A Catholic – so automatically universal – consistory

A last look back at Saturday’s consistory that, according the pope’s own indications, was an attempt to better reflect the international nature of the Church. As the photo above, showing new Cardinal John Onaiyekan with Nigerian pilgrims, indicates, it was an affair that brought together “a variety of faces” from across the world, from Africa to Asia, and from South America to the Middle East.

In his address, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the Church’s Catholicity, stating that this constitutive element of her identity indicates that the Church is for all people.

“[T]he universality of the Church flows from the universality of God’s unique plan of salvation for the world. This universal character emerges clearly on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit fills the first Christian community with his presence, so that the Gospel may spread to all nations, causing the one People of God to grow in all peoples. From its origins, then, the Church is oriented kat’holon, it embraces the whole universe. The Apostles bear witness to Christ, addressing people from all over the world, and each of their hearers understands them as if they were speaking his native language (cf. Acts 2:7-8). From that day, in the “power of the Holy Spirit”, according to Jesus’ promise, the Church proclaims the dead and risen Lord “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Church’s universal mission does not arise from below, but descends from above, from the Holy Spirit: from the beginning it seeks to express itself in every culture so as to form the one People of God. Rather than beginning as a local community that slowly grows and spreads outwards, it is like yeast oriented towards a universal horizon, towards the whole: universality is inscribed within it.”

My translation of the address is here.

An elegant and intriguing theological exploration of the word “Catholic”, it deserves no less attention than the tears of Cardinal Luis Tagle, the most popular among this consistory’s batch, not least because his many media activities.

Photo credit: CNS photo/Paul Haring

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