Vatican City, Apr 19, 2005 / 22:00 pm
With an audible sense of the weighty path, which lies ahead of him, Pope Benedict XVI delivered his first homily to the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel today, laying out what may be seen as a vision for his pontificate.
Pope Benedict called on the cardinals to “sustain [him] with prayer and with constant, active and wise collaboration.”
Continuing on the much-speculated issue of collegiality, he asked his “brothers in the episcopacy to be close to me in prayer and counsel so that I may truly be the 'Servus servorum Dei' (Servant of the servants of God). As Peter and the other Apostles were, through the will of the Lord, one apostolic college, in the same way the Successor of Peter and the Bishops, successors of the Apostles - and the Council forcefully repeated this - must be closely united among themselves.”
“This collegial communion,” he said, “even in the diversity of roles and functions of the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops, is at the service of the Church and the unity of faith, from which depend in a notable measure the effectiveness of the evangelizing action of the contemporary world.”