Deus Caritas Est and Life
P.I.M.E. Asia News - Italy has posted its article on today's messages by Pope Benedict XVI. The two messages today include a morning message at the Parish of St. Anna (a church at the Vatican) and the Angelus message. The occasion was Italy's Day for Life, and a crowd of more than 40,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Angelus, a large crowd for winter.
Benedict XVI's statements cited two Encyclicals and a document from Vatican II in favor of right to life issues, discussed in these excerpts from the Asia News article:
"In his proclamation of the right to life, which entails respect for human life in each of it’s phases, Pope Benedict made reference to two encyclicals: Evangelium vitae, by John Paul II, defined “a milestone in Church ministry” and his own Deus caritas est, underlining “the importance of charity in supporting and promoting human life. On this issue – he added – it is fundamental to promote just behaviour towards each other, before taking practical initiatives: the culture of life is in fact based on our care for one another privy of exclusion or discrimination. Each human life, such as it is – he underlined – deserves and demands that it be protected and promoted. we know only too well, he said, that this truth is often put at risk by today’s widespread hedonism, our pursuit of a so-called society of well being. . . .
"We notice that while there is a in general an ample convergence on the value of life, when the “availability” of life is under discussion the two mentalities are irreconcilably opposed. . . . But, as Vatican II clearly stated if this leads to the opinion that “all things created do not depend on God and that man can adapt them with out reference to the creator”, then, the origins for profound instability are laid.
"Because 'the creature without the creator vanishes' (Gaudium et Spes, 36)."
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