15 July 2013

The Church hopes that the State, in its turn, will recognize that a healthy secularism must not view religion, simply as an individual sentiment that can be relegated to the private sphere but rather as a reality which, also organized in visible structures, needs her public presence in the community in order to be recognized.

This is why the State is responsible for guaranteeing the possibility of the free exercise of worship of every religious denomination, as well as its cultural, educational and charitable activities, as long as they are not in opposition to the moral and public order. Well, the Church’s contribution is not limited to supportive, concrete social, humanitarian and educational initiatives and so forth, but gives special consideration to the growth of social ethics, promoted by many signs of openness to the transcendent and by the formation of consciences sensitive to the fulfilment of the duties of solidarity.

- Address, 31 October 2011

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