J.M.J. On Wednesday, September 30th, Pope Francis offered, during his General Audience, the following summary of his visit to the United States of America. We present the following, courtesy of the Website of the Holy See (www.vatican.va).
"In the United States I made three stops: Washington, New York and Philadelphia.
"In Washington I met with the political authorities, the
public, bishops, priests and consecrated men and women, the very poor
and the marginalized. I reminded them that the greatest wealth of that
land and of its people lies in its spiritual and ethical heritage. And
thus I sought to encourage them to pursue the building of society in
fidelity to their fundamental principle, namely, that all men were
created equal by God and endowed with the inalienable rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These values, shared by all, find
their fulfillment in the Gospel, as was clearly shown at the
Canonization of Franciscan Fr. JunÃpero Serra, the great evangelizer of
California. St. JunÃpero shows us the path of joy: to go forward and
share with others the love of Christ. This is the way of the Christian,
as well as of every man or woman who has known love: not to keep it to
oneself but to share it with others. It was on this religious and moral
foundation that the United States of America was born and grew, and it
is on this foundation that it can continue to be a land of liberty and
welcome and that it can work towards a more just and fraternal world.
"In New York I was able to visit the Central Headquarters
of the United Nations and to greet the personnel who work there. I
conversed with the Secretary-General and the Presidents of recent
General Assemblies and of the Security Council. Speaking to
Representatives of the Nations, following in the footsteps of my
Predecessors, I renewed the Catholic Church’s encouragement for that
Institution and for its role in the promotion of development and peace,
reminding them in particular of the necessity of unanimous and effective
commitment to the care of creation. I repeated my appeal to stop and to
prevent violence against ethnic and religious minorities and against
civilian populations.
"It was for peace and brotherhood that we prayed at the
Ground Zero Memorial, together with religious leaders, relatives of the
many victims and the people of New York, which is so rich in cultural
variety. And it was for peace and justice that I celebrated the
Eucharist in Madison Square Garden.
"Both in Washington and in New York I was able to
encounter representatives of charitable and educational outreaches,
emblematic of the enormous service that the Catholic community —
priests, religious, lay people — offer in these fields.
"The journey culminated in the Meeting of Families in
Philadelphia, where the horizon expanded to the whole world, through the 'prism', so to speak, of the family. The family, the fruitful covenant
between man and woman, is the answer to the great challenge of our
world. That challenge is two-fold: fragmentation and standardization,
two extremes that coexist and foster each other, and together they
support the economic model of consumerism. The family is the answer
because it is the cell of a society that balances the personal and the
communal dimensions, and that at the same time can be the model for the
sustainable management of the goods and resources of creation. The
family is the principal agent of an integral ecology, because it is the
primary social agent, which contains within it the two foundational principles of human civilization on the earth: the principle of communion and the principle of fruitfulness.
The humanism of the Bible presents this icon: the human couple, united
and fruitful, placed by God in the garden of world, to cultivate it and
to guard it.
"I would like to address a warm and brotherly ‘thank you’
to Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia, for his commitment, his piety,
his enthusiasm and his great love for the family in the organization of
this event. Clearly, it is not accidental but providential that the
message, indeed the testimony of the World Meeting of Families came at
this time to the United States of America, that is, to the country that
in the past century has reached the heights of economic and
technological development without denying its religious roots. Now these
same roots ask to spring anew from the family in order to re-conceive
and to change the model of development, for the good of the entire human
family."
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