Year of Faith: I967 - 1968

To commemorate the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the holy apostles Peter and Paul.

I did not realize that 1967 - 1968 was a Year of Faith".    Forty Five years later, another year of faith.  Obviously, I should pay better attention. 

Though in 1968 I was far away from the Lord. 

Anyway.  I came upon my old copy of The Credo of the People of God several days ago, it was proclaimed by Pope Paul VI, and remains good for our instruction today.  A few excerpts:

In making this profession, we are aware of the disquiet which agitates certain modern quarters with regard to the faith. They do not escape the influence of a world being profoundly changed, in which so many certainties are being disputed or discussed. We see even Catholics allowing themselves to be seized by a kind of passion for change and novelty. The Church, most assuredly, has always the duty to carry on the effort to study more deeply and to present, in a manner ever better adapted to successive generations, the unfathomable mysteries of God, rich for all in fruits of salvation. But at the same time the greatest care must be taken, while fulfilling the indispensable duty of research, to do no injury to the teachings of Christian doctrine. For that would be to give rise, as is unfortunately seen in these days, to disturbance and perplexity in many faithful souls.

It is important in this respect to recall that, beyond scientifically verified phenomena, the intellect which God has given us reaches that which is, and not merely the subjective expression of the structures and development of consciousness; and, on the other hand, that the task of interpretation—of hermeneutics—is to try to understand and extricate, while respecting the word expressed, the sense conveyed by a text, and not to recreate, in some fashion, this sense in accordance with arbitrary hypotheses.
 

It is interesting to me how the Holy Father intended his Profession of Faith

[...]to be to a high degree complete and explicit, in order that it may respond in a fitting way to the need of light felt by so many faithful souls, and by all those in the world, to whatever spiritual family they belong, who are in search of the Truth.
 

That, when so many today accuse him of having confused the faithful, of permitting error, and of weakness in his duty "to confirm our brothers in the faith."

The Church and the Holy See face the same, if not worse, criticisms today.