The meeting of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), which began on May 25 and will last until the 29th, is examining the theme: “The
educational question: the urgent task of education.” Addressing the bishops, the Pope began by highlighting their effort to establish “an educational project that stems from a coherent and complete vision of man, which can arise only from the perfect image and realization of him we have in Jesus Christ.” This kind of education is particularly necessary since modern society is filled with “relativistic and nihilistic concepts of life” that “exercise a powerful enticement,” the Pope said. The principal contribution that the Church can make at a time when the legitimacy of education is in doubt is that of “bearing witness to our trust in life and in man, in his reason and in his capacity to love,” said the Holy Father. The Pope then referred to the forthcoming Year for Priests, recalling how priestly ministry “is a service to the Church and to Christian people, requiring a profound spirituality … nourished by prayer and by intense personal union with the Lord, in order to be able to serve our brothers and sisters through preaching, the Sacraments, orderly community life and help for the poor. All priestly ministry reveals … the importance of commitment to education, so that people may grow freely and responsibly as mature and conscientious Christians.” “There can be no doubt that the Christian spirit gives renewed vitality to that sense of solidarity so profoundly rooted in the hearts of the Italian people,” Benedict XVI added, going on to mention the recent earthquake in the Abruzzo region of Italy and his own visit to the areas affected.
There, he said “I personally witnessed the mourning, the pain and the disasters produced by that terrible event, but also the strength of spirit of those people and the movement of solidarity that immediately arose throughout Italy.”