Losing sight of God, man heads for destruction, Pope reminds Italian bishops

December 11, 2009

In a message to the Italian bishops’ conference, which is meeting this week, Pope Benedict XVI said that “the relationship with God is essential for the journey of humankind.” In his message—which was addressed to Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, the president of the Italian episcopal conference—the Pope stressed the importance of the Church’s public voice at a time when “there is a growing tendency to relegate God to the private sphere, to consider Him as irrelevant and superfluous or even to reject Him explicitly.” Recent history demonstrates, the Pope continued, that “when God disappears from man's horizon, humankind loses its sense of direction and risks taking steps towards its own destruction.”

 

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Further information:

• The Issue of God is Central in our Time (VIS)