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October 2007 VOICE OF SHALOM |
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MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI FOR THE 81st WORLD MISSION SUNDAY 2007 - "All the Churches for all the world" Dear Brothers and Sisters, On the occasion of the World Mission Day, I would like to invite the entire People of God - Pastors, priests, men and women religious and lay people - to reflect together on the urgent need and importance of the Church's missionary action, also in our time. Missionary commitment remains the first service that the Church owes to humanity today to guide and evangelize the cultural, social and ethical transformations; to offer Christ's salvation to the people of our time in so many parts of the world who are humiliated and oppressed by endemic poverty, violence and the systematic denial of human rights. The Church cannot shirk this universal mission; for her it has a binding force. Since Christ first entrusted the missionary mandate to Peter and to the Apostles, today it is primarily the responsibility of the Successor of Peter whom divine Providence has chosen as a visible foundation of the Church's unity, and of the Bishops directly responsible for evangelization, both as members of the Episcopal College and as Pastors of the particular Churches (cf. Redemptoris Missio, n. 63). I am thus addressing the Pastors of all the Churches chosen by the Lord to guide his one flock so that they may share in the pressing concern to proclaim and spread the Gospel. With particular concern for the future of evangelization he asked the "long established" Churches to send priests to support the recently founded Churches.
Pope Benedict XVI
An extract from the message. | |
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