"Before the poverty of so many people added Benedict XVI, one feels the unavoidable necessity to improve the structures and the economic conditions allowing everybody to live a dignified life. However, one must not forget that man is not a mere product of the material and social conditions in which he lives". Man is more. "He longs for something beyond what science or any other human initiatives can give him". Inside man, actually, there is "an immense thirst for God", the only one who "can satisfy his thirst for fullness and life". In this respect, "it is important to promote an ambitious and audacious evangelization effort within diocesan communities, to encourage all believers to intimately meet Christ alive, who is the basis and the origin of being Christian". It is also important "to help lay believers to rediscover the richness of their baptism once again", through a life of prayer, by listening to the Word of God, by taking part in the sacraments, through a strong sentiment of ecclesial belonging, a solid doctrinal training, above all, in relation to the social doctrine of the Church, "in which it is possible to find the criteria and the clear directions allowing men to illuminate the societies in which they live from the Christian point of view". Finally, the Pope invited the bishops to have special "pastoral solicitude" for priests, seminarians, and Consecrated life institutes.
