Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don is the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
The full text of the Archbishop’s address, “Faith, Obedience, and Theology, Challenges to the Mission of the Church Today,” can be found here. I would like to point out some interesting highlights from this speech, which was permeated throughout with a very supernatural outlook. (I am emboldening passages I think worthy of particular attention.)
First are his Excellency’s comments on the nature of the Church, which shows that he does not distinguish falsely between what is juridical and what is spiritual:
The Church is not an association or federation or a democracy made up of the faithful. It is the mystical body of Christ with its own inner life that comes from Christ, who is its supreme and invisible head. It has its visible structure which is not to be separated from the mystical. The Council states “but the society furnished with hierarchical agencies and the mystical body of Christ are not to be considered two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things. Rather they form one inter-locked reality which is comprised of a divine and a human element” [LG 8]. The Council then goes on to compare this mystical divine – human interlocking with the mystery of the incarnation itself [cfr LG 8]. It is, as the Council further confirms, the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church referring thus to its uniqueness, its singular vocation, its universal nature and its missionary dimension.
Continue reading →