"Within the Church no one has exclusive rights over love" which belongs to the whole Church because "it encapsulates all the Gospel", as Benedict XVI writes in that "little social encyclical" that is "Deus caritas est". It was said by card. Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Papal Council for Justice and Peace, as he spoke today at the XVIII General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis, which is taking place in the Vatican until June 9th about: "Witnesses of love, craftsmen of peace". The cardinal exhorted to avoid "divisions or even contrasts in the exercise of love between the priests and the lay people, between the celebration and the pastoral, between the assistance of the needy ones and the work for justice, between the work carried out by the church associations and the work carried out at the frontiers for the defence of human rights, the work for the development of the poor or for reconciliation in conflict areas". According to Martino, "Christians live love, not just when they help those in need but also when they work in the world, either alone or in organisations, on the side of devotees from other religious confessions or non-believers or when they act within society, in economy, volunteering, for the defence of human rights".
