Pope praying for honesty, integrity of politicians

Be honest, have integrity, and work for the truth.

 

These are the prayer intentions of Pope Benedict XVI for politicians this September, a report of the Vatican Information Service (VIS), the Vatican's news service, said over the weekend. The Pope is praying that "politicians may always act with honesty, integrity, and love for the truth," the VIS said. 

 

For his mission intention this September, the Pope is hoping that Christian communities "may have a growing willingness to send missionaries, priests, and lay people, along with concrete resources, to the poorest Churches."

 

Vatican Radio noted that the Pope, in an address to the 2010 Pontifical Council for the Laity Assembly, had outlined his vision of the Church's contribution to the formation of politicians.

 

The Pope said the technical formation of politicians is not part of the Church's mission.

 

"(Rather, the Church's mission is to) pass moral judgments even in matters relating to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.... [T]he only means it may use are those which are in accord with the Gospel and the welfare of all men according to the diversity of times and circumstances,"  the Pope said.

 

On the other hand, Benedict XVI reiterated it is the duty of the laity, the lay people, to participate actively in political life.

 

Their participation must be "in a manner consistently in accordance with the Church's teaching, bringing their well-founded reasons and high ideals into the democratic debate, and into the search for a broad consensus among all those who care about the defense of life and freedom, the safeguarding of truth and the good of the family, solidarity with the needy and the crucial search for the common good," the Pope said. - VVP, GMA News