Help neighbors come to know Jesus, Pope urges

March 01, 2012

In a message to a conference organized by the Italian bishops’ conference, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that Christians have an obligation to help people understand “the real figure of Jesus Christ.”

The Pope explained that many people, including non-believers, have a keen interest in the historic figure of Jesus. The faithful should help them to deepen that interest, he said. That help should be based on “the hermeneutic of faith, placed in a fruitful relationship with historic reason,” he added. The public interest in Jesus is natural, the Pope said, because Jesus is the key to understanding the human condition and the answer to religious longing. “We cannot entrust our lives to an indefinite superior body or to a cosmic force,” the Pope wrote, “ but to God whose face as Father has been made familiar by the Son.”

The Pope’s sent his message in written form to Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, the president of the Italian bishops’ conference. Pope Benedict is making his Lenten Retreat this week, and has not held public or private audiences.

 

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Further information:

• Jesus, Our Contemporary (VIS)