Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lima (Agenzia Fides) - On Sunday 23 July in Lima Cathedral Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, Archbishop of Lima, presided a special Mass for Peace in the Middle East in communion with Pope Benedict XVI and Christians all over the world. The Mass was attended by ambassadors in Peru of Palestine, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon and representatives of OEA, Romania, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Cardinal Cipriani repeated the call made by the Pope for the sides to call a "cease fire, and allow of humanitarian aid to reach the stricken people”, urging charitable organisations to "show solidarity with our suffering brothers and sisters". The Cardinal said that normally people consider ‘having’ more important that ‘being’, whereas John Paul II always preached that: the human person is important for what he or she ‘is’ not for what he or she ‘has’, being is greater than having. "Until the human person is not given first place, pragmatic materialism which seeks only to produce and consume and measures people according to the money they possess, will leave man no tranquillity".
The Cardinal denounced the idol of money in the modern world: "money is necessary for human development, a home, education, health, food … All this is necessary while never forgetting that being is more important than having … real power - the Cardinal continued- is power to help others, to serve others, to listen to them, real power is not money or success, it is being able to serve to the common good, ".
Lastly the Cardinal entrusted "the suffering peoples of the Middle East, families, young people, the elderly" to the Blessed Virgin Mary asking her to intercede with her Son Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace “that there may be the so desired cease-fire agreement". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 24/7/2006; righe 24, parole 342)
