Editorial

The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June)

Michael Gilchrist

Contents - Jul 2009 - Buy a copy now Editorial: The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) - Michael Gilchrist St Marys Cathedral: Sydney ordinations and a new beginning for Australian Catholicism - Fr Gregory Jordan SJ News: The Church Around the World Life Marriage Family: The secular culture's flawed view of sexuality - Bernard Toutounji New Evangelisation: Catholics Come Home: a fresh approach to re-evangelising - Bob Denahy Ryan Commission: Irish report: child abuse in Church institutions - Br Barry Coldrey India: Christians in India rejoice at election results - Babette Francis Foundations of Faith: Galileo: heretic or hero? What are the facts? - Noel Roberts History: Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust: revisiting Jewish sources - Fr Michael Butler Letters: Climate change - Michael Griffiths Letters: The unborn - Brian Harris Letters: Belloc and Chesterton - Peter Hunt Letters: Latin Mass - Anthony Bono Letters: Priestly celibacy - Brian Bibby Letters: Vatican II - Valentine Gallagher Letters: Women priests - Kevin McManus Books: GOD'S WORD: Scripture, Tradition, Office, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: The Catholic Church and the Bible, by Peter Stravinskas - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: Before the Dawn, by Eugenio Zolli - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: LIKE A SAMURAI: The Tony Glynn Story, by Fr Paul Glynn SM - Tim Cannon (reviewer) DVD: AUTHENTIC CATHOLIC MIRACLES FOR MODERNS Books: Books available from AD Books and Freedom Publishing Reflection: The full meaning of love: Christ and St Peter in St John's Gospel - Andrew Kania

The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul commemorates these saints' martyrdom in Rome and is observed on 29 June. The celebration is of ancient origin, the date selected being either the anniversary of their death or of the translation of their relics.

In the Catholic calendar of saints, it is one of the higher-ranking holy days during the liturgical year, a day on which newly-created metropolitan archbishops who have been named in the previous church year receive the primary symbol of their office, the pallium, from the Pope.

In recent decades, this feast has been of importance to the modern ecumenical movement as an occasion on which the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople have officiated at services designed to bring their two churches closer. This was especially the case during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, as reflected in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint.

In his homily for the feast day in 2008, Benedict XVI pointed to the distinctive but complementary characteristics - unity and universality - of Saints Peter and Paul's missions to Rome.

Saint Peter's journey to Rome, said Benedict, "comes especially under the word "one". For "his task was to create the unity of the catholica, the Church formed by Jews and pagans, the Church of all the peoples. And this is Peter's ongoing mission: to ensure that the Church is never identified with a single nation, with a single culture or with a single State but is always the Church of all; to ensure that she reunites humanity over and above every boundary and, in the midst of the divisions of this world, makes God's peace present, the reconciling power of His love."

In the case of Saint Paul, "Going to Rome was part of the universality of his mission as an envoy to all peoples. The way that led to Rome ... was an integral part of his duty to take the Gospel to all the peoples - to found the catholic or universal Church. For him, going to Rome was an expression of the catholicity of his mission. Rome had to make the faith visible to the whole world, it had to be the meeting place of the one faith."

Michael Gilchrist, Editor (email address available on request).

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 22 No 6 (July 2009), p. 2