» 06/19/2011 12:45 VATICAN-ITALY Pope: provide security and shelter to refugees Today’s hedonistic culture tends to propose models that "darken the mind and threaten to cancel all morality. The temptation has crept in to believe that the wealth of man is not the faith, but his personal and social power, his intelligence, his culture and his ability to manipulate scientific, technological and social realities. "
San Marino (AsiaNews) - "Guaranteeing a welcome and dignified living conditions for refugees, until they can return home freely and in safety" this was Benedict XVI’s appeal today, on the eve of World Refugee Day, to " civil authorities and all people of good will. " The Pope’s call came at the end of the Angelus recited today at Serravalle Stadium (pictured), during his visit to the Republic of San Marino, a historic enclave in the centre of Italy, from where he will return to Rome later this evening.
The visit to the tiny republic gave Benedict XVI the opportunity to reinforce the need to affirm true human values, which originate in faith, against a culture of hedonism that is trying to subvert them. The Pope recalled the ancient Christian roots of the population and added: " You know that the best way to appreciate a legacy is to cultivate and enrich it. In fact, you are called to develop this precious deposit in one of the most decisive moments in history"
“Today, - he continued - your mission is having to deal with profound and rapid cultural, social, economic and political transformations that have determined new reference points and changed attitudes, customs and sensibilities. Even here, in fact, as elsewhere, there are difficulties and obstacles, mainly due to hedonistic models, which cloud the mind and threaten to undo all morality. The temptation has crept in to believe that the wealth of man is not the faith, but his personal and social power, his intelligence, his culture and his ability to manipulate scientific, technological and social realities. Thus, in these lands, the Christian faith and values have begun to be replaced with a presumed wealth, which in the end reveals itself inconsistent and incapable of containing the great promise of truth, goodness, of beauty and justice, which for centuries your ancestors identified with the experience of faith. Moreover the many families in crisis must not be forgotten, compounded by a widespread psychological and spiritual fragility of spouses, as well as the fatigue experienced by many educators in their attempts to ensure continuity in the formation of young people, conditioned by various uncertainties, first among all their role in society and employment opportunities”.
Later, before the Angelus prayer, Benedict XVI concluded by recalling that "today in Dax, France, Sister Marguerite Rutan, Daughter of Charity is beatified. In the second half of the eighteenth century, she worked with great commitment in the hospital in Dax, but in the tragic persecution that followed the Revolution, was sentenced to death for her faith and fidelity to the Church. "
