In his recent meeting with parish priests of the Diocese of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI stressed with them the need that priests should be prepared culturally so as to help their parishioners grow humanly and christianly. For the German Pontiff, the parish is a cultural, human and Christian oasis in which the People of God evolve.

The Pope noted that at present many people are the victims of cultural poverty which is causing them an inner fragmentation. In this regard the parish acts as a guide to aid every member of the community to “find an integral human formation that completes his [and her] personality.” Being himself a teacher, the priest must be well prepared to meet up with the challenge of modern culture by becoming familiar to it and redirecting it to God. The priest is to understand that God is the centre for his education and knowledge of today’s culture. This is so since “science can also be dangerous for man, because without more profound ethical guidelines, it leaves man to his own free will and, consequently, without the necessary orientation to really become a man.” Having been formed in such a cultural formation the priest will be able to accompany the young people to embrace it with discernment.

For Benedict XVI authentic cultural education is one that espouses faith. In other words, “to know the face of God, which has been shown to us in Christ and thus to have the orientation point for the rest of culture, which otherwise is disoriented and becomes disorienting.” A culture without God is a complete destruction of what is cultural, human and Christian. Thus, the Pope continued: “A culture without personal knowledge of God, and without knowledge of the face of God in Christ, is a culture that could even be destructive, because it does not know the necessary ethical guidelines”.

May all of us priests take to heart the following powerful and urgent invitation of Pope Benedict XVI so that we, together with the flock given to our care, grow in the Holy Spirit and be the salt and light of Christ for today’s world. “In this sense, I believe, we really have a mission of profound cultural and human formation, which opens to all the riches of the culture of our time, but which gives the criterion, the discernment to test what is true culture and what could become anti-cultural.” Are we ready to become cultural teachers?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

San Gwann