Pope's Christmas gift - new Vatican appointment

Sydney
19 January

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Pope's Christmas gift - new Vatican appointment

By Marilyn Rodrigues

The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr George Pell, received a special Christmas blessing from Pope John Paul II in December in the form of a Vatican appointment.

The Pope appointed Dr Pell (pictured) to the presidential committee of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Also appointed were Patriarch Angelo Scola of Venice, Italy, Archbishop Vingt-Trois of Tours, France, and Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden.

The Pope instituted the Pontifical Council for the Family in 1981 to replace the Committee for the Family created by Paul VI in 1973.

Its presidential committee is made up of nine cardinals and nine archbishops and bishops, plus 19 lay members, (many of them married couples), 39 consultors and seven officials.

The Pontifical Council for the Family is the part of the Roman Curia responsible for working for the defence of human life and the pastoral care of the family.

It is concerned with theology and catechesis of the family; marital and family spirituality; the rights of the family and the child; formation of the laity and marriage preparation courses.

Some of the issues the council grapple with include sex education; contraception, sterilisation, prenatal diagnosis and abortion; genetic engineering and bioethics; homosexuality; pornography, prostitution and drugs.

Every four months it publishes a magazine, Family and Life, as well as other documents. And every three years, the council coordinates the World Gathering of Families with the Holy Father.

It also organises lectures and meetings throughout the world.

This is the latest of many Vatican appointments for the archbishop.

He was a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990-95. In 1990 he was nominated by Pope John Paul II to be a spokesman at the Synod of Bishops in Rome on the preparation of priests and then to work on the committee that prepared the final synod message.

He was appointed apostolic visitor to the seminaries of New Zealand (1994), Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (1995), the Pacific (1996) and Irian Jaya and Sulawesi (1998) by the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.

From 1990-2000 Archbishop Pell was a member of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He was chosen by Pope John Paul II in 1999 to represent the bishops of Australia and Oceania at the Special Synod for European Bishops in Rome and then at the Synod of Bishops in October 2001.

Following the 2001 synod, he again helped prepare the final synod document for the Pope.

And since last year he has been chairman of the Vox Clara (Clear Voice) committee to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on translation of liturgical texts from Latin.