EUROPE/SPAIN - “LAY CHRISTIANS BUILDERS OF PEACE”: BISHOPS’ MESSAGE FOR DAY OF CATHOLIC ACTION AND LAY APOSTOLATE

Monday, 9 June 2003

Madrid (Fides Service) – “To make the Church, the home and school of communion (Novo Millennium Ineunte 43) is the challenge facing us as Christians if we want to be faithful to God’s plan and respond to the greatest hopes of the world”. All apostolic movements are therefore called to “educate their members to a spirituality of communion”, which is none other than being able to “make room for our brother” as the Holy Father asks. This is the call launched by the Spanish Bishops’ Commission for Lay Apostolate in a message to movements of lay apostolate on the occasion of the Day of Catholic Action and Lay Apostolate which in Spain is celebrated on the Feast of Pentecost and which this year had the motto: “Lay Christians, builders of peace”.
In their message the Spanish Bishops mention the conflicts and political tensions in the world today, situations which “demand from political leaders and international organisations serious reflection of the causes at the root of these conflicts, in order to find lasting solutions, based on a new world order founded on moral principles and scrupulous respect for human rights”. To reach authentic peace first of all there must be conversion of heart in order to remove all resentment, hatred, envy, thirst for power at any cost. This is a precise commitment of the Church and so the Bishops call people to “work to build a world of brotherhood and solidarity based on relations of justice and love among all the members of the human family”. The Bishops thank all the members of Catholic Action and apostolic movements for the generous commitment with which they work to render present “the Gospel of Peace” in the world, calling for even more decisive activity on the part of Christians in politics and trade unions and in social organisations in order to change structures from within by planting justice and truth. RG (Fides Service 9/6/2003 EM lines 22 Words: 310)


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