VATICAN CITY, JUNE 26, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A meeting of representatives of 29 Church movements and communities was held in preparation for the gathering of these groups with Benedict XVI on the vigil of Pentecost 2006.
Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, presided over the meeting Saturday in Rome.
The prelate noted that, during a May 19 audience, the Pope expressed the desire that the Pentecost 1998 event of movements and communities be repeated. That initiative brought these new ecclesial realities together for the first time, with Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.
That 1998 event was preceded by a world congress of ecclesial movements, organized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which on May 27 of that year was addressed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger with a historic lecture on “Ecclesial Movements and Their Theological Place.”
Points of reference
The guidelines of that lecture, as well as John Paul II’s address on May 30, 1998, are the points of reference for preparing the 2006 meeting.
Also of help will be the answers on movements given by Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, the following year to bishops who attended a special congress.
After Archbishop Rylko’s address Saturday, representatives of movements and communities offered their ideas and contributions for the meeting.
The Vatican official said he would consider all the proposals. A new meeting will be held after the summer to begin concrete preparations for Pentecost 2006.
