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POPE-AUDIENCE Nov-19-2008 (450 words) With photo. xxxi
Faith, charity go hand in hand, pope says at weekly audience
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Being saved by faith in Christ alone and not by works does not mean that people can do whatever they want as long as they recognize Christ as their savior, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Faith in Christ "necessarily means conforming oneself to Christ" and being like him, especially in loving and helping others, the pope said Nov. 19 at his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.
With an estimated 15,000 people gathered in the square, Pope Benedict continued his audience talks about the life and teaching of St. Paul, focusing on the apostle's teaching about how people become justified or made righteous in the eyes of God.
A dispute over what St. Paul meant when he wrote that people are justified by "faith alone" was at the center of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, the pope said, but while people are justified by faith alone, true faith always translates into love for God and for one's neighbor.
The pope said that St. Paul, before meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, scrupulously followed Jewish law, which involved not only moral precepts, but also rules governing food, the Sabbath rest, worship and ritual purity.
Following the law guaranteed Jewish identity, the pope said, but with his conversion, St. Paul saw faith in Christ as the only guarantee of his identity he needed.
In the early Christian community at Corinth, "there existed the opinion, which has kept returning throughout history," that following the law referred specifically to obeying moral precepts and that the freedom promised to Christians was a freedom from following the moral law, the pope said.
"So, in Corinth, the idea circulated that everything is licit. It is obvious that this interpretation is wrong. Christian freedom is not libertinism. The freedom that St. Paul talks about is not freedom from doing good," he said.
"To believe means to conform oneself to Christ, to enter into his love," Pope Benedict said. "We are justified in communion with Christ, who is love."
The Gospel that will be read in Latin-rite Catholic churches Nov. 23, the feast of Christ the King, demonstrates how God will judge people on the basis of the love they have shown others, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting prisoners, the pope said.
"On the basis of this Gospel, we can say 'only love, only charity'" is the same thing as St. Paul's insistence on "only faith" as that which makes a person just in the eyes of God, he said.
"There is no contradiction between this Gospel (passage) and St. Paul," the pope said, because people are justified only by their unity with Christ and that unity is expressed in love.
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Editor's Note: The text of the pope's audience remarks in English will be posted online at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html.
The text of the pope's audience remarks in Spanish will be posted online at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_sp.html.
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Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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