Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila presented today in Krakow the newly released «DOCAT,» a youthful presentation of the Church’s social doctrine, which echoes «YOUCAT,» a youth-oriented explanation of the Catechism presented at the WYD in Madrid in 2011.
Before the cardinal began with the presentation of the book, he noted his grief over the slaying of an elderly priest by ISIS attackers this morning in France.
”I want to express my grief because this morning a priest was brutally killed at Rouen while celebrating Mass,” said the archbishop of Manila, “shocking news that saddens us. Let us pray for the French nation.”
This “unhappy incident will help us understand in what way we can carry out the Social Doctrine of the Church,” he added.
Called to substitute Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who was unable to come, although, he said, “he is irreplaceable,” Cardinal Tagle, with the pilgrim’s small yellow backpack on his back, explained that with the DoCat, “Pope Francis wants to give us a gift, so that we do not halt at knowledge and prayer but pass to action.”
DOCAT is published in the United States by Ignatius Press: http://www.ignatius.com/Products/DOCAT-P/docat.aspx
“This is what the Pope wishes to communicate to young people and not only this. And young people must reciprocate this gift to the Pope.”
As Church, stressed the Archbishop, “we want in fact to give a million and even more young people committed with the spirit of DoCat.”
In a video transmitted during the presentation, Bergoglio himself affirmed that DoCat “is a manual of knowledge, a street manual. It is about the word of Christ as well as of the Church and of many people. It is an important instrument of young people’s daily life.”
Those young people who “have the capacity to lead the world forward,” to whom, in the same film, the Bishop of Rome asked that they have “visions” and, at the same time, “be capable to take up the dreams of the elderly.”
“Be part of the Pope’s dream,” could be read in fact on the blue T-shirts of several boys and girls, who during the presentation paraded with the flags of the whole world and with placards that depicted an iPhone to show the various functions of the App.
“The Social Doctrine of the Church is the Gospel; it is the Good News regarding redemption and salvation. This Good News enters our hearts thanks to the Holy Spirit and, with the love of God, through his gestures, we can also act,” said the Cardinal, who is also President of Caritas Internationalis. This Doctrine is “closely connected to our reality” as “social beings. Our actions have social consequences,” he added.
For his part, Francis “has had a strong impact on the Social Doctrine of the Church. Let us think, for instance, of Evangelii Gaudium, in which he speaks of the ‘economy that kills,’ while the Gospel speaks of life. The Holy Father is calling us to reflect: in what way can an economy that kills coexist with the Gospel of life?”
Again the Pope – said Cardinal Tagle, who is among the Cardinals closest to the Pontiff — “speaks in his addresses of the subjects of peace and of the problems that lead to the migratory flow” to “make us understand what the roots are of this violence. He speaks of mafia, he is not afraid of these words, as when at a meeting in Mexico City he exhorted the ‘Lord’s ambassadors’ to ‘fight for life.’”
Instead, he asked thousands of young people, embracing ideally in the WYD of Rio de Janeiro of 2013, to “make noise,” but “not noise as noise, but noise in the sense of moving the world and awakening it from indifference,” specified the Cardinal.
This very living magisterium “isn’t the result of the work of a single person, of one Pope,” continued the Archbishop of Manila; “it is the Social Doctrine of the Church, which is none other than a living person: Christ, who became one of us, member of a family, of a society, a creature that dwelt in Creation.” From Him “we must draw the strength and the life to commit ourselves in society and constitute it a more true, more fraternal <society> full of love.”
In this connection, DoCat can be an optimum instrument. “It’s not a book destined to remain on the shelf, but a guide” with which to “form the history and language of young people.” Therefore, it is not a simple App or a small book but “a project relating to life” which is “part of a campaign to set the world on fire.”
