Venetian cardinal's ministry focuses on family, power of hope

Published: 2003-10-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice is a moral theologian who has taught in Switzerland, Rome and the United States, focusing particularly on the family and on the laity. The 61-year-old Italian was one of 30 new cardinals Pope John Paul II created Oct. 21. Since being appointed to Venice in January 2002, his homilies and pastoral letters repeatedly have focused on the gift of hope and the power hope gives Christians to live their lives fully and morally. "In life, every trial ... forces us to discover our own impotence to save ourselves with our own hands and the impelling need we have for someone to take care of us," he said in a July homily. The hope of future salvation in Christ, he said, helps people look "with frank realism at their present without canceling the past and without fearing for the future," he said.

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