Reject a truth-less culture, says Pope

June 12, 2012: Pope Benedict XVI on Monday night met with the people of his Diocese in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint John Lateran. During the annual ecclesial conference of the Diocese of Rome, the Pontiff reflected on the theme of the Sacrament of Baptism.

The Pope said that ‘Baptism unites us to God in a unique way and that our new lives belong to God, and we are immersed in God himself’. We realize that God is not far away for us. In fact the centrality of God in our lives is a first consequence of Baptism.

A second consequence of baptism is that above all is an act of God with me: I am taken by God, and I say "yes" to this action of God.

A third element of baptism is that, being immersed in God, we are united with our brothers and sisters. Being baptized is never a solitary act but it is necessarily being in unity and solidarity with the whole Body of Christ, with the whole community of his brothers and sisters.

To be baptized means just basically an emancipation, a liberation from the culture of untruth. “Renouncing the glamour of Satan in today’s age means rejecting a culture where truth does not matter,” the Pope said, referring to a part of the Baptismal Rite.

In the Baptismal Rite, the catechuman must reject Satan and all his works. Pope Benedict said this means rejecting a “culture that does not seek goodness, whose morality is only a mask, which covers confusion and destruction...that seeks only material wealth and denies God”

The Pope then pointed out that becoming a Christian is not just saying ‘no’, but also saying ‘yes’ to the truths about Christ expressed in the Creed.

Because of this, Christians are “in communion with the truth.” “We are grateful to God who gave us this gift [of Baptism], and our challenge is to live out our post-baptismal renunciations and affirmations and always live in the great cause of God, and so live well,” he concluded.