Pope urges practicing love of neighbour, remembers victims of Ukraine’s mass famine

(November 24, 2008) Do good and the Kingdom of God will be realized in our midst, act according to self-interest and the world will be destroyed. Pope Benedict XVI made this observation on Sunday, the solemnity of Christ the King, in a reflection on the Final Judgment before praying the weekly midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square. Referring to the parable of the Final Judgment in Matthew's Gospel - "I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me" - the Holy Father said the passage "has become a part of our civilization." "It is the truth about our ultimate destiny and lays down the criteria by which we will be judged." If we put love of our neighbour into practice, according to the Gospel message, then we are making room for the lordship of God, and his Kingdom will realize itself in our midst. "If instead, each of us thinks only of his own interests, the world cannot but be destroyed," he added.After the ‘Angelus’, Pope Benedict prayed for the millions who perished in Ukraine's mass famine of the 1930s engineered by Josef Stalin and said he hoped human rights could no longer be denied in the name of ideology. Ukraine marked the 75th anniversary of the 1932-33 famine at a Saturday ceremony that was boycotted by Russia, which rejects Ukraine's description of the famine as a "genocide" and argues many ethnic groups in the Soviet Union were affected. The Pope acknowledged those who died and said he hoped nations would now move towards reconciliation, peace and mutual respect. "In the fervent hope that no political order can, in the name of an ideology, deny the rights of a human being and his freedom and dignity any more, I assure my prayers for all the innocent victims of that enormous tragedy," the Pope said. Historians say some 7.5 million people died in the famine, aimed at breaking the spirit of Ukraine's independent farmers. Soviet authorities denied for decades that it had occurred.