Vatican City, Mar 15, 2010 / 08:45 am
Meeting with Sudanese bishops on Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI urged them to always look to the Gospel for the principles necessary "to shape your preaching and teaching, your judgments and actions" in working to help restore peace.
Several bishops from Sudan were in Rome last week for their periodic "ad Limina apostolorum" visit.
In his audience with them at the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father emphasized the importance of peace throughout his address.
"If peace is to plant deep roots," he said, "concrete efforts must be made to diminish the factors contributing to unrest, particularly corruption, ethnic tensions, indifference and selfishness." He added that if the bishops base their initiatives on "integrity, a sense of universal brotherhood and the virtues of justice, responsibility and charity," they will "surely be fruitful."
Noting "the exercise of mature and morally upright leadership" is fundamental to the process, Benedict XVI urged the bishops to implore "a change of heart" in the Sudanese people as a gift of the grace of God, so that the effects of violence can be healed and a "just and lasting peace" can be achieved.