IN BRIEF

BENEDICT XVI WROTE A MESSAGE to participants in a Conference at Rome's Pontifical Lateran University, called to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (Basel 1905 - Lucerne 1988). "I can testify," the Holy Father writes in his Message, "that his life was a genuine search for the truth, which he understood as being a search for the true Life. He sought traces of the presence of God and of His truth everywhere: in philosophy, literature and religions; and he always managed to break those circuits that often make reason a prisoner of itself, opening it onto the vast expanses of infinity."

CARDINAL JAVIER LOZANO BARRAGAN, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, has released a note for Mental Health Day, which is celebrated on October 10. He observes that the Catholic Church and religious institutions that help the mentally infirm and their families show with their activity "that mental illness does not create insuperable barriers, nor does it prevent relationships of true Christian charity with those who are victims thereof."
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