Justice is found through redemption by God, not revenge, pope says

Published: 2004-09-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Broken by violence or injustice, humanity can find justice not through revenge, but by trusting in God's saving power, said Pope John Paul II at his weekly general audience. Christ walked toward "the fierce path of his passion without objecting to the injustice and violence, without recrimination and complaint, but by delivering himself and his painful circumstances 'to the one who judges justly,'" he said. The pope's Sept. 22 audience in St. Peter's Square centered on a canticle from the First Letter of Peter, which presents "the suffering face of Christ" and the Christian example in a hostile world. Before a crowd of some 13,000 pilgrims, the pope struggled through the reading of his catechesis, skipping over large portions and gasping for air after almost every word.

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