Benedict XVI is urging the European bishops to refrain from excluding the Church from social and cultural life, even while upholding its just distinction from the State.
The Pope affirmed this in a message sent to Cardinal Peter Erdo, president of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences and archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary.
The council held its plenary assembly in Paris last week, in which it focused on the theme “Church-State Relations 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall.”
The message, signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope’s secretary of state on the Pontiff’s behalf, affirmed that the Church is “faithful to her mission of truth in favor of a society to the measure of man, of his dignity and of his vocation.”
It added that this fidelity “is guarantee of an integral human development, remedy for the many imbalances that our world is suffering today.”
Therefore, the Church herself “desires that the life of men and peoples be inspired and animated by charity,” the Holy Father affirmed.
He continued, “Thus the latter will contribute to the building of that city of God toward which the human family is journeying.”
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org)