Pope says people must recognize existence, influence of sin

Published: 2004-08-11

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Too often modern men and women seem not to recognize the existence of sin and its influence on their own behavior and that of others, Pope John Paul II said. "It is necessary to pray for an interior reawakening, which will allow them to rediscover fully the holiness of God's law and the moral obligations that derive from it," the pope said Aug. 11 at his weekly general audience. During the gathering at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, Pope John Paul asked all Catholics to pray for him and for his Aug. 14-15 visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. "The message that the Lord wanted to reveal to humanity through the Virgin of Lourdes," he said, was that "God does not want the death of a sinner, but that he would be converted and live." When Mary appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in the Massabielle grotto near Lourdes in 1858, the pope said, she "wanted to recall this basic evangelical message: Prayer and penitence are the path through which the victory of Christ can be affirmed in each individual person and in society."

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