VATICAN CITY, SEP 11, 2004 (VIS) - This evening Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, participated in the Second Day of Interdependence, organized by the city of Rome in Capitoline Square. The theme of the event was "In Memory of September 11 - Dialogue for Peace."
Cardinal Poupard said that he was "deeply moved" to participate in an event that "brings us together in the name of dialogue for peace … in memory of September 11, a date that tragically marked our memory and continues to mark our memory and our common history."
"September 11," he said, "represents the beginning of a new phase of cruelty and lack of humanity, characterized by the killing of innocent people. We were all horrified by the images of the children in Beslan. … It seems that humanity has regressed by centuries or millennia in recent months and days."
After recalling the kidnapping of two young Italian volunteers in Baghdad, which "like that of so many other civilians, has no justification," he said: "We cannot accept this regression of humanity on the part of these cruel and heartless people, for whom men and women do not exist but are only objects to use and to kill without any respect for the sacred nature of human life. We cannot become accustomed to this way of living, to this loss of the meaning of human life, of its sacredness and intangible nature."
"This evening," he concluded, "we want to reaffirm that cooperation among peoples, religions and cultures is not just a secondary decision but a pressing urgency, a true necessity: we are all called to work together as a human family to achieve world peace."
…/PEACE:SEPTEMBER 11/POUPARD VIS 20040913 (300)
No comments:
Post a Comment