Pope's envoy to open UST's 400th anniversary

No less than a direct envoy of Pope Benedict XVI will visit Manila this coming week to open the 400th anniversary celebration of the University of Santo Tomas (UST), Asia's oldest university. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) siad Papal Legate Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski will lead the Mass to formally open UST's quadricentennial year. "Grocholewski will be the main homilist, together with Dominican Master General Fr. Bruno Cadore, the chancellor of the university, and other ranking officials of the Philippine curia, as concelebrants," the CBCP said in its news site. Expected to join the Polish cardinal are Filipino bishops, most of them graduates of the UST Central Seminary. “He is just here to celebrate the Mass and he would leave afterward for Rome," said UST Rector Fr. Rolando de la Rosa. Grocholewski is the Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education in Vatican, which is responsible for almost 1,000 Catholic universities, 150 theological centers and more than 3,000 ecclesial seminaries. Plenary indulgence De la Rosa said the UST has received an “extraordinary grant" of plenary indulgence from the Pope to usher in the opening of the Jubilee Door and Mass for the university’s Quadricentennial week, which begins on Monday, Jan. 24. In a letter sent through Cardinal Fortunato Baldelli, head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, the Pope mandated the grant of indulgence “under the usual conditions of Sacramental Confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father" to be gained by visiting the Santisimo Rosario Church from January 2011 to January 2012. “So we have to take advantage of this. The pope has granted all those who would attend the quadricentennial Mass and activities in the university a plenary indulgence," he said. Plenary indulgence “is a gift from the Lord that is tantamount to the remission of all punishment due to sin that is already forgiven," he said. Highlighting the opening of the Jubilee Door will be a Mass for students at 5:15 p.m. at the Santisimo Rosario Church to be presided by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales. — TJD, GMANews.TV