Conclusion of Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah to “From the Depths of Our Hearts”

Two men speak for many:

At the end of our reflection, we feel the need to confess our love for the Church. We have wanted to give our lives to her as Christ offered his own. We will never abandon her ever! On our right hand we wear the ring which reminds us that we are bound to her in a definitive covenant.
It is solely our love for the Church that led us to pick up the pen in order to write to all of you.

We live in the sadness and suffering of these difficult and troubled times. It was our sacred duty to recall the truth of the Catholic priesthood. For through it, all of the beauty of the Church is implicated. The Church is not only a human organization. She is a mystery. She is the Mystical Bride of Christ. This is what our priestly celibacy unceasingly recalls to the world.

It is urgent and necessary, that everyone – bishops, priests and laity – no longer allow themselves to be impressed by the bad arguments, staged theater, diabolical lies, and fashionable errors that want to devalue priestly celibacy.

It is urgent and necessary, that everyone – bishops, priests and laity – rediscover a perspective of faith on the Church and on priestly celibacy which protects her mystery.

This perspective will be the best bulwark against the spirit of division and politics but also against the spirit of indifference and relativism.
In these difficult times, the only fear that each one of us ought to have is hearing the Lord say one day “that hard word of reproof […]: ‘Accursed are you because you kept silent.’ Alas! Keep silent no longer! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that, through keeping silent, the world is depraved, the Bride of Christ has gone pale, her color is gone, because her blood has been sucked out of her; that is […] the Blood of Christ, which is given through grace […]. Sleep no longer in negligence; do what you can with the present time.
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Originally published on Marco Tosatti’s blog., Jan. 16, 2020.
Translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino

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