NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      ROME, 5 (NE) A delegation from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation, will travel to the United States for a meeting with the Presidents of the Doctrinal Commissions of North America and Oceania. According to a communique released yesterday, the meeting will take place in San Francisco, from February 9 to 12. During the meeting, Cardinal Ratzinger will give a conference on Subjectivism, Christology and the Church.

      "The initiative is part of the task of the Congregation to promote and guide the Doctrine of Faith" and "receives a special character for its direct contact with the local episcopates," stated the communique made public yesterday at the Holy See press office. "The aim of the meeting is above all to become better acquainted with the realities of the religious situation in North America and in Oceania and to reflect in this regard with local bishops. It is also hoped to further promote the functioning of the doctrinal commissions of the Episcopal conferences, as well as their regular and systematic collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the light of the Circular Letter on Doctrinal Commissions of November 25, 1990 and the Motu proprio Apostolos Suos.

      The San Francisco meeting follows similar encounters in Bogota in 1984, Kinshasa 1987, Vienna 1989, Hong Kong 1993 and Guadalajara 1996. Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, also forms part of the delegation, and will give a conference on the Church's Magisterium and the Professio fidei, the profession of faith required by all those who teach in the name of the Church. Other conferences will talk about the character of the theologian in the Catholic university in the light of the Motu proprio Ad tuendam fidem, the question of feminism and the question of homosexuality.