Religious told to respond in 'creative fidelity' to God's call

Published: 2007-08-27

CLEVELAND (CNS) -- Men in religious orders must respond in "creative fidelity" to the mission entrusted to them, a Vatican official, Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rode, said at the annual meeting of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. "Consecrated persons must realize that, no matter what their apostolic commitments might entail, their primary mission is that of witnessing to the values of the kingdom," said Cardinal Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, during the Aug. 10-13 CMSM assembly in Cleveland. "Their lives and actions must clearly show that the message of Jesus is the only message which offers the way to eternal life," Cardinal Rode said. He added that the rise of religious life from the church's earliest days was the response of those who sensed the need "to more radically conform their lives to the teachings of the Gospel, to live a life of radical poverty, chastity and obedience in imitation of the Jesus whom they had come to know personally."

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