THE EASTER PEOPLE

"RICH IN SIGN and symbol, the National Pastoral Congress was for those who took part in it an extraordinary experience of what the Church is and a foretaste of what it can grow to be."
With those words the bishops introduce their 40,000 word "message in light of the National Pastoral Congress." The document, as Cardinal Hume and Archbishop Derck Worlock made clear at a press conference this week, is intended to set the principal documents of Vatican II in the context of the current situation inEngland and Wales.
Theologically, it carries considerable weight. The first part, entitled The Sharing Church, amounts to a lengthy meditation on "the mystery of the Church-. It describes the characteristic features of the Catholic community in England and Wales and points the way for future development.
It also sets out the different models of the Church held by Christians down the ages, including those of the people of God, the communion of the faithful, the pilgrim people and the Christian family.
The second section — The Church in and for the World — deals more specifically with the resolutions put forward in Liverpool and concludes with special messages aimed at women, young people, single people. religious and priests.
Part 111 — To Live Christ's Life — is a call to personal holiness which the bishops say "is not tied up with any particular calling or walk of life or with any particular stage of life" but is concerned rather with living the life of the Beatitudes.
Throughout the message the bishops make it plain that they intend to stand by the commitment given at the Congress to build a genuine partnership between bishops, priests and lay people.
While stressing their fidelity to the Church's magisterium and their intention to review present structures in the Church, they say that they do not wish that any policy for the future "should he accepted unthinkingly." "That could be irresponsible and abdication of responsibility can be the height if disloyalty."
It is that which brings people together in Christ, they say, adding: "It was in this sense that Pope John Paul II, drawing on the words of St Augustine, said to the people of Harlem: 'If we arc silent about the joy which comes from knowing about Jesus, the very stones of our cities will cry out! For we are an Easter people and "Alleluia" is our song'."
''The Easter People — a Owssage from the Roman Catholic bishops of Engahtd and Wales in light of the National Pastoral Congress.available from Si Paul Publications. Middlegreen, Slough. Rinks. £1.25.t •
Right: Cardinal Hum* and Archbishop Warta:4 at this wask's press confarance.