CARDINAL SARAH VISITS SYRIAN REFUGEES IN JORDAN

Vatican City, 19 February 2013 (VIS) - Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum" and Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, secretary of that dicastery, are in Jordan from today until Thursday, 21 February, to participate in the regional conference of Caritas in the Middle East, North Africa, and Horn of Africa, which is taking place in that country.

The forum is a very important opportunity to take stock of the humanitarian aid provided by Catholic charities, including Caritas, to refugees and victims of violent conflict in Syria since representatives of all the Caritas organizations of that region, as well as representatives of the local churches, will be present.

"The humanitarian situation in Syria, and throughout the region," a press release from Cor Unum states, "is unsustainable. Some estimates speak of a million refugees, more than two and a half million displaced persons, and almost one hundred thousand deaths directly attributable to violence. There are countless others, whose numbers cannot be quantified, indirectly caused by the general impoverishment of the population, caused mainly by war. The harsh winter is further contributing to this sad situation of suffering of an exhausted people, especially the weakest and most vulnerable on the fringes of society."

During their trip Cardinal Sarah and Msgr. Del Toso will visit centres housing numerous persons who have escaped the fighting in Syria. The visit with the refugees will be organized by Caritas Jordan along with other Catholic charities that deal with humanitarian assistance and intervention. A meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan is also planned for the prelates.

CARDINAL SARAH: FAITH AND CHARITY ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

Vatican City, 1 February 2013 (VIS) – The Holy Father's Lenten Message for 2013 was presented this morning in the Press Office of the Holy See. It is entitled: Believing in Charity Calls Forth Charity ― "We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us," (1Jn 4:16). Participating in the press conference were: Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum"; Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso and Msgr. Segundo Tejado Munoz, respectively secretary and undersecretary of that dicastery; and Dr. Michael Thio, president general of the International Confederation-Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

"This year," Cardinal Sarah said, "the theme of the message focuses on the compelling relationship between faith and charity … between believing in God, the God revealed by Jesus Christ, and the charity that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and that leads us to the horizon of a deeper openness to God and neighbour. … If we talk about the connection between faith and charity we are referring to, at least, two dimensions. Firstly, there can be no true faith without action: whoever believes must learn to give of themselves to others. Secondly, charity calls forth faith, which therefore makes it witness."

Introduced during this Year of Faith, the Lenten Message is "a valuable opportunity to keep this bond between all the faithful alive. In this sense, it is a propitious moment, since we are preparing for Easter, that is, to celebrate the event that Christians recognize as the source of charity: Christ who dies and is resurrected out of love. … Lent is always an opportune time for opening … our hearts to our brothers and sisters who are most in need, sharing what we have with them. In this particular historical moment, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of an informed and documented charity that is attentive to the many areas of poverty, misery, and suffering: from the increase in number and scale of natural disasters, which are not without human responsibility, ... to the escalation of violent conflicts, often forgotten by the media; the worsening of living conditions for many families, also a consequence of the economic and financial crisis that affects so many countries in Europe and around the world; the increase in unemployment, particularly among young adults; and the situations where jobs exist, but the workers are exploited, underpaid and without the minimum security that guarantees the dignity of work itself and consequently, therefore, of the dignity of the human person."

"The centre of this Lenten Message," the cardinal reiterated, "is certainly the indissoluble interrelation of faith and charity. … 'We can never separate, let alone oppose, faith and charity.' However, this separation or opposition can take different forms. … It is a misunderstanding to emphasize the faith, and the liturgy as its privileged channel, so strongly as to forget that they are intended for actual persons who have their own needs―human as they may be―their own history, their own relationships. This becomes so convenient for so many of us―inside and outside of church, which is fragrant with candles, busy putting the sacristy in order, concentrating on abstract theological discussions and clerical disputes―to overlook persons in their totality, the whole person to whom Christ calls."

"Another misconception is thinking that the Church is some kind of great act of philanthropy or solidarity that is purely human, in which social commitment is a priority, or that what is important is the promotion of a humanity that has culture and enough to eat." Such a misunderstanding extends to thinking that "the Church's main task is to build a just and equitable society, forgetting our need for God that lies at the heart of our very being."

"A further misconception is to divide the Church into a 'good Church'―the one of charitable action―and a 'bad Church'―the one that insists on the truth, that defends and protects human live and the universal moral values." Such a misunderstanding proposes that "the Church is fine when taking care of the sick, but it does less well when exercising the duty of raising awareness."

"Faith and charity go together, which is why the Gospel and action go together. What holds as true in personal experience also applies to the Church as a community. … On the one hand, a life based solely on faith runs the risk of sinking into a banal sentimentality that reduces our relationship with God to mere consolation. On the other hand, a charity that kneels in adoration of God without taking into account the source from which it springs and to which every good deed must be directed, is likely to be reduced to mere philanthropy, to mere 'moral activism'. In our lives, therefore, we are called to keep the 'knowing' of truth and the 'walking' in truth united."

"This is why I believe this Message is so timely," Cardinal Sarah concluded. "Not only because it falls during the Year of Faith and therefore in this context we do well to remember that faith and charity are the two faces of the same coin, that is, our belonging to Christ. But is timely because in this phase of history, when humanity struggles to recognize itself and to find a path to the future, the Pope's words present a unified proposal, a way of life in which accepting God engenders acceptance of others in all their dimensions, expressions, and needs. The Church can thus be the beacon of a renewed humanity and contribute to the coming of the 'Civilization of Love'."

CHARITY, CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY, AND NEW GLOBAL ETHICS

Vatican City, 19 January 2013 (VIS) – This morning Benedict XVI received participants in the plenary session of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum including the council's president, Cardinal Robert Sarah. The theme of this year's meeting is “Charity, Christian Anthropology, and Global Ethics". Following are ample excerpts from the address given by the Holy Father.

"All of Christian ethics receives its meaning from faith as an 'encounter' with Christ's love, which offers a new horizon and a decisive orientation to life. … Trusting obedience to the Gospel gives charity its typically Christian expression and constitutes its principle of discernment. Christians, especially those who work for charitable organizations, should be guided by the principles of the faith in which we can abide by 'God's point of view', by His plan for us. This new view of the world and of humanity that faith offers provides the proper criteria for evaluating charitable expressions in the current situation."

"In every age that humanity did not seek God's plan it became the victim of cultural temptations that wound up enslaving it. In recent centuries, the ideologies that celebrated a cult of nationality, of race, or of social class have proven to be idolatries. The same can be said of unbridled capitalism with its cult of profit, which has resulted in crises, inequality, and poverty. More and more today, we share a common feeling regarding the inalienable dignity of every human being and the reciprocal and interdependent responsibility toward one another and therefore to the benefit of true civilization, a civilization of love."

"On the other hand, unfortunately, our time knows shadows that obscure God's plan. I'm referring particularly to that tragic anthropological reduction that reproposes an ancient hedonistic materialism, to which, however, is added a 'technological Promethanism'. From the union between a materialistic view of humanity and the great development in technology emerges an anthropology that is atheistic at heart. It presupposes that human beings are reduced to autonomous functions: the mind to the brain, human history to a destiny of self-realization. All of this disregards God, disregards our properly spiritual dimension and our more-than-earthly horizon."

"From the perspective of a humanity deprived of its soul and therefore deprived of a personal relationship with the Creator, what is technologically possible becomes morally licit, every experiment is acceptable, every population policy is permitted, every manipulation is legitimized. The most dangerous pitfall of this line of thought is, in fact, humanity's absolutization: human beings want to be 'ab-solutus', released from every tie and every natural constitution."

“Faith and healthy Christian discernment lead us, therefore, to pay prophetic attention to this ethical problematic and to the mentality underlying it. The proper collaboration with international bodies in the areas of human development and promotion shouldn’t close our eyes to these serious ideologies. The pastors of the Church … have the duty of warning faithful Catholics, as well as every person of good will and right reason, against these tendencies.”

“It is, in fact, a negative tendency for humanity, even if disguised with good intentions, as a teaching of alleged progress, or alleged rights, or an alleged humanism. In the face of this anthropological reduction, what duty falls to each Christian, and particularly to you, who are engaged in charitable activity and thus have a direct relationship with many other social actors? Certainly we must exercise a critical vigilance and at times refuse funding and collaborations that, directly or indirectly, favour actions or projects that are at odds with Christian anthropology.”

“Positively, however, the Church has always been committed to promoting humanity according to God’s plan, in its full dignity, in respect of its both vertical and horizontal dimension. This is also what ecclesial organizations work to develop. The Christian vision of humanity, in fact, is a great ‘yes’ to the dignity of the person, who is called to an intimate communion with God, a filial, humble, and confident communion. The human being is neither an isolated individual nor an anonymous element of a collective but rather a singular and unique person, intrinsically ordered to relationship and socialness. The Church, therefore, reaffirms its great ‘yes’ to the dignity and beauty of marriage as the expression of faithful and fruitful covenant between a man and a woman, and its ‘no’ to philosophies such as gender philosophies is based on the fact that the reciprocity between male and female is an expression of the beauty of nature willed by the Creator.”

"Faced with these critical challenges, we know that the answer is the encounter with Christ. In Him, human beings can fully realize their personal good and the common good."