Extracts from the Pope’s message on the World Day of Peace, January 1:
Openness to God
“The right to religious freedom is rooted in the dignity of the human person, whose transcendent nature must not be ignored. God created man in his own image and likeness. Each person is endowed with the sacred right to a full life, also from a spiritual standpoint.
“Without the acknowledgement of his spiritual being, without openness to the transcendent, the human person withdraws within himself, fails to find answers to the heart’s deepest questions about life’s meaning, fails to appropriate lasting ethical values and principles, and fails to experience authentic freedom and to build a just society.”
Centrality of family
“The family founded on marriage, as the expression of the close union and complementarity between a man and a woman, finds its place here as the first school for the social, cultural, moral and spiritual formation and growth of children, who should always be able to see in their father and mother the first witnesses of a life directed to the pursuit of truth and the love of God.
“Parents must be always free to transmit to their children, responsibly and without constraints, their heritage of faith, values and culture. The family, the first cell of human society, remains the primary training ground for harmonious relations at every level of coexistence, human, national and international.”
Religious freedom and relationships
“Religious freedom, like every freedom, proceeds from the personal sphere and is achieved in relationship with others. Freedom without relationship is not full freedom. Religious freedom is not limited to the individual dimension alone, but is attained within one’s community and in society, in a way consistent with the relational being of the person and the public nature of religion.
“Relationship is a decisive component in religious freedom, which impels the community of believers to practise solidarity for the common good. In this communitarian dimension, each person remains unique and unrepeatable, while at the same time finding completion and full realisation.”
Sound political and juridical culture
“Religious freedom is an achievement of a sound political and juridical culture. It is an essential good.
“Each person must be able freely to exercise the right to profess and manifest, individually or in community, his or her religion or faith, in public and in private, in teaching, in practice, in publications, in worship and in ritual observances.
“There should be no obstacles should he or she eventually wish to belong to another religion or profess none at all.”
Value in all religions
“For the Church, dialogue between followers of the different religions represents an important means of cooperating with all religious communities for the common good.
“The Church herself rejects nothing of what is true and holy in the various religions. She has a high regard for those ways of life and conduct, precepts and doctrines which, although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men and women.”
Universal values
“The world needs universal, shared ethical and spiritual values, and religion can offer a precious contribution to their pursuit, for the building of a just, peaceful social order at the national and international levels.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)