"All threats to life must be fought": is was confirmed by Benedict XVI in a letter sent by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State of the Holy See, to the president of the Brazilian bishops, Msgr. Geraldo Lyrio Rocha, archbishop of Mariana, on the occasion of the beginning of the 45th Brotherhood Campaign 2008, whose main subject, this year, is: "Brotherhood and defence of life". Lent, wrote the Pope, "is time for conversion for all the Christians, and time to try and be even more faithful to God, who created and donated life". On recalling the words in the encyclical by John Paul II, "Evangelium Vitae", the Pope pointed out "the individualist and hedonist mentality which was the cause of new violence for life, owing to a mistaken conception of science, and in particular, of abortion and euthanasia". Moreover, by mentioning his speech at the V Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Aparecida, Benedict XVI recalled that "the paths marked by a culture with no God and His Commandments, or against God, end up being ‘cultures against human beings and against the goodness of Latin American people’". Therefore, the final document of Aparecida is "the starting point for the rejection of those paths of death", as well as "the point from which one should start to fully acknowledge the holiness of life and the dignity of the human person". (To be continued)
