2 Cor 5:20
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
As the head of the Church, the Holy Father traveled throughout the world, representing not only the Vatican and the Catholic Church but Christ himself.
Being a popepapa, John Paul II was a great ambassador of Christ, bearing the message of Peace, Love and Joy of the Kingdom of God. He went everywhere proclaiming the Good News and showing the world that Christ is alive in His Church.
His travels bring to life the word of God, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" or in Isaiah 52:7
7 How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion (The people of God), "Your God reigns!"
The Holy Father felt that urge to go out and proclaim the Good News, he knew how important it was for the Church to be stimulated by the presence of its leader.
+ + + + + +
APOSTOLIC LETTER ISSUED “MOTU PROPRIO”
APOSTOLOS SUOS
Excerpt
19. The authority of the Episcopal Conference and its field of action are in strict relation to the authority and action of the diocesan Bishop and the Bishops equivalent to them in law. Bishops “preside in the place of God over the flock whose shepherds they are, as teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship and ministers of government. (...) By divine institution, Bishops have succeeded to the Apostles as Shepherds of the Church”,(71) and they “govern the particular churches entrusted to them as the vicars and ambassadors of Christ, by their counsel, exhortations and example, but also by their authority and sacred power (...). This power, which they personally exercise in Christ's name is proper, ordinary and immediate”.(72) Its exercise is regulated by the supreme authority of the Church, and this is the necessary consequence of the relation between the universal Church and the particular Church, since the latter exists only as a portion of the People of God “in which the one catholic Church is truly present and operative”.(73) In fact, “the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the episcopal College are proper elements of the universal Church that are not derived from the particularity of the churches, but are nevertheless interior to each particular Church”.(74) As part of such regulation, the exercise of the sacred power of the Bishop “can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful”.(75) This provision is found explicitly in the Code of Canon Law where we read: “A diocesan Bishop in the diocese committed to him possesses all the ordinary, proper and immediate power which is required for the exercise of his pastoral office except for those cases which the law or a decree of the Supreme Pontiff reserves to the supreme authority of the Church or to some other ecclesiastical authority”.(76) |
