To respect life, people must remember God created it, pope says

Published: 2006-02-06

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The more people set aside belief in God the creator, the greater the danger that they will lose respect for the value and dignity of human life, Pope Benedict XVI said. Celebrating Mass Feb. 5 in the Vatican's parish church, the Church of St. Anne, and marking Italy's pro-life day, Pope Benedict said that when people stop thinking of human life as a creation of God they begin to think they have complete control over it. In a mostly ad-libbed homily at the morning Mass, Pope Benedict said Jesus came to earth as a human being in order to heal people of the "fevers" of ideologies and idolatry and of forgetting God. "The Lord gives us his hand, he helps us up and heals us," the pope said. Referring to the Gospel story of Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law, the pope said it is important to notice that as soon as she was healed she got up and began serving others.

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