Vatican City, May 21, 2006 / 22:00 pm
At midday today, Benedict XVI received male and female superiors general from institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life, calling them for a renewd faithfulness to the call of the Spirit.
The Pope affirmed that "the service of authority calls for a constant presence, one capable of offering encouragement and proposals, of recalling the raison d'etre of consecrated life, and of helping the people entrusted to your care to respond with ever- renewed faithfulness to the call of the Spirit."
"You are called," he said, "to support and guide your brothers and sisters during uneasy times characterized by multiple snares. Consecrated people today have the task of being witnesses to the transfiguring presence of God in an ever more disoriented and confused world."
"Secularized culture has penetrated the hearts and minds of no small number of consecrated people, who see it as a form of access to modernity and a way to approach the modern world," the Holy Father pointed out how "alongside an undoubted impulse of generosity - one capable of witness and of complete donation - consecrated life today also knows the trap of mediocrity and of consumer mentality."