VATICAN CITY, OCT. 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The work to be done in El Salvador offers an overview of the many fields in which the Church seeks to serve the human person, Benedict XVI suggested today.
The Pope reflected on the services the Church offers in the Central American country when he received in audience the new ambassador to the Holy See, Manuel Roberto López Barrera.
He stated that the Church — with independence and liberty — tries to serve the «common good in all its dimensions.» In this context, he went on to show how the Church endeavors to promote integral human development and permeate the social context with light.
«Evangelizing and giving witness of the love of God and of all men without any exceptions, she becomes an effective element for the eradication of poverty and a vigorous incentive in the struggle against violence, impunity and drug trafficking, which is causing so much ruin, especially among young people,» the Holy Father noted.
He added that she contributes to the care of the sick and the elderly, and the reconstruction of areas devastated by natural disasters, thus wishing «to follow the example of her Divine Founder, who does not allow her to remain aloof from the aspirations and dynamisms of the human being, or to look on with indifference when such primordial exigencies as the equitable distribution of wealth, honesty in carrying out public functions or the independence of the courts of justice are weakened.»
Peacemakers
The ecclesial community feels called to participate when «many are lacking fitting housing or do not have a job that enables them to fulfill themselves and maintain their families, being obliged to emigrate from the homeland,» the Pontiff continued.
And, he stated, «it would be strange if Christ’s disciples were neutral in the presence of aggressive sects» that appear to offer an «easy and comfortable religious answer» but which in reality undermine Salvadorian culture, as well as clouding the «beauty of the evangelical message and splitting the unity of the faithful around their pastors.»
«Instead,» Benedict XVI proposed, «the maternal work of the Church in her constant determination to defend the inviolable dignity of human life from its conception until its natural end — as proclaimed also by the country’s Constitution — [and] the value of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, creates a climate where the true religious spirit is fused with the boldness to reach ever higher targets of well-being and progress, opening the nation to an expanded horizon of hopes.»
The Holy Father also assured his prayers that the people of El Salvador will definitively renounce «everything that provokes confrontations, replacing enmities with mutual understanding and the safeguarding of their persons and possessions.»
For this, he said, they must «be convinced that violence achieves nothing and everything worsens, as it is a dead end, a detestable and inadmissible evil, a fascination that fools the person and fills him with indignity. Peace, on the contrary, is the yearning that every man has.»
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Full text: www.zenit.org/article-30694?l=english
