The Holy Father answered the priests who asked him for clarification concerning the administration of the Sacrament of Baptism in special situations, and about the Compendium of the Catechism, as follows:

The first question is very difficult and I have already had an opportunity to work on it when I was Archbishop of Munich, because we had such cases.

Each individual case should first be clarified: if the obstacle to Baptism is such that it is impossible to administer it without wasting the Sacrament, or should the situation make it possible to say, even in a problematic context, "this person has truly converted, has a complete faith, wants to live the faith of the Church, desires to be baptized", I think that to issue a general formula would not correspond with the diversity of the real situations: we naturally endeavour to do our utmost to give Baptism to a person who asks for it with full faith, but let us say that the details must be examined in each individual case.

If a person proves to be truly converted and desires access to Baptism, the Church's desire must be to allow this person to be incorporated into the communion of Christ and of the Church, and to support him or her. The Church must be open as long as there are no obstacles that actually contradict Baptism. Therefore, the possibility should be sought and if the person is truly convinced and a wholehearted believer, then we are not in relativism.

The second point: We all know that in the cultural and intellectual situation of which we spoke at the start, catechesis has become far more difficult. On the one hand, it needs new contexts to be understood and contextualized, so that it may be evident that this is true and concerns the present and the future, and on the other, therefore, a necessary contextualization has been made in the Catechisms of the various Bishops' Conferences.

Besides, clear answers are necessary to make it possible to perceive what faith is and what the other contextualizations are: a simple way of making people understand. This sparked a "polemic" in the world of catechetics between catechism in the classic sense and the new instruments of catechesis. It is true on the one hand - I am now speaking only of my German experience - that many of these books did not reach their goal: they always prepared the ground but were so concerned with preparing the ground on which the person advances that in the end they did not arrive at the answer to be given. On the other, the classic catechisms appeared so formal that the true answer no longer touched the mind of the contemporary catechumen.

At last, we took on this multidimensional commitment: we compiled the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It provides, on the one hand, the necessary cultural contextualizations, but it also gives precise answers. We wrote it in the awareness that the journey from this Catechism to concrete catechesis would not be an easy one. But we understood that the linguistic, cultural and social situations are very different in the various countries, and even within the same country in different social classes; hence, it is the task of the Bishop or of the Bishops' Conference and of the catechists themselves to undertake this final stage in the journey. Our position, therefore, was: "This is the reference point for everyone; what the Church believes can be seen here". Therefore, the Bishops' Conferences should create instruments that apply to the cultural situation and cover the ground that has yet to be covered. Ultimately, the catechist himself or herself must take the last steps, and perhaps the suitable means for these last steps too are offered to him or her.

After several years we had a meeting in which catechists from across the world told us that the Catechism was going well, that it was a necessary book which helped by conveying the beauty, organic approach and fullness of the faith, but that it needed to be summarized. The Holy Father John Paul II, having taken note of the vote of that meeting, charged a Commission to compile this Compendium, that is, a synthesis of the big Catechism to which it refers, extracting the essential.
At first in the draft of the Compendium, we wanted to be even more concise, but in the end we realized that truly to convey the essential in our time, the necessary material that every catechist needed was what we had said. We also added prayers. And I think that it really is a very useful book that "sums up" everything contained in the big Catechism; in this regard, it seems to me that it corresponds in our day to the Catechism of Pius X.

The individual Bishops and Bishops' Conferences remain committed to helping priests and all catechists in their work with this book, as well as to acting as a bridge to a specific group, for the ways of speaking, thinking and understanding differ widely not only between Italy, France, Germany and Africa, but also within the same country it is received very differently. The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium, containing the essence of the Catechism, therefore continue to be instruments for the universal Church.

Moreover, we are always in need of the work of the Bishops who, in contact with the priests and catechists, help find all the necessary instruments to facilitate this sowing of the Word.