Vatican City, Feb 5, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Addressing members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope John Paul said today that Catholics must accept and practice the fullness of Catholic Doctrine.
Speaking to the participants of the Congregation’s biennial plenary assembly the Pontiff noted that it is their “delicate duty to promote and defend the truth of the Catholic faith in service to the Magisterium of the Successor of Peter,” and for this reason, their mission is “eminently pastoral.”
“Today's cultural context,” affirmed the Pope, “which is marked by both a widespread relativism and the tendency to a facile pragmaticism, demands more than ever a courageous proclamation of the truth that saves man and a renewed evangelizing impetus.”
He added that “full adherence to the Catholic truth does not diminish, but rather exalts human freedom and draws it towards its fulfillment, in a love that is free and filled with concern for the good of all men.”