CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS): Christian politicians have a duty to protect human life, traditional marriage and the common good, Pope Benedict XVI said.
All Christians are called upon to defend and promote human dignity, and “this responsibility particularly concerns those called to political office”, he told representatives of Christian Democratic parties from around the world.
The Old Testament warning that “judgment is stern” for those in high places is “highly beneficial”, the Pope said, because it was “a warning given not to frighten but to spur and encourage those in government, at all levels, to achieve all the good of which they are capable, in keeping with the mission the Lord entrusts to each one”.
The Pope’s remarks came during an audience with political leaders taking part in the Christian/Centrist Democrat International’s executive committee meeting on September 21 in Rome.
The group’s president Pier Ferdinando Casini told the Pope the separation of Church and state “cannot suppress the human person’s innate need for religiosity; there is no healthy secularity without God and religion”.
The Pope said that to promote the common good and protect human dignity, Christian politicians must discern the truth of the primacy of the person through a “constant attention to the Word of God and the Magisterium of the Church”
