GUADALAJARA, Mexico, OCT. 11, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Participants in a symposium that preceded the International Eucharistic Congress singled out the need to promote priestly and religious vocations.
«There is no lack of vocations; Christ always calls enough young men to be ordained priests,» said Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg.
What is lacking, the Germany bishop said, «is our confidence; it is our sin that we do not have enough priests.»
Bishop Müller added: «Our response to the lack of priests cannot be some solutions. We ourselves must be concerned about being good priests, living examples of young men’s vocation.»
The Theological Pastoral Symposium, which ended Friday, addressed other challenges of Eucharistic faith. Among them was the need to strengthen the unity of Christians in response to the Lord’s prayer: «That they may be one.»
In this connection, Cardinal Walter Kasper said that the Church, through the Eucharist, facilitates peace in the world and that ecumenism is the dialogue Christ called Christians to engage in on the night of his passion.
The objective is to root faith in the Eucharist, through solid catechesis, so that in the face of the phenomenon of economic globalization, the market will not become the new deity to venerate, he said.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, has spoken out repeatedly along these lines.
He pointed out to ZENIT that the two great enemies of faith in the Eucharist are secularization and fanaticism.
«Now, everything is globalized, even viruses,» he said. «It is time to begin the task of globalizing solidarity.»
