” “"Caesar is not everything"; for Christians "a different sovereignty emerges, the origin and essence of which are not of this world, but of up there: it is that of he Truth, which is entitled to be listened to also by the State". It was said by the Pope, who, in the catechesis of the general audience, started a new cycle of catechesis about the apostolic fathers, starting with Saint Clement. As he mentioned the "great prayer" with which the Letter to the Corinthians ends, which is Saint Clement’s only work recognised as authentic, Benedict XVI revealed that, "after the writings of the New Testament, it is the oldest prayer for political institutions" and "also contains a lesson that guides, along the centuries, the attitude of the Christians towards politics and the State". "Just after the persecution highlighted the Pope , the Christians do no stop praying for the very authorities that had unfairly condemned them. The reason is first and foremost a Christological one: we must pray for the persecutors, as Jesus did on the Cross". But "by praying for the authorities", he specified, "Clement acknowledges the legitimacy of the political institutions in the order established by God; at the same time, he expresses concern that the authorities should be submissive to God and assert the power that God gave them in peace and submission with mercy". ” ” ” ” ” “
