NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- In an address to the members of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Pope John Paul II has lamented the "indifference" among the faithful, and the fact that many Christians, although there are "active in some manner within their ecclesial communities," still do not accept the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Church.

      The members of the Pontifical Council for the Laity are meeting in Rome this meeting, at the 18th plenary assembly of the body. The members of the Council-- most of them members of the Church hierarchy or founders of lay movements-- are discussing the theme: "The lay faithful, confessors of the faith in today's world."

      Pope John Paul insisted that the laity should bear witness to the faith "in word and in deeds." Although there are many signs of hope in the world, he observed, "unfortunately many Christians, forgetting the responsibilities of their Baptism, live in indifference, or succumb to compromise with the secularized world."

      The Holy Father followed up this thought in his words during his Sunday Angelus. Noticias Eclesias' Church News reported that the Pope affirmed yesterday that "Charity, in its double aspect of love toward God and toward ones brethren, is the synthesis of the spiritual and moral life of the faithful, and finds in God its source and end."

      The Holy Father said to the pilgrims gathered that this virtue, "the greatest of the Christian virtues," has to be lived with special intensity during the time of Lent and through out the whole year in preparation for the Great Jubilee.

      Pointing out "the areas in which the Church, along centuries, has testified, with its word and its works, the love of God," the Pope reminded that "today there are a widespread of situations in which the charity of God should be present through the works of Christians."