VATICAN - “Promote, in the Church and in the world, a worthy culture of human life, fecundated by the faith, able to propose the beauty of Christian life and respond adequately to the increasing challenges of the present day cultural and religious context”. The Pope addresses participants at the 12th Public Assembly of the Pontifical Academies

Thursday, 8 November 2007

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On the occasion of the 12th Public Assembly of the Pontifical Academies on the theme “Witnesses of His Love, God's love made visible by the martyrs and the works of the Church" in a message to the newly appointed president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI expressed “special greetings and the wish for a fruitful ministry to promote and intensify the Church's dialogue with the cultures of our times."
After thanking “Cardinal Paul Poupard for generous valid service to the Church in his twenty five years as president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the impulse given to the Pontifical Academies in general, institutional renewal and encouragement of activity at the service of the whole Church”, the Pope recalled “The celebration of this public session annually renews an opportunity for meeting and collaboration between the pontifical academies... in order to harmonise their various initiatives, all of which have a precise objective: promoting, both in the Church and the world, a culture worthy of human life, fecundated by faith, capable of proposing the beauty of Christian life and of providing an adequate response to the ever more numerous challenges of today's cultural and religious context. “"it is more necessary than ever to re-present the example of Christian martyrs, both those of antiquity and those of our own time, whose lives and witness, even to the spilling of their blood, are the supreme expression of love of God.”
An intervention by Prof. Letizia Ermini Pani, president of the Pontifical Academy of Sacred Archaeology, on “Means and places of Christian charity and assistance from the beginning to Hadrian I”, revealed the Roman's lively spirit of charity. “Hospitality for the pilgrims, for those far from home and often in need of accommodation and assistance”.
Professor Bisconti, president of the Pontifical Academy of the Virtuosi at the Pantheon, in his intervention “The martyrs in the perspective of Christian charity: history, monuments, devotion, iconographic manifestations”, suggests “on the broader concept of charity considered in interaction with the idea, fundamental since early Christian times, solidarity.” “The bipolar concept which ties charity to solidarity, finds its most concrete manifestation in the genesis of the first exclusively Christian community cemeteries”, said professor Bisconti. (AP) (8/11/2007 Agenzia Fides; Righe:40; Parole:491)


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