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Skriven 2007-06-05 07:03:04 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45)
Ärende: Vatican Information Service (Press Release)
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                               VIS-Press releases

PONTIFICAL REPRESENTATIVES: ALWAYS REMAIN PASTORS

VATICAN CITY, JUN 2, 2007 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican, the Pope
received students from the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. They were
accompanied by Archbishop Justo Mullor Garcia, president of the academy, which
trains candidates for the Holy See diplomatic service.

The Holy Father thanked Archbishop Mullor for his congratulations for his
recently-published book "Jesus of Nazareth." That work, the Pope said, "is the
fruit of my personal search for the face of Christ" adding that the
archbishop's words "show that the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy rightly
considers the longing for an ever better knowledge of the Lord as a fundamental
value for people who, like you, are called to a special collaboration with
Peter's Successor in the diplomatic service."

"Witnesses to the Gospel are called to remain faithful in all circumstances to
the mission entrusted to them," said the Holy Father. "For you this means, in
the first place, a deep personal experience of the incarnate God, an intimate
friendship with Jesus in Whose name the Church sends you out for a special
apostolic task. You know that Christian faith can never be reduced to mere
intellectual knowledge of Christ and His doctrine; it must also be expressed in
the imitation of the example Christ gave us as Son of the Father and as Son of
man." Those who collaborate with the Pope are called to be "true pastors,
willing, like Jesus the Good Shepherd, to give their lives for their flock."

Benedict XVI encouraged the future pontifical representatives always to
cultivate the desire "to be pastors alongside the other pastors of the Church,"
before being "promoters of dialogue and creators of fruitful relationships with
civil authorities, as the Catholic tradition requires." Thus, he explained,
"those who come to know you will always discover the priest within you.

"In this way," he added, "everyone will be able to recognize the atypical
nature of pontifical diplomacy, a diplomacy which, ... far from defending
material interests or partial conceptions of mankind, promotes values that flow
from the Gospel, as an expression of the exalted ideals proclaimed by Jesus,
the one and universal Savior. Moreover these values are shared, to no small
degree, by other religions and other cultures."

The Pope concluded by telling the students of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical
Academy: "The more faithfully you adhere to your priestly duties, the better
will you be able to serve men and women, the more fruitful will your dialogue
with them be, the more attainable will the peace you propose in situations of
tension and conflict appear, and the greater will be the comfort you offer in
the name of Christ and His Church to the suffering and defenseless."
AC/PONTIFICAL ECCLESIASTICAL ACADEMY/MULLORVIS 070604 (460)

SUMMARY

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