Vatican City, Apr 15, 2010 / 14:54 pm
"We must obey God instead of men," said the Holy Father in a memorable address to members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission at Mass on Thursday. During the course of the homily he also spoke of the "attacks of the world," a phrase that was interpreted by some news reports as the recent sex abuse scandals. Pope Benedict said that Catholics must respond to attacks by doing acts of penance.
"Obedience to God has primacy," Pope Benedict XVI began his homily, which he delivered without prepared remarks. The Holy Father told members of the commission gathered in the Pauline Chapel for a Mass to mark the beginning of the Biblical Commission's full assembly on Thursday morning.
Obedience to God makes us free, he said, while the the idea of being "free, autonomous and nothing else," and supposedly free from obedience to God "is a lie."
Being free from obedience to God is an "ontological falsehood, because man doesn't exist of himself and for himself," the Pope said, adding that "it's a political and practical falsehood, because collaboration and sharing of liberties is necessary ..."