“Gratitude to the Holy Father” for the recent reappointment of card. Camillo Ruini as president of Cei, and "esteem and appreciation" to the latter for the work he has been carrying out for twenty years by now "serving the Church", have been expressed by the Italian bishops during the works of the Permanent Bishops Council, held in Rome from March 20th to 22nd. In the final release published today, the bishops also confirm their “firm acceptance of and prompt commitment to a wide spreading in the local churches of Benedict XI’s first encyclical, ‘Deus caritas est'”, defined as "a great gift for the Church and for mankind". A document, insist the bishops, which "as well as pointing out the criteria for a veritably ecclesial love, delves deep into the relation between love and justice and the distinction between the State and the Church. The church community is therefore called to contribute to the purification of reason" and "to the reawakening of the moral forces, essential to develop and maintain fair structures". Hence the exhortation to promote “a social justice that is centred around the dignity of human beings, starting from the defence of life, from its beginning to its natural end, and the protection of the family based on marriage as the first and foremost subject of social life, from which social wealth and development largely depends”. (to be continued)
