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July 4, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 13Oakland,
CA
Pope unveils digest of teaching
that he prepared as a cardinal
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI on June 28 presented
the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics with an authoritative digest of
Church teaching that he prepared before he was elected Roman Catholic
pontiff.
Benedict called the 205-page “Compendium of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church” a “gift that God makes to the Church”
in its third millennium. He said it is intended to awaken a “renewed
interest and fervor” in the Catholic faith.
The book, which contains 598 questions and answers two to six lines long,
deals with the basic teachings of the faith—how it is professed,
celebrated, lived and prayed—which is known as the catechism. It
is illustrated with sacred art and concludes with prayers and doctrinal
formulas.
Pope John Paul II in 2003 named Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
as president of a special commission formed to distill the revised, 800-page
“Catechism of the Catholic Church,” issued in 1992, into a
handbook of basic teaching.
It was the job of Cardinal Ratzinger, as prefect of the Vatican Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, to produce a “brief synthesis containing
all and only the essential and fundamental elements of Catholic faith
and morals, formulated in a simple manner, accessible to all, clear and
concise,” he said.
Benedict formally presented the Italian version of the so-called compendium
at a prayer service in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.
Regional and national conferences of Catholic bishops throughout the world
will translate the book into their own languages.
The compendium breaks no new ground but
reiterates established Church teaching on such issues as the need to defend
human life from conception to natural death, the criteria for a “just
war,” government obligations to the family, traditional sexual identity
and the special nature of Sunday.
Benedict called it a “fundamental instrument of
education in the faith.”
Pope Benedict looks up as he leaves the
Quirinale palace after an official meeting with Italian President Carlo
Azeglio Ciampi in Rome, June 24. RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/Alessandro
Bianchi
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