“Credo Apostolicam Ecclesiam”: Wednesdays in Saint Peter’s Square

The pope has closed the Wed catechesis started by JPII... description and text from Sandro Magister (click for entire text):


But for the new cycle of catechesis, which began on Wednesday, March 15, pope Ratzinger has chosen as his theme “the relationship between Christ and the Church, considering it from the experience of the apostles.”


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”Between Christ and the Church there is no opposition”
by Benedict XVI

In a certain sense, we could say that the last supper is precisely the act of founding his Church, because he gives himself and in this way creates a new community, a community united in the communion with himself. From this perspective, it is understood that the risen one grants them, with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the power to forgive sins (John 20:23). The twelve apostles are in this way the most evident sign of Jesus' will over the existence and mission of his Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church there is no opposition: (Italics added) They are inseparable, despite the sins of the people who make up the Church.

Therefore, there is no way to reconcile Christ's intentions with the slogan that was fashionable a few years ago, "Christ yes, the Church no." The individualist Jesus is a fantasy. We cannot find Jesus without the reality that he created and through which he communicates himself. (italics added)

Between the Son of God, made man and his Church, there is a profound, inseparable continuity, in virtue of which Christ is present today in his people.

He is always our contemporary – our contemporary in the Church built upon the foundation of the apostles. He is alive in the succession of the apostles. And his presence in the community, in which he himself always gives himself, is the reason for our joy. Yes, Christ is with us, the Kingdom of God is coming.