On March 20, the Archbishop of Barcelona (Spain), Lluis Martínez Sistach, will present the book of Confessions of Saint Augustine to all university professors of the Archdiocese. The same will be done by the respective Archbishop in each of the 12 European cities designated in the Misión Metrópolis.
The idea was announced last July 13 in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and responsible for the «Misión Metrópolis»: «The objective is simple: to give a sign of unity among the different dioceses marked by secularization. In 2013, there will be 72 cities that will participate, and in the future, it would be extended beyond the frontiers of the old continent, with ways that respect different cultural and ecclesial traditions. »
The Bible and the Confessions
In Barcelona (Spain), the inauguration took place in the Palau de la Música, where seventeen personalities of the world of culture read the Gospel of Saint Mark. The singer Montserrat Caballé, the philosopher Francesc Torralba, the physicist David Jou and the judge Eugeni Gay were some of those who were invited. The theater was filled with some two thousand persons who, for about two hours, listened to a selection of eight parts of the cited Gospel, of which a special edition of 20,000 copies had been produced.
The presence of Martinez Sistach will be very active during the whole mission. On Sunday, March 10, he has a catechesis with the youth in the Parish Mare de Déu de Betlem, and on the 24th, he will have another with families in the Basilica of the Holy Family, and so in Barcelona and in all the rest of the chosen cities. The Misión Metrópolis will have a communitarian celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and the public reading of fragments of the Confessions of Saint Augustine.