Holiness and Morality
Right after being elected as Pope, he told the cardinals who elected him that he saw that his main work was to implement the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, an important centrepiece of which is a universal call to holiness. This is the basis for his canonization of saints from all walks of life, as well as for establishing and supporting the personal prelature of Opus Dei, that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity.
His first encyclical letters focused on the Triune God; the very first was on Jesus the Redeemer ("Redemptor Hominis"). He maintained this intellectual focus on God throughout his pontificate.
In The Splendor of Truth ("Veritatis Splendor"), a papal encyclical concerning morality, he emphasised the dependence of man on God and his law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth." He said that man "giving himself over to relativism and scepticism, goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself."
Read more about this topic: Teachings Of Pope John Paul II
Famous quotes containing the words holiness and/or morality:
“It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“What is shocking and wrong is not [Lord Devlin’s] idea that the community’s morality counts, but his idea of what counts as the community’s morality.”
—Ronald Dworkin (b. 1931)