Christians asked by Pope to renounce power and wealth
-01/06/05
Christians are called to renounce power and wealth and should choose instead to serve others with Christ’s humility, Pope Benedict XVI told his weekly general audience today.
Some 23,000 pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square to greet the new Pope, reports the US-based Catholic News Service.
He focussed his weekly catechesis [teaching] on the second chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, in which the apostle invites Christians to “have among yourselves the same attitude” that Jesus Christ had, such as “humility, selflessness, detachment and generosity.”
Even though Christ was equal to God, he did not exploit his power and use it “as an instrument of triumph, sign of distance or expression of crushing supremacy,” Benedict said. “Just the opposite he emptied himself, immersing himself without hesitation” in the “fragile reality” of the human condition.
“To have the same attitude as Jesus means not to consider power, wealth [and] prestige as the highest values in our lives,” the Pope declared in remarks apart from his written text, says reporter Carol Glatz.
To live as Christians, people should make it their “daily exercise” to open their hearts to others, “carry the weight of life” for others and “open our hearts and obey God, which will make us free,” he continued.
Among the hundreds of groups who attended the 1 June general audience was one from the Cathedral Parish of Nagasaki, Japan. Around 150,000 Nagasaki residents were killed or injured by the radioactive blast from an atomic bomb dropped on the city by the US on 9 August 1945.
Before he was elected as Pope, Benedict XVI served (as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger) as head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vaticanís orthodoxy watchdog.
Benedictís record is therefore that of a strict conservative, but both admirers and detractors have been surprised at the openness of many of his initial statements in his pontifical role.
Pope Benedictís latest pronouncement ahead of the G8 summit, where campaigners will lobby for a shift in the balance of global wealth towards the poor, will be welcomed by radical Christians.
But some are likely to point to the apparent contradiction of it coming from the head of one of the worldís richest and most powerful institutions.
Christians asked by Pope to renounce power and wealth
-01/06/05
Christians are called to renounce power and wealth and should choose instead to serve others with Christ’s humility, Pope Benedict XVI told his weekly general audience today.
Some 23,000 pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square to greet the new Pope, reports the US-based Catholic News Service.
He focussed his weekly catechesis [teaching] on the second chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, in which the apostle invites Christians to “have among yourselves the same attitude” that Jesus Christ had, such as “humility, selflessness, detachment and generosity.”
Even though Christ was equal to God, he did not exploit his power and use it “as an instrument of triumph, sign of distance or expression of crushing supremacy,” Benedict said. “Just the opposite he emptied himself, immersing himself without hesitation” in the “fragile reality” of the human condition.
“To have the same attitude as Jesus means not to consider power, wealth [and] prestige as the highest values in our lives,” the Pope declared in remarks apart from his written text, says reporter Carol Glatz.
To live as Christians, people should make it their “daily exercise” to open their hearts to others, “carry the weight of life” for others and “open our hearts and obey God, which will make us free,” he continued.
Among the hundreds of groups who attended the 1 June general audience was one from the Cathedral Parish of Nagasaki, Japan. Around 150,000 Nagasaki residents were killed or injured by the radioactive blast from an atomic bomb dropped on the city by the US on 9 August 1945.
Before he was elected as Pope, Benedict XVI served (as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger) as head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s orthodoxy watchdog.
Benedict’s record is therefore that of a strict conservative, but both admirers and detractors have been surprised at the openness of many of his initial statements in his pontifical role.
Pope Benedict’s latest pronouncement ahead of the G8 summit, where campaigners will lobby for a shift in the balance of global wealth towards the poor, will be welcomed by radical Christians.
But some are likely to point to the apparent contradiction of it coming from the head of one of the world’s richest and most powerful institutions.