“Would That All Were Prophets!”

POPE John Paul II addressed the following message to a gathering of Bible-loving Catholics: “I send cordial greetings to those who are participating in the General Assembly of the World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate and I assure them of my spiritual closeness. I am happy to be informed that this assembly has found inspiration for its theme in the words of Moses, ‘Would that all were prophets’ (Num 11:29), and that it has applied this expression to the tasks that it will undertake.”​—L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 1984.

A Catholic Bible Education Work

The Third General Assembly of the World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate was held in Bangalore, India, in August 1984. Delegates from 53 countries convened. The Federation was founded in Rome in 1969. That was three years after Pope Paul VI had commissioned a German cardinal in Rome to study the needs of the Catholic Church in matters pertaining to the Bible. Presently, Msgr. Ablondi, bishop of Leghorn, Italy, is president.

Exhorting the Federation to review its goals, Pope John Paul said in his message: “The commitment of the Federation is one of helping Catholics all over the world to have easy access to the Word of God. . . . Indeed all activity and all witness in the Church should flow from the living Word . . . The ‘prophetic office’ of the People of God must be consciously exercised as a true service of the Word. . . . By participation in the work of translation, publication and the diffusion of the Word, one is engaged in satisfying the needs of those who hunger and thirst for the Word of God (cf. Amos 8:11). This applies as well to the work of forming those who will one day dedicate themselves to teaching and preaching Holy Scripture.”

In line with its theme, in its final declaration this Catholic Biblical assembly stated: “The Federation is aware that if all the People of God are to play their prophetic part, they must have access to the Word of God (their personal copy of the Bible in their own language). They have the right to be trained in the knowledge of Scripture . . . This Assembly reaffirms that the Church’s work of evangelization is centered on the Bible.”

In its final declaration, the World Catholic Federation for the Biblical Apostolate expressed the need for Bible education, particularly among the young and the poor, for inexpensive Bibles and Bible education literature, for Bible translations and Bible translators, and for full-time workers. It further stated that all Christians should preach and teach, live by the Bible, and “discern the signs of the times.”