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During his first homily in the cathedral of Rome, Ratzinger reemphasizes “the inviolability of human life from the time of conception.” A prophetic text by Romano Guardini, the present pope’s teacher of theology and philosophy
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, May 13, 2005 – At his installation in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on Saturday, May 7, Benedict XVI delivered his first homily from the episcopal see of the bishop of Rome.
He applied to himself the definition of the pope that had been coined by St. Gregory the Great: “servant of the servants of God.”
He affirmed that the task of the bishop of Rome is that of “presiding in doctrine and presiding in love”: this latter expression is taken from St. Ignatius of Antioch.
This love, he explained, is that of Christ, who makes himself really present in the Eucharist, from which the Church “is continually born anew.”
As for doctrine, he said that the pope “must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
Benedict XVI recalled two duties of this “obedience to God’s word” that he now considers essential.
The first is that “from high up on this Chair the Bishop of Rome is constantly bound to repeat: ‘Dominus Iesus’ – Jesus is Lord,” before the “so-called gods in the heavens and on the earth.”
His other duty is that of preaching “the inviolability of the human being and of human life from the moment of conception until natural death,” in the face of “all efforts apparently intended for the benefit of the human person, and in the face of erroneous interpretations of freedom.”
Full article
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, May 13, 2005 – At his installation in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on Saturday, May 7, Benedict XVI delivered his first homily from the episcopal see of the bishop of Rome.
He applied to himself the definition of the pope that had been coined by St. Gregory the Great: “servant of the servants of God.”
He affirmed that the task of the bishop of Rome is that of “presiding in doctrine and presiding in love”: this latter expression is taken from St. Ignatius of Antioch.
This love, he explained, is that of Christ, who makes himself really present in the Eucharist, from which the Church “is continually born anew.”
As for doctrine, he said that the pope “must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
Benedict XVI recalled two duties of this “obedience to God’s word” that he now considers essential.
The first is that “from high up on this Chair the Bishop of Rome is constantly bound to repeat: ‘Dominus Iesus’ – Jesus is Lord,” before the “so-called gods in the heavens and on the earth.”
His other duty is that of preaching “the inviolability of the human being and of human life from the moment of conception until natural death,” in the face of “all efforts apparently intended for the benefit of the human person, and in the face of erroneous interpretations of freedom.”
Full article