When love seeks good of others, it can change world, pope says

Published: 2006-01-23

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Love can change the world when it seeks the good of others because then it reflects God's love for all humanity, Pope Benedict XVI said. "Today the word 'love' is so wasted, consumed and abused that one is almost afraid to let it form on the lips," the pope said Jan. 23 in an address to a Vatican-sponsored conference on charity. The conference was organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican's charity-promotion agency, to coincide with the Jan. 25 release of the pope's first encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"). Love caused God to create people and to become human to save them, the pope said. As an expression of a "primordial reality," the reality that gave birth to the world, he said, love is a topic the church must talk about, purifying people's ideas about love so that "it can enlighten our lives." He told conference participants, "It is this awareness that led me to choose love as the theme for my first encyclical."

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