Dec 4, 2007 / 11:20 am
The archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal Agustin Garcia-Gasco, warned this week that terrorists have a “terrible responsibility: they will answer to God for their crimes.”
According to the AVAN news agency, during a Mass of thanksgiving for his recent elevation to the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Garcia-Gasco said, “The threat of terrorism continues to be a danger for life together and for society,” and therefore “we must always condemn, without ambiguities or compromises, the senselessness of their plans of death.”
The cardinal also mentioned other “attacks against peace” such as “the silent deaths provoked by hunger, abortion, experimentation with embryos and euthanasia.” “Abortion and experimentation with embryos are a direct denial of an attitude of welcoming others, which is indispensable for establishing relationships of lasting peace,” he said.
On the other hand, the cardinal called it a “worrisome symptom” in Spain that Christians often encounter “difficulties in professing publicly and freely their own religious convictions,” and he expressed regret that public officials “sometimes foster not so much a violent persecution but rather a systematic cultural derision of the religious beliefs of Catholics.”
“There cannot be authentic education of the young generations by expelling God from schools and from the world,” because “instead of illuminating a healthy world, a desolate destruction is initiated,” Cardinal Garcia-Gasco said. “Amidst the difficulties of the present moment, the Lord today invites us to trust and to fidelity.”
The new cardinal exhorted the faithful in his archdiocese to embrace “this new responsibility that should awaken in the hearts of Christians in Valencia the hope of renewing society and the world with the help of God.”
After the Mass, Cardinal Garcia-Gasco encouraged the faithful to “continue helping the Holy Father in everything that he needs and asks for”.