Pope Opens News Year Stressing Divine Gift of Family
(Jan 1 08 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI opened the new year with an appeal for world peace, calling it a “divine gift” and stressing the role of family as the foundation of a society of peace.
The Holy Father was addressing over 40 thousand pilgrims and visitors who had gathered to St Peter’s square beneath a bright winter’s sun to hear his Angelus Address.
In his address the Pope recalled that January first also marks World Day of
Peace and spoke of his message to mark the occasion entitled “The Human Family Community of Peace”.
Quoting from his message he said “the peoples of the earth, too, are called to build relationships of solidarity and cooperation among themselves, as befits members of the one human family: “All peoples”—as the Second Vatican Council declared—“are one community and have one origin, because God caused the whole human race to dwell on the face of the earth they also have one final end, God”
Pope Benedict also returned to a theme that has been central to his pontificate when he spoke of the importance of the traditional family based on the marriage between man and woman.
He continued that “whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family, undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace”
Moreover he added: “We do not live alongside one another purely by chance; all of us are progressing along a common path as men and women, and thus as brothers and sisters.”
But January 1st is also the feast of Mary Mother of God, Queen of peace. In his homily during mass celebrated in St Peter’s Basilica, the Pope called for “the gift of peace: for our families, our cities and the whole world.”
He said “We all aspire to leave in peace, but real peace ... is not the simple conquest of man or the result of political agreements: It is above all a divine gift.”
At the same time, the Pope added, peace is a “commitment that must be pursued with patience.”
And finally looking ahead to the year to come the Holy Father highlighted two important anniversaries: Sixty years ago now, in 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations published “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”; 40 years ago my venerated predecessor Paul VI celebrated the first World Day of Peace; this year we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Holy See’s adoption of the “Charter of the rights of the Family”. “In the light of these significant anniversaries, I invited each man and women to take on a greater awareness of their belonging to the human family and to commit themselves so that coexistence on the earth reflects that conviction on which the establishing of a true and lasting peace depends”.
Emer Mc Carthy reports:
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