ZENIT, Daily dispatch
The World Seen From Rome
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VATICAN DOSSIER
* Firm Hope a Must, Says Cardinal
* Only God Is Man's True Hope, Says Pontiff
* Prayer Seen as School of Hope
* Pope: Christ Wills Catholic-Orthodox Unity
* Meeting With NGOs Is a 1st at Vatican
NEWS BRIEFS
* Irish Priest Named to Media Council
* Belarusian Christians Join Forces Against AIDS
SPIRITUALITY
* Stay Awake!
DOCUMENTS
* Benedict XVI's Letter to Bartholomew I
MESSAGE TO READERS
* New Encyclical on Hope
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VATICAN DOSSIER
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Firm Hope a Must, Says Cardinal
Pope's Encyclical "Spe Salvi" Released
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Firm hope is absolutely necessary to face the difficulties and challenges of modern life, said one of the two cardinals who presented Benedict XVI's encyclical "Spe Salvi."
Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, retired professor of New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, said this today as he and Cardinal Georges Cottier, retired theologian of the Pontifical Household, presented the Pope's encyclical in the Vatican.
Cardinal Vanhoye indicated that the Pontiff's introduction "immediately makes clear the decisive importance of hope, which is later reiterated on a number of occasions. In order to be able to face the present with all its problems and difficulties, we have an absolute need for hope and for a truly valid and firm hope."
The cardinal said that in Nos. 10-12, on the theme of eternal life, "the Holy Father uses vivid realism to explain the current mentality of many people."
"Eternal life is the subject of hope," he continued, "but many people 'today do not find the prospect of eternal life attractive. What they desire is not eternal life at all, but this present life. [...] Death, admittedly, one would wish to postpone for as long as possible. But to live always, without end -- this, all things considered, can only be monotonous and ultimately unbearable.'"
Cardinal Vanhoye explained how the second part of the encyclical describes the "settings for learning and practicing hope," and thus has a direct and tangible link to Christian life.
Three "settings" are identified: "Prayer as a school of hope. Action and suffering as settings for learning hope. Judgment as a setting for learning and practicing hope."
The 84-year-old cardinal added that the encyclical also "presents profound reflections on the terrible problem of evil and justice."
Individualism
Cardinal Cottier said, "Christian hope has been subject to ever-harsher criticisms," to the effect that "it is pure individualism: By abandoning the world to its misery, Christians allegedly take refuge in an eternal salvation which is exclusive and private."
"A question remains," said the cardinal, "a question that cannot be eluded: How did the idea arise that, with Christianity, the quest for salvation became a selfish quest that refuses service to others?"
He added that new problems "have a vital impact on the modern crisis of Christian faith and hope," and there emerges "a new form of hope which is called 'faith in progress,' oriented toward a new world, the world of the 'kingdom of man'."
"Faith in progress," Cardinal Cottier explained, "has become the ever more dominant conviction of modernity, and two categories are becoming increasingly central to the idea of progress: reason and freedom."
The 85-year-old prelate added that "reason is considered as a power of good and for good," and progress, having "overcome all forms of dependency," is "moving toward perfect freedom. In this perspective, freedom appears as a promise for the full realization of man."
After highlighting the "crisis of Christian hope in modern culture, and its replacement with faith in progress," Cardinal Cottier identified a "question that returns insistently: What may we hope?"
In this context he indicated that Nos. 22 and 23 of "Spe Salvi" are of vital importance: "They explain to us the essential objective of the encyclical from both a pastoral and a cultural standpoint."
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Only God Is Man's True Hope, Says Pontiff
Notes That Universe Is Ruled by a Person
By Carrie Gress
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 ( Zenit.org).- Man's true hope, firm in the face of all disappointments, can only be God, and that it is him, and not the laws of matter that rule the universe, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this in his encyclical "Spe Salvi" (Saved in Hope), released today. The title refers to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, 8:24: "For in hope we were saved."
"Day by day," the Holy Father explained, "man experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need for other hopes.
"When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further."
Redemption
To understand hope, the Pontiff said, one must start with an understanding of Christian salvation. Redemption "is not simply a given."
He continued: "Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: The present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads toward a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey."
Benedict XVI said that "man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of 'redemption' which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love."
The Pope added: "If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then -- only then -- is man 'redeemed,' whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances.
"It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love -- a Person.
"And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free."
"Man's great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God -- God who has loved us and who continues to love us 'to the end,' until all 'is accomplished,'" emphasized the Pontiff.
True life
"Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves," said Benedict XVI. "It is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is life itself and love itself, then we are in life. Then we 'live.'
"Our relationship with God is established through communion with Jesus -- we cannot achieve it alone or from our own resources alone."
"The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life," said the Pontiff. "We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else.
"This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope.
"His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect."
"His love," added the Holy Father, "is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: A life that is 'truly' life."
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Prayer Seen as School of Hope
Pope Offers Practical Ways to Attain Virtue
By Carrie Gress
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 ( Zenit.org).- Through prayer, we can attain the virtue of hope, and become witnesses of the theological virtue for others, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this in his encyclical "Spe Salvi" (Saved in Hope), released today, in which he offers practical ways of attaining the theological virtue. The title refers to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, 8:24: "For in hope we were saved."
"A first essential setting for learning hope is prayer," said the Holy Father.
He gave as an example the experience of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan (1928-2002), who had spent nine years in solitary confinement. "During 13 years in jail, in a situation of seemingly utter hopelessness, the fact that he could listen and speak to God became for him an increasing power of hope, which enabled him, after his release, to become for people all over the world a witness to hope -- to that great hope which does not wane even in the nights of solitude."
The Pontiff continued: "When we pray properly, we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well.
"In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God -- what is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment -- that meager, misplaced hope that leads us away from God.
"We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves."
"In this way we undergo those purifications by which we become open to God and are prepared for the service of our fellow human beings," explained Benedict XVI. "We become capable of the great hope, and thus we become ministers of hope for others."
Suffering
"We must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power," said the Holy Father, as he delved into a second method for learning hope.
"It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed," added the Pope, "but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love. Christ descended into 'Hell' and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light.
"Suffering and torment is still terrible and well-nigh unbearable. Yet the star of hope has risen -- the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God. Instead of evil being unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering -- without ceasing to be suffering -- becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise."
"In the end," he added, "even the 'yes' to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my 'I,' in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love."
But the avoidance of love also finds suffering, added the Pontiff. "When we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, [] we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater."
Last judgment
"From the earliest times, the prospect of the [Last] Judgment has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience, and at the same time as hope in God's justice," said Benedict XVI, touching on a third school of hope.
The Pope said that even though in modern society the idea of the Last Judgment has been forgotten, "God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself.
"This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: There is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh.
"There is justice. There is an 'undoing' of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright."
"For this reason," he added, "faith in the Last Judgment is first and foremost hope -- the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries."
Lights
"The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives," said the Holy Father. "They are lights of hope."
"Certainly," he added, "Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by -- people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us?"
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Pope: Christ Wills Catholic-Orthodox Unity
Sends Letter to Istanbul Patriarch on Feast of St. Andrew
ISTANBUL, Turkey, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI expressed in a letter to Patriarch Bartholomew I of Istanbul his wish that Catholic-Orthodox dialogue continues to progress toward the union that Christ himself desired.
A Vatican delegation, led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, delivered the letter to the Orthodox leader from the Pope today, on the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the ecumenical patriarch.
The aide also presented to the Orthodox patriarch a signed copy of the Pontiff's encyclical "Spe Salvi," and a reproduction of the "Mystical Lamb" from the dome of the Church of St. Vital of Ravenna, Italy.
The visit reciprocates the habitual exchange of delegations for the respective patronal feasts in which Bartholomew I sends a delegation to Rome on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and St. Paul, and the Pope sends a delegation to Istanbul on Nov. 30. Last year, the Holy Father led the delegation himself.
In the letter, Benedict XVI recalled his visit to Istanbul, and said that the practice of exchanging delegations represents an authentic sign "of the commitment of our Churches to an ever deeper communion, strengthened through cordial personal relations, prayer and the dialogue of charity and truth."
Referring to the 10th plenary session of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, held in October in Ravenna, the Pope said that even though the meeting "was not without its difficulties, I pray earnestly that these may soon be clarified and resolved, so that there may be full participation in the 11th plenary session and in subsequent initiatives aimed at continuing the theological dialogue in mutual charity and understanding."
Work in progress
He continued: "Indeed, our work toward unity is according to the will of Christ our Lord. In these early years of the third millennium, our efforts are all the more urgent because of the many challenges facing all Christians, to which we need to respond with a united voice and with conviction."
A communiqué published Thursday by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said that both Rome and Constantinople, "after dedicating themselves in many forms to the reactivation of theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches," look at the conclusions of the plenary session "with feelings of hope."
The concluding document of the meeting, it added, "can in fact encourage future dialogue, and constituted the first step toward the deepening of those painful themes which prevent full communion between Eastern and Western Christians."
Monsignor Eleuterio Fortino, undersecretary of the Christian unity council, said today in the Italian edition of L'Osservatore Romano that the Ravenna conclusions are "important because Catholics and Orthodox have agreed upon a common theological and ecclesiological platform regarding the foundation of the discussion of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome."
[Marta Lago contributed to this article]
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Meeting With NGOs Is a 1st at Vatican
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Top Vatican officials will meet with Catholic nongovernmental organizations for the first time this weekend to discuss best practices for cooperating on topics of global importance.
The Vatican reported that 85 civil society associations will take part in the encounter, organized by the Pope's Secretariat of State. According to a Vatican communiqué, the participating organizations all "have as a point of reference the evangelical teaching and social doctrine of the Church."
Nongovernmental organizations, also known as NGOs, are legally constituted entities directed by private citizens with no participation or representation of any government. They often work as advocates of social causes such as human rights, poverty and religious freedom.
The notes states that the meeting "deals with an important moment of reciprocal knowledge, as well as an outstanding occasion for promoting dialogue and cooperation of the nongovernmental organizations among themselves and with the Holy See about current global themes and about the challenges and opportunities they imply."
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's secretary of state, Archbishop Dominic Mamberti, secretary for relations with states, and Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer to the United Nations, will all address the meeting.XVI will receive the participants in audience Saturday.
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NEWS BRIEFS
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Irish Priest Named to Media Council
DUBLIN, Ireland, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI named Monsignor Paul Tighe, director of the Office for Public Affairs for the Archdiocese of Dublin, as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
The Vatican announced today that Monsignor Tighe will assume the role of deputy to the president of the council, Archbishop Claudio Celli.
Commenting on his nomination, the monsignor said, "Communication of the Gospel must be at heart of the ministry of a priest and I am pleased to be asked to work in the council that has a mandate to harness the potential of the media -- new and old -- as a means of evangelization."
A native of Navan, Ireland, Paul Tighe was ordained a priest of the Dublin Diocese in 1983. He studied moral theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and was a professor beginning in 1990 at the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin. He was appointed head of the theology department in 2000.
In 2004, he was named the director of the Communications Office of the Archdiocese of Dublin. He also instituted the Office for Public Affairs, which aids communication between the diocese, government, public bodies and nongovernmental organizations in Ireland and Europe.
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Belarusian Christians Join Forces Against AIDS
Sign Declaration of Cooperation Among Churches
By Victor Khroul
MINSK, Belarus, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Christian leaders in Belarus have joined forces to work toward preventing the spread of AIDS in the nation, which has taken the lives of 484 people in the last 20 years.
Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk-Mohilev and Orthodox Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Sluzk were among the various Christian leaders who signed on Tuesday the Declaration of Social Partnership Between the Christian Churches of Belarus on HIV/AIDS.
Before signing the declaration, the signatories prayed together and watched a documentary of the Orthodox Church on the activity of Christian Churches and communities in the struggle against AIDS.
Metropolitan Filaret spoke afterward of the necessity of unified Christian action to address current problems in society, especially among the youth. "Our aim is to warn those who do not know, and to help those who suffer," he said.
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz noted that the Catholic Church defends the dignity of every human being, "lends a helping hand to those relegated to the margins of society, it prays for them, and mercifully consoles the sick and dying."
Other signatories commented on three areas in the work against AIDS: prevention, care for the infected and accompanying the dying. They emphasized that it is important to learn how to treat with charity those who have been diagnosed with AIDS.
The director of the interfaith mission Christian Social Service, Nikolay Matrunchik, added that Christian principles must be applied in working against the advance of the virus.
He said, "The signing of this declaration demonstrates the interest of Christians in a moral societal environment."
According to the most recent official statistics in Belarus, 8,557 individuals have been tested HIV-positive, most of whom fall in the age bracket 15-29. About 484 persons have died of AIDS since 1987 in the country.
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SPIRITUALITY
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Stay Awake!
Gospel Commentary for 1st Sunday of Advent
By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap
ROME, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The first year of the three year liturgical cycle, year A, begins Sunday. Matthew's Gospel accompanies us through this year.
This Gospel is characterized by its ample reporting of Jesus' teachings -- the famous sermons, such as the Sermon on the Mount -- and its attention to the relationship between the Law and Gospel (the Gospel is the "New Law"). It is also considered the most "ecclesiastical" Gospel because of its account of the primacy of Peter and because of its use of the term "Church," which is not encountered in the other Gospels.
The statement that stands out among all others in this Gospel of the First Sunday of Advent is "Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. [] So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." We ask ourselves why God would keep hidden something so important as the hour of his coming, which, for each of us, coincides with the hour of death.
The traditional answer is: "So that we will be vigilant, each one of us supposing that it will happen in his days" (St. Ephrem the Syrian). But the principal reason is that God knows us; he knows what terrible anxiety it would be for us to know beforehand the exact hour and to await its slow, inexorable coming. It is that which causes the most fear in regard to certain illnesses.
Today there are more people that die of unforeseen heart problems than those who die of incurable illnesses. But the latter cause more fear because they seem to take away the uncertainty that allows us to hope.
The uncertainty of the hour should not cause us to be careless but to be vigilant. If the liturgical year is at its start, the civil year is at its end. This is an optimal occasion for a sapiential reflection on the meaning of our existence. In autumn, nature itself invites us to reflect on time that passes. That which the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti said of the soldiers in the trenches on the Carso front in the First World War holds for all men: "They are on the trees as leaves in autumn." They are ready to fall at any moment. "Time passes," said our Dante Alighieri, "and man pays no attention."
An ancient philosopher expressed this fundamental experience with a celebrated phrase: "Everything is in flux." Life is like a television screen. The screen is a kind of palimpsest, one program follows and erases the previous one. The screen is the same but the images change. This is how it is with us: The world remains, but we come and go, one after the other. Of all the names, the faces, the news that fills the papers and television today -- of me, of you, of all of us -- what will remain in a few years or a decade? Nothing of nothing. Man is nothing but "a design created by a wave on the sand, which the next wave will wash away."
Let us see what faith has to tell us about this fact that everything passes. "Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever" (1 John 2:17). There is someone who does not pass, God, and there is also a way for us not to completely disappear: Do God's will, that is, believe and follow God. In this life we are like a raft carried along by the current of a roaring river headed for the open sea, from which there is no return.
At a certain point the raft comes near to the bank. It is now or never and you leap onto the shore. What a relief when you feel the rock under your feet! This is the sensation often felt by those who come to the faith. We might recall at the end of this reflection the words left by St. Teresa of Avila as a kind of spiritual testament: "Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God alone remains."
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
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Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44.
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DOCUMENTS
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Benedict XVI's Letter to Bartholomew I
"Our Work Toward Unity Is According to the Will of Christ Our Lord"
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the message Benedict XVI sent to Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, patron of the ecumenical patriarchate. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, delivered the letter to the patriarch today.
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To His Holiness Bartholomaios I
Archbishop of Constantinople
Ecumenical Patriarch
The feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, brother of Peter and Patron of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, gives me the opportunity to convey to Your Holiness my prayerful good wishes for an abundance of spiritual gifts and divine blessings.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice
(Phil 4:4)
These words of Saint Paul inspire us to share our joy on this happy occasion. The feast of Saint Andrew, like that of Saints Peter and Paul, has enabled us each year to express our common apostolic faith, our union in prayer and our joint commitment to reinforce the communion between us. A delegation from the Holy See, led by my venerable brother Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, will attend the solemn Divine Liturgy presided over by Your Holiness together with members of the Holy Synod. In my heart I vividly recall my personal participation last year in the celebration of this feast at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and I remember with deep gratitude the warm welcome extended to me on that occasion. That encounter, the presence of my delegate this year at the Phanar, as well as the visit from a delegation of the See of Constantinople for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome, all represent authentic signs of the commitment
of our Churches to an ever deeper communion, strengthened through cordial personal relations, prayer and the dialogue of charity and truth.
This year we thank God in particular for the meeting of the Joint Commission which took place in Ravenna, a city whose monuments speak eloquently of the ancient Byzantine heritage handed down to us from the undivided Church of the first millennium. May the splendour of those mosaics inspire all the members of the Joint Commission to pursue their important task with renewed determination, in fidelity to the Gospel and to Tradition, ever alert to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the Church today.
While the meeting in Ravenna was not without its difficulties, I pray earnestly that these may soon be clarified and resolved, so that there may be full participation in the Eleventh Plenary Session and in subsequent initiatives aimed at continuing the theological dialogue in mutual charity and understanding. Indeed, our work towards unity is according to the will of Christ our Lord. In these early years of the third millennium, our efforts are all the more urgent because of the many challenges facing all Christians, to which we need to respond with a united voice and with conviction.
I therefore wish to assure you once more of the Catholic Church commitment to nurture fraternal ecclesial relations and to persevere in our theological dialogue, in order to draw closer to full communion, as stated in our Common Declaration issued last year at the conclusion of my visit to Your Holiness.
Once again we take our inspiration from Saint Paul words to the Christians of Philippi, with which he urges them to seek perfection through the imitation of Christ, and reminds them to old true to what we have attained (Phil 3:16).
With these sentiments of fraternal affection in the Lord, I embrace Your Holiness and all the members of the Holy Synod. I greet also the Orthodox faithful, praying that the peace and the grace of the Lord may be with you all.
From the Vatican, 23 November 2007
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
[Original text: English]
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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Message To Readers
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New Encyclical on Hope
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's encyclical "Spe Salvi" (Saved in Hope) can be found at the ZENIT Web page. The document was released today by the Vatican. See: www.zenit.org/article-21152?l=english.
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