"Reality needs God to be fully and truly itself; the political systems need religion to be fully themselves; rational and critical analysis need the perspective of the faith to meet history". With these words, card. Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Papal Council for Justice and Peace, lingered on the "public need for the Christian dimension". On the "unity" between justice and love, said the cardinal as he spoke today at the plenary assembly of Caritas Internationalis, "depend the meaning and the space of Christians in the building of a life-size world. On whether they are indispensable or unnecessary depends the foundation of the Christian identity of the world’s actions". "If justice, reason, the material dimension explained Martino, quoting the Pope’s reflection on the "dictatorship of relativism" are self-sufficient, Christianity becomes unnecessary for public life, the laicism of relativism would be right in confining it to the sphere of private choices". The Christian faith, concluded Martino, "claims" instead that "there is no true solution for the social question outside the Gospel", as John Paul II wrote in the "Centesimus Annus".
