PROMOTE AND SPREAD THE CHURCH'S SOCIAL DOCTRINE

VATICAN CITY, JUL 5, 2003 (VIS) - Pope John Paul's Message for the 10th anniversary of the institution of the "Centesimus Annus-Pro Pontifice" Foundation was made public today and given to members during a meeting in the Vatican with the Pope.

The Pope notes that this foundation "represents the singular answer to the invitation I made in the Encyclical that inspired it to promote and spread the awareness and practice of the Church's social doctrine. ... Your institution intends to weave together the commitment to spread the Church's teaching on social questions ... with the concrete help offered to the Pope for charitable acts that he is constantly asked for from throughout the world and to support the instruments he uses for his universal ministry."

Encouraging the members in this commitment, the Holy Father urges them "to always bear in mind three great convictions: the permanent actuality of the Church's social doctrine; ... the responsibility proper to Christian lay people; ... the awareness that only new men and women can renew all things."

On the permanent actuality of the Church's social doctrine, he writes: "The dramatic events that trouble the modern world and the deplorable conditions of underdevelopment in which too many countries still live, ... tell us that we must start again from a just perspective: the truth about man discovered by reason and confirmed by the Gospel of Jesus that proclaims and promotes the true dignity and inherent social vocation of the person."

The Holy Father points out that Vatican Council II, in "Gaudium et Spes," spoke of the precise duty of the laity in this mission which can be the source of "commitment, direction, and vigor to establish and consolidate the community of men according to the law of God."

The Message concludes: "The social commitment of lay Christians can be nourished and made coherent, tenacious and courageous only by a deep spirituality, that is, by a life of intimate union with Christ Who makes them capable of expressing the great theological virtues - faith, hope and charity - through the exercise of the difficult responsibility of building a society closer to the great providential plan of God."

MESS;CENTESIMUS ANNUS FOUNDATION;...;...;VIS;20030707;Word: 360;