Build a culture of life and love, Pope urges people of northeastern Italy

May 09, 2011

On Saturday, May 7, Pope Benedict XVI flew from Rome to Aquileia, Italy, for the first stop in a weekend trip that would later take him to Venice. (See today’s separate CWN headline story for an account of the Pope’s visit to Venice.)

Aquileia, in northeastern Italy on the Adriatic Sea, is a historic port of the Roman empire. The basilica there was the mother church of the region, connecting Italy with the Germanic and Slavic worlds. In his public remarks there, the Pope alluded to that “rich and ancient tradition,” encouraging the inhabitants to preserve it today.

The Pope spoke of the dangers posed by “widespreadh materialism and predominant subjectivism,” and asked the people of today’s Aquileia to imitate their forefathers “through the explicit proclamation of the Gospel.” He told them: “From faith lived courageously arises-- today as in the past-- a fertile culture of love for life, from its conception to its natural end, for the promotion of human dignity, for the exaltation of the importance of the family based on faithful marriage and openness to life, and for a commitment to justice and solidarity.”

 

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Further information:

• Witnessing to Love of God for Humanity (VIS)
• A lasting legacy (Vatican Radio)