Paris, France, Jul 20, 2009 / 16:25 pm
During the presentation of Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical Caritas in Veritate to politicians, union leaders and other French officials, the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vignt-Trois, said the letter is a “formidable message of hope” from the Holy Father to all humanity.
During a speech at the Bernandins School, the cardinal said the Pope’s message “affirms that humanity has the mission and the possibility to dominate the world in which it lives,” and that beyond just being subject to things as they are, humanity “can transform this world” and “bring about progress in human relations through justice and love.”
The cardinal also explained that Pope Benedict’s encyclical stands out for the multiplicity of arguments it confronts and its general perspective on the responsibility all people have in social and economic activity.
He added that the encyclical “begins from a fundamental principle of the Church’s social doctrine: ‘for all of man and for all men.”