Statement on the Election of Pope Benedict XVI
Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests
for Life, issued the following statement on the selection of Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI:
"Priests for Life is delighted at the election of
Pope Benedict XVI. For decades, he has been a strong voice in favor of life,
clearly articulating the Church's teachings. In particular, he has explained how
the Church must be the conscience of the state (see below). We look forward to
working together with and under the leadership of the new Pope to advance the
Culture of Life."
The following is an excerpt from a report Cardinal Ratzinger
made on the occasion of the 1991 Conclave of
Cardinals which formed the basis for Pope John Paul II's document
Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life):
"...[A] State which arrogates to itself the prerogative of
defining which human beings are or are not the subject of rights, and which
consequently grants to some the power to violate others' fundamental right to
life, contradicts the democratic ideal to which it continues to appeal and
undermines the very foundations on which it is built. By allowing the rights of
the weakest to be violated, the State also allows the law of force to prevail
over the force of law. One sees, then, that the idea of an absolute tolerance of
freedom of choice for some destroys the very foundation of a just mode of social
life. The separation of politics from any natural content of law, which is the
inalienable patrimony of everyone's moral conscience, deprives social life of
its ethical substance and leaves it defenseless before the will of the
strongest."
(April 4-7, 1991, Consistory of Cardinals, "The Problem of Threats to Human
Life.")
Send a word
of congratulations to the new Pope!
Click here for Fr.
Frank's reflection on the new Pope.
Click here to
see the new Pope's first words of greeting to the world.
The first
message of Pope Benedict XVI delivered in Latin at the end of Mass with the
members of the College of Cardinals
Selected writings from
Cardinal Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVI.
More letters,
addresses and homilies of our Holy Fathers.
