VATICAN CITY, JULY 26, 2009 (Zenit.org).- According to a Vatican spokesman, the media has offered and continues to offer extraordinary coverage of Benedict XVI’s new encyclical, seeing in it a «message of hope.»
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, gave this evaluation of the press reception of «Caritas in Veritate» during the most recent edition of Vatican Television’s «Octava Dies.»
He said the encyclical «has had and continues to have a big echo in the world, with numerous commentaries in many different languages.»
«The profundity of the anthropological and theological approach and the multiplicity and relevance of the themes treated provide the occasion for a wide gamut of analyses, generally very positive,» Father Lombardi observed. «The commentators see that, despite the crisis that we are going through, the encyclical offers a message of hope: Humanity has a mission and the means to transform the world and progress in justice and love in human relations, even in the social and economic field.»
The spokesman went on to say that «if development has to be at the service of man and all men, we cannot escape the deepest question: Who is this man to be served.»
«Here — and this is one of the original points of the encyclical — the horizon expands to themes that were not touched upon in previous social encyclicals: the defense of life, the vision of sexuality and the family,» he explained. «On these themes the Pope once again goes courageously against the current of widespread if not dominant cultural tendencies today.»
These parts of the encyclical are «essential,» Father Lombardi contended, saying they «must be read and taken seriously as part of a unified discourse.»
«The Church,» the Jesuit concluded, «offers to all, with loyalty, her vision of man, because she is convinced that it is the best way to serve the good of man.»
