” “"The mission of the Church does not consist in defending powers or obtaining riches; its mission is to donate Christ, to announce the Life of Christ, man’s most valuable gift, who God Himself gives us in His Son". This was said by the Pope, who at Mass, to mark the end of his apostolic journey in Turkey, commented the "fine image that Saint Paul uses to speak of the Church, the one of the building in which the stones are placed close together into one single building, and in which the corner stone, on which everything rests, is Christ": "a wonderful image of the promise of life that God has always made to His people and that Jesus has come to accomplish". "In a world in which men have so much trouble sharing the gifts of the earth and in which they are rightly beginning to worry about the scarcity of water explained the Holy Father such a precious gift for the life of the body, the Church finds out it is full of an even greater gift". The one which consists the Pontiff’s words in the "task of announcing the Gospel as far as the boundaries of the earth, that is, telling to the men and women of this time the good news that not only enlightens but changes their lives, so much that is passes and defeats death itself". ” “
