To the Bishop's Conference of Austria (12 September 1983)

On Monday, 12 September 1983, the Holy Father addressed the Bishop's Conference of Austria in the Archbishop's Palace, Vienna, In his speech, the Pope encouraged increased brotherhood among Christians, including the clergy, who might become closer to the faithful.

My dear Brothers in the Episcopate

This meeting has a family nature. Today our circle is small and collected. I've met most of them before. Some of you I have known for a long time and — like the President of your Episcopal Conference, our venerable Cardinal — I am in close contact with them and with them, thanks to the many conversations held.

But a family meeting can also sometimes be a moment of clarification, when particular situations require a word that serves as guidance in the present moment and as a guideline for the future. In this sense I would like to address you today. Let me tell you what my thoughts are, or better yet, let me reflect with you on a point of view that refers to service to the Church in your country.

In recent years the way of carrying out episcopal service has changed. The conception of the Church that comes to us from the Council, as well as contemporary thinking, changed the Bishop's ministerial style considerably. Today, Bishops must be closer to their faithful. The convention venues and some formalities disappeared. And whoever feels the Gospel calls for greater brotherhood among Christians cannot help but be grateful for this rediscovery of greater unity. Furthermore: those who have the weight of this ministry recognize in it a possibility, in a direct encounter with many Christians, of highlighting their own relationship with God and in this way making their own personal conviction of faith effective for pastoral care. I experience it myself during my Sunday visits to Roman parishes.

It seems to me that men today need to be energetically reinvigorated in faith through the testimony of those who are connected to God. For all members of the Church, especially for confreres in the priestly ministry, spiritual exchange can serve as a great help on the path that leads to God and pastoral service. In a word, these encounters are a spiritual strength for us. As the Apostle of the Gentiles desires, for example, when he writes to the community of Rome himself: "Truly, I desire to see you, to communicate to you some spiritual grace, in order to strengthen you, "or rather, to comfort myself with you in your midst. of you, through the faith that is common to you and me" ( Rom . 1, 11).

For this the new style of the Bishop's ministry not only offers a good possibility, it becomes in a certain sense a commitment, an "exceptional" pastoral instrument in a period in which for many men the image of God has become obscure and incomprehensible.

The experience of the apparent absence of God does not only weigh on those who are divided and distant, but is general. The spiritual current of today's social consciousness, therefore, at the same time influences the active members of the Church, who, although not of the world, live in this world. Needs and desires are common to all men. The Church is not a peaceful island. The demands and problems of public opinion find their stimulating echo in dioceses and communities.

For this reason, the prudent pastor must first of all, in the world and in the Church, create space for the light that comes from faith in the effective presence of God. The influence of secularism is evident. He contradicts all who consider the professions of the Creed commonplace. "I believe in God the Father Almighty...". Does this phrase really affect the life of today's Christian? The Catholic of our time rarely places his own existence in God's perspective. The daily bond with God is not congenital to him. Based on this assumption, the fact that all members of the Church live their decisions, fears and joys in direct conversation with the heavenly Father would be an illusion.

On the contrary: today the problem is greater than ever when the implications inherent in the work of the Church are not clarified by pastoral work, when the implicit premise of the relationship with God is taken for granted. When we no longer make an effort to live this relationship consciously, it loses its strength.

Jesus in his public life never misses an opportunity to remember the closeness of the Father — as the Gospel of John testifies. He often explicitly links the event to the Father who is in heaven — as in the conversation with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman; as in the healing of the paralytic and the man born blind or during the great discourse of the Eucharist. Everywhere He teaches, He spiritually leads His listeners to the Father who acts — who sends the Son, who gave life to the Son, whose works must be made public, who gives the bread of life and to whom worship is due. The proclamation of the Kingdom of God, that is, that we men are truly and infinitely conditioned by the fact that God is our Lord, is for Jesus the meaning of his coming.

All four Gospels therefore proclaim how for Jesus the Father is always present, how His soul constantly seeks Him. The Gospels also make it clear that Jesus wants to make his listeners deeply aware of the presence of the Father. The Lord acted among a people who — with their own history and religiosity in their spiritual life and customs — were in an exemplary relationship with Yahweh. How much more need for this indication does the man of today have, to whom God seems so distant, that he has even invented a "Theology of the death of God"!

Living everyday life from the perspective of the image of God is always on the lips of Jesus. Therefore, He does not care above all about the need to ensure his own dignity and legitimacy: He recognizes in the first place that the Father is greater (cf. Jn 14:28). Rather, it is in this perspective that the strength of his Being is articulated; this strength gives Him the word. For the bond with the Father is universal for Him.

Please don't misunderstand me! I would not like the explicit and always new reference to the Father, who acts and is present, in all our speeches and in the works of the Church, to be recommended as a simple pastoral method. Constantly addressing the Father in heaven as a pastoral technique would be a serious profanation. Rather, the awareness of his closeness must grow so that it manifests itself in words and actions. Our communities and especially our fellow priests should find in our bond with God the deepest motivation for all our service. In this way we will be able to effectively convince our brothers and sisters of this presence of God and awaken in them the desire to seek union with God and his will in an increasingly intimate way.

Anyone who wants to deeply live this relationship with the Father in heaven cannot do better than look to Jesus. The New Testament gives us — although not completely — indications about the way in which Jesus takes care of his confidence with the Father. First of all, there are references to long times of prayer, which I want to remember here, for example, before choosing the Twelve Apostles (cf. Lk . 6, 12).

Communion with the Father in prolonged prayer, in so to speak, mystical immersion, is the decisive source of Jesus' abandonment to the Father. Protected by the Father, he does not fearfully ask what his future will be and also advises those who listen to him, who do not aim at money and possessions, but renounce concerns about possessions and security. He embraces the cause of God and his honor with sovereign courage, without fear of men. He causes admiration among his contemporaries who, through Him, honor Mary (cf. Lk. 18, 27) and*He magnifies the strength of conviction of a man who spoke "as one who has authority" (cf. Mt. 9, 8 ; Mc 2, 1-12 ;

In the exemplary nature of His being, the Lord is much more than a simple model for us. We do not follow Jesus along biblical paths as we do other great characters of the past. Rather, we immerse ourselves in an intimate and love-filled union with Him, who has surpassed the events of history and is present in spirit in each of us at all times. Thus united to Him, we can, through Him, surrender our existence to the Father. We can defend ourselves from the despair that comes from being separated from God. We can contain the momentum of men's materialism, because we testify to our trust in the goodness of the Father. And even a decisive opposition from public opinion, within the Church and society, cannot shake our courage, when we defend the rights of God and the faith of the universal Church.

The Second Vatican Council clearly stated what the episcopal ministry is and how it should act. Above all, the Apostolic Constitution reminds us that we Bishops "preside in God's place over the flock of which we are shepherds, as teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship, ministers of government" ( Lumen gentium , 20). The reflections I have expressed so far are underlined by the certainty of this same phrase, that we carry out our service "in God's place".

We carry out our service as individuals and under our individual responsibility. But each Bishop is given the power to exercise the aforementioned triple office, only as long as he is a member of the universal College of Bishops. For this reason, with the appointment as Bishop comes an explicit commitment to unity.

For, if the Spirit of God entrusted us with the succession of the Apostles, the care of the Church of God, what other thing than unity could determine our actions?

This unity is decisive for your Episcopal Conference and its work. No one can assess how important the reflections and decisions of this ecclesiastical program are for men and for local Churches in your homeland, and also beyond. Even more significant is the collegial unity with the entire Episcopate. And this only arises when the Episcopal College feels united around the Pope as supreme pastor; for the Episcopal College, without its head, would be wasted. Although there are theological and ethical issues that make us, in our capacity as Bishops, signs of contradiction to our commitment to unity, despite this "communio", in this context, becomes a fundamental theological requirement.

The Apostolic Constitution also writes: "Bishops, when they teach in communion with the Roman Pontiff, must be respected by all as witnesses of divine and Catholic truth. The faithful must comply with a sentence on faith and morals pronounced by their Bishop in the name of Christ, and must adhere to it with respectful devotion to the spirit" ( Lumen gentium , 25).

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate, the Second Vatican Council was a new beginning for the Church full of promises, the impulses of which were decisive for your service in Austria. My visits to other Continents and Countries also aim to give greater strength to these innovations. I am deeply convinced that this renewal will develop a dynamic that is all the more effective the more consistently and faithfully we, the shepherds of the flock, seek in union with Jesus to draw closer to the Father who is in heaven. Only then will we be conditioned by the Spirit of Christ, and not by our private ideas. Only then will we be able to be spiritual fathers to our priests and, like persuasive brothers, transmit to them the living spark of hope that many of them demand. They, in turn, will be able to inspire the laity of their dioceses to give the right response to the provocations that come from society and the State, and to bear the weight of life in the light of the joy that they will derive from union in God ( cf. Heb . 12, 3).

May the Mother of God — whom your people have venerated for a long time and intimately in many places in your country — intercede for us so that this meeting of ours can be blessed by God.

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