the freedom of God".
 
  The Pope then went on to consider Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, when the Risen Christ proclaimed "I am Jesus Whom you are persecuting". By "persecuting the Church", said Benedict XVI, "Paul was persecuting Jesus" Who "identifies Himself with the Church as one single subject". This exclamation which transformed Saul's life "contains the entire doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ. Christ has not withdrawn to heaven, leaving a group of followers on earth to pursue 'His cause'. the Church is not an association that seeks to promote a particular cause" but "the person of Jesus Christ Who, even when Risen remained as 'flesh'. ... He has a body. He is personally present in His Church".
 
  "Through all this we glimpse the Eucharistic mystery, in which Christ continually gives His Body and makes us His Body", said the Pope and, noting with regret the laceration of this Body, asked Christ to overcome all divisions so that union "may once again become reality".
 
  Finally, the Holy Father recalled Paul's words to Timothy shortly before his heath: "Join with me in suffering for the Gospel". The Pope went on to note that the "duty of announcement and the call to suffer for Christ are inseparable. ... In a world where lies are so powerful, truth is paid with suffering. Those who wish to avoid suffering, to keep it away, keep away life itself and its greatness; they cannot be servants of truth or servants of the faith. ... Where there is nothing worth suffering for, life itself loses value. The Eucharist - the focus of our being Christian - is founded on Jesus' sacrifice for us, it was born of the suffering of love".
 
  "It is of this self-giving love that we live. It gives us the courage and the strength to suffer with Christ and for Him in this world, knowing that this is the way our lives become great, and mature, and true".

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VATICAN CITY, 29 JUN 2008 (VIS) - At 9.30 a.m. today, Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, Benedict XVI celebrated the Eucharist in the Vatican Basilica. Concelebrating with the Holy Father were 40 new metropolitan archbishops, upon whom he imposed the pallium. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I was also present at the ceremony.
 
  The Pope and Bartholomew I entered St. Peter's Square together, preceded by an Orthodox and a Latin deacon bearing the Gospel.
 
  Following the reading of the Gospel in Latin and Greek the Holy Father presented the Ecumenical Patriarch to the assembly, after which each of them pronounced a homily.
 
  In his homily Benedict XVI spoke of the two Apostles, patrons saints of Rome. "Through their martyrdom", he said, "through their faith and their love, the two Apostles show where true hope lies. They founded a new kind of city, one that must be formed ever and anew in the midst of the old human city which is threatened by the opposing forces of sin and human selfishness".
 
  "We could say that their martyrdom was, in the deepest sense, like giving a fraternal embrace. They died for the one Christ and, in the witness for which they gave their lives, they became one single entity. In the New Testament we can, so to say, follow the development of that embrace, the creation of unity in witness and in the mission".
 
  The Pope highlighted the fact that although Paul "usually went only to places in which the Gospel had not already been announced, Rome was an exception. There he found a Church the faith of which was the talk of the world. Going to Rome was part of the universality of his mission as an envoy to all peoples, ... it was an expression of the catholicity of his mission. Rome must make the faith visible to the whole world, it must be a place of encounter in the one faith".
 
  Turning to consider Peter, the Holy Father recalled how "he left the presidency of the Christian-Judaic Church to James the Less in order to dedicate himself to his true mission, the ministry for the unity of the one Church of God made up of Jews and pagans".
 
  "The perpetual mission of Peter", he went on, is "to ensure the Church never becomes identified with a single nation, with a single culture or a single State. That she always remains the Church of everyone. That she unites humankind beyond all frontiers and, amidst the division of this world, brings God's peace, the reconciliatory power of His love".
 
  Addressing the archbishops who were about to receive the pallium, the Holy Father told them that the gesture of imposing it upon their shoulders "reminds us of the shepherd who takes the lost sheep across his back, the sheep that cannot find its way home, and brings it back to the fold. In this sheep the Fathers of the Church saw the image of the entire human race, of all human nature, which is lost and no longer knows the way home"; and the Pastor that brings it home "is the eternal Word of God Himself". Yet nonetheless, God "also wants men 'to carry' alongside Him. Being a pastor of the Church of Christ means sharing in this task".
 
  In this way, he said, "the pallium becomes a symbol of our love for Christ the Shepherd, and of our loving together with Him. ... It becomes a symbol of the call 'to love them all' with the power of Christ ... that they might find Him and, in Him, themselves".
 
  Benedict XVI concluded his homily by expressing the view that the pallium "speaks to us of the catholicity of the Church, of the universal communion of Pastor and flock, just as it is a reference to apostolicity, to communion with the faith of the Apostles upon which the Church is founded".
 
  At the end of the Mass and before praying the Angelus, the Holy Father pointed out that since this year the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul falls on a Sunday, "the entire Church, and not just the Church of Rome, celebrates it solemnly".
 
  "Of course", said the Pope referring to the Pauline Year which he officially inaugurated yesterday, "its focal point will be Rome, in particular the basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls and the place of the saint's martyrdom at the Three Fountains. But it will involve the entire Church, beginning with Tarsus where Paul was born, and the other Pauline sites ... in what is now Turkey, as well as the Holy Land and the island of Malta where the Apostle arrived after having been shipwrecked and sowed the fertile seed of the Gospel.
 
  "The truth is", he added, "that the horizon of the Pauline year cannot but be universal, because St. Paul was, par excellence, the Apostle to those who were 'far off' from the Jews and who 'by the blood of Christ' were 'brought near'. Hence, even today, in a world that has become 'smaller' but where many have still not met the Lord Jesus, the Jubilee of St. Paul invites all Christians to become missionaries of the Gospel".
 
  "As the liturgy says, the charisms of the two great Apostles are complementary in the edification of the one People of God, and Christians cannot render valid witness of Christ if they are not united among themselves".
 
  Benedict XVI concluded by inviting everyone to pray "for these great intentions: the Pauline Year, evangelisation, communion in the Church and full unity among all Christians, entrusting them to the celestial intercession of Most Holy Mary Mother of the Church and Queen of the Apostles".

"Dear brothers and sisters, as in early times, today too Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs witnesses and martyrs like St Paul. Paul, a former violent persecutor of Christians, when he fell to the ground dazzled by the divine light on the road to Damascus, did not hesitate to change sides to the Crucified One and followed him without second thoughts. He lived and worked for Christ, for him he suffered and died. How timely his example is today!

"And for this very reason I am pleased to announce officially that we shall be dedicating a special Jubilee Year to the Apostle Paul from 28 June 2008 to 29 June 2009, on the occasion of the bimillennium of his birth, which historians have placed between the years 7 and 10 A.D.

"It will be possible to celebrate this "Pauline Year" in a privileged way in Rome where the sarcophagus which, by the unanimous opinion of experts and an undisputed tradition, preserves the remains of the Apostle Paul, has been preserved beneath the Papal Altar of this Basilica for 20 centuries.

"It will thus be possible to have a series of liturgical, cultural and ecumenical events taking place at the Papal Basilica and at the adjacent Benedictine Abbey, as well as various pastoral and social initiatives, all inspired by Pauline spirituality.

"In addition, special attention will be given to penitential pilgrimages that will be organized to the Apostle's tomb to find in it spiritual benefit. Study conventions and special publications on Pauline texts will also be promoted in order to make ever more widely known the immense wealth of the teaching they contain, a true patrimony of humanity redeemed by Christ.

"Furthermore, in every part of the world, similar initiatives will be implemented in the dioceses, shrines and places of worship, by Religious and by the educational institutions and social-assistance centres which are named after St Paul or inspired by him and his teaching.

"Lastly, there is one particular aspect to which special attention must be paid during the celebration of the various moments of the 2,000th Pauline anniversary: I am referring to the ecumenical dimension. The Apostle to the Gentiles, who was especially committed to taking the Good News to all peoples, left no stones unturned for unity and harmony among all Christians.

"May he deign to guide and protect us in this bimillenial celebration, helping us to progress in the humble and sincere search for the full unity of all the members of Christ's Mystical Body. Amen."

Read the Pope's entire homily by clicking here.

Conditions for Obtaining the Plenary Indulgence

Pope Benedict XVI will grant the faithful Plenary Indulgence for the occasion of the two-thousandth anniversary of the birth of the Apostle Paul. The Plenary Indulgence will be valid throughout the Pauline Year, 28 June 2008 to 29 June 2009.   The conditions for obtaining the plenary indulgence are as follows. 
"All Christian faithful - truly repentant, duly purified by the Sacrament of Penance and restored with Holy Communion - who undertake a pious visit in the form of a pilgrimage to the papal basilica of St. Paul on Rome's Via Ostiense and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, are granted and imparted Plenary Indulgence for the temporal punishment of their sins, once they have obtained sacramental remission and forgiveness for their shortcomings.  Plenary Indulgence may be gained by the Christian faithful, either for themselves or for the deceased, as many times as the aforementioned acts are undertaken; it remains the case, however, that Plenary Indulgence may be obtained only once a day.  
“In order that the prayers pronounced on these holy visits may lead and draw the souls of the faithful to a more intense veneration of the memory of St. Paul, the following conditions are laid down: the faithful, apart from pronouncing their own prayers before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, ... must go to the altar of the Confession and pray the 'Our Father' and the 'Creed', adding pious invocations in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Paul; and such acts of devotion must remain closely linked to the memory of the Prince of the Apostles St. Peter".

The faithful who are unable to journey to Rome, “under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic communion, prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff) and completely unattached to any form of sin, may still obtain the Plenary Indulgence if they participate devotedly in a religious function or in a pious exercise held publicly in honour of the Apostle of the Gentiles: on the days of the solemn opening and closing of the Pauline Year in any place of worship; on other days determined by the local ordinary, in holy places named for St. Paul and, for the good of the faithful, in other places designated by the ordinary".

Those who are unable to leave their homes may also obtain the Plenary Indulgence if they  "spiritually unite themselves to a Jubilee celebration in honour of St. Paul, offering their prayers and suffering to God for the unity of Christians".   For full details, click here.