"Reassure the faithful of your dioceses of my spiritual closeness while they are urged, with all the population, to take action and work for peace and reconciliation": these are the words of the address given today by Pope Benedict XVI, before the second group of bishops from the Democratic Republic of Congo who are engaged in a visit ad limina to the Apostolic See. The Pope insisted on the subject of peace, recalling that "the conflicts of the past and the hotbeds of unsecurity that continue to exist leave deep wounds in the population, breeding weariness and disheartening". The Pope urged the bishops "to be (themselves) the prophets of justice and peace", following the example of the Blessed Anuarite Nengapeta, patron of the Congolese Church. He also made reference to a passage from the Encyclical "Deus caritas est", which says that "charity is not for the Church a sort of social assistance" but "it belongs to its nature, it is an expression of its very essence". (to be continued)
