3 cardinals write essays in Vatican newspaper

The Italian-language daily edition of L’Osservatore Romano, which on a given day may publish an article by, or an interview with, an individual cardinal, published essays by three cardinals on January 23:

• Citing several European writers – among them Eugène Ionesco, Franz Kafka, François-René de Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Alexandre Dumas – Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, emphasized the primacy of God’s initiative and grace in the life of faith and prayer.
• Cardinal Velasio de Paolis, president emeritus of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See and Pontifical Delegate for the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, said that Catholics help evangelize a secularized, positivist legal world by bringing to bear the truth of the Christian vision of man and of natural law. Citing the Second Vatican Council, Blessed John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, the prelate discussed human dignity “from the womb to natural death” and the intrinsic immorality of certain acts, as well as the themes of creation, sin, and salvation by grace.
• Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the president of the Fabric of St. Peter and archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, paid tribute to Venerable Benedetta Bianchi Porro (1936-64) on the fiftieth anniversary of her death. Despite her sickness and frailty, he emphasized, Porro had a contagious joy.