Vatican City, May 26, 2009 / 14:49 pm
The Vatican press office has announced that on the second anniversary of the publication of Pope Benedict’s letter to the Church in China, a Compendium has been made available on the Vatican's website to help Catholics more deeply understand the Holy Father’s letter to the Church in China.
The Holy Father sent to the letter on May 27, 2007 to bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful of the Catholic Church in China to offer “guidelines concerning the life of the Church and the task of evangelization in China,” in order to help Chinese Catholics discover what the Lord “wants from them,” said the announcement.
The letter was well received by members of the Chinese faithful who had access to it, according to the Vatican. Not only have study sessions been formed to discuss the letter, but it has also become a “point of reference for the resolution of the various problems that the Catholic community is having to address on both the doctrinal level and the practical, disciplinary level.”
The Compendium “faithfully reproduces, both in structure and language, the content of the original Letter, quoting extended passages from it. With the addition of some footnotes and two short appendices, the Compendium is presented as an authoritative tool facilitating a deeper understanding of His Holiness' thought on some particularly delicate points.”
The Holy See also noted that the Pope has approved the Compendium and “has authorized its publication as a document of the Apostolic See.”
The document is now available in English and Chinese on the Vatican's site: www.vatican.va.