Rimini, Italy, Aug 20, 2012 / 13:10 pm
Pope Benedict welcomed the 33rd Rimini Meeting, an annual gathering organized by the lay Catholic movement Communion and Liberation, by examining mankind's relation to the infinite.
"To discuss the subject of man and his yearning for the infinite means first and foremost recognizing his constitutive relationship with the Creator. Man is a creature of God," the Pope said in a letter for the start of the Aug. 19-25 gathering.
"Today," he said, "this word – creature– seems to be out of fashion: it would be more likely to think of man as a self-fulfilled being and master of his own destiny."
But this worldview still means that man "attempts to grasp the Infinite." He does so by choosing "incorrect methods" such as "drugs, disordered sexuality, technologies that devour man, success at any price and with misleading forms of religiosity," Pope Benedict observed.