Your testimony can open the door of faith to so many people: Pope

January 19, 2013: Your testimony can open the door of faith to so many people who are looking for the love of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday, told to the participants of the 29^th plenary of the Pontifical Council Co Unum in the Vatican. The Pontiff said that in this Year of the faith, the Plenary’s theme of "Charity, new ethics and Christian anthropology," reflects the close link between love and truth, or of faith and charity. Christian love is grounded in faith. Encountering God and experiencing His love, we learn "to live no longer for ourselves but for him, and with him, for others", said the Pontiff.

From the dynamic relationship between faith and charity, the Pope reflected on what he called ‘the prophetic dimension that instills faith in charity’. Citing the encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate’ Pope Benedict XVI said that ‘Christians, especially those who work in charitable organizations, need to be directed by the principles of faith, by which we adhere to the "point of view of God". This new view of the world and mankind offered by faith also provides the correct test for the expressions of love, in the current context, the Pope added.
Reflecting on global inequality and poverty in the recent centuries, he said that the ideologies which celebrated the cult of the nation, race, social class proved to be true idolatry, and so is of unbridled capitalism with its cult of profit, which are a result of the crisis, inequality and poverty.

The Pope pointed out: today we share a common feeling more and more about the inalienable dignity of every human being and mutual interdependence and responsibility towards them, and to the benefit of true civilization, the civilization of love.
He also noted that ‘unfortunately, our time knows shadows that obscure God's plan, in particular to a tragic anthropological reduction proposes. It presupposes that the man is reduced to autonomous functions, the mind to the brain, human history to a destiny of self-realization.
In the perspective of a man deprived of his soul and without a personal relationship with the Creator, what is technically possible becomes licit, each experiment is acceptable, any population policy permitted, any manipulation legitimized. The most dangerous pitfall of this line of thinking is in fact the absolute good of man: the man wants to be ‘absolute’, freed from every bond and every natural constitution. He claims to be independent and thinks only in self-assertion is his happiness.

The right collaboration with international bodies in the field of development and human development, we must not close our eyes to these serious ideologies, and the pastors of the Church have a duty to warn against these abuses as the Catholic faithful as every person of good will and right reason.

But positively the Church has always been committed to promoting the man after God's plan, in its full dignity, in accordance with its dual vertical and horizontal dimensions. The Christian vision of man has a great yes to the dignity of the person called to intimate communion with God, a filial communion, humble and confident. The human being is neither individual nor a separate anonymous element in the community, but person singular and unique.

The Plenary with the theme "Charity, Christian Anthropology, And New Global Ethics", had begun on Thursday and ended on Saturday.