“To have faith means: to make GOD great, to let HIM be great. I see this as the first and most important task for us Christians in our country’s present and its future. That is the most important service which we, as Church, have to offer the people.
Dear fathers, dear mothers, let God be great amid your family, so that your children can grow up in the security of His love.
Dear priests and religious, who have come in such great numbers, who give a witness of the Gospel by your way of life: strengthen the people in the faith and be bridge builders with me for God’s presence in our entire world.
Dear sisters and brothers, who do your work as craftsmen, industrial labourers, farmers, civil servants, politicians, entrepeneurs or whatever: let God be great in your daily work, to the glory of God and the good of the people.
Through your Baptism and Confirmation you all share in the life of Christ and in His mission as teacher, shepherd and priest. He has called and enabled us all to witness of Him; and especially where the Lord has placed us: in our jobs, our families, in business, in public life and indeed also in the office of bishop: various services, one mission, to make sure that God is made great. In this shared concern we are all Church!
As your new bishop, I am willing to lead in prayer and as first evangeliser. But I need you, I need you all. It is not possible with you.”
A passage from the closing remarks of Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer at the end of the Mass in which he was consecrated and installed as the 78th bishop of Regensburg, yesterday. Doing the honours as consecrating bishop was Munich’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, with Archbishop Gerhard Müller (emeritus of Regensburg) and Bishop František Radkovsky (ordinary of the neighbouring Czech Diocese of Plzeň) serving as co-consecrators.
More than 4,000 faithful, among them 400 priests, were present in the cathedral of St. Peter, as well as the basilica of the Nativity of Our Lady to the Ancient Chapel and the church of St. Johann, where a live broadcast of the three-hour Mass was shown. It was also shown live on Bavarian television.
In Caelo et in Terra 