Pope Benedict ' s Lent 2012 Message

I am not exactly sure what the justification is for releasing Papal remarks on big things and events often weeks or more before the event happens. It seems the main result is when the day comes where people might be focused the media ends up not covering it because they rad a story weeks before..

I can tell you we here in Louisiana we are not thinking Lent right now. If I was running things I would release this the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. However perhaps wisely I am not.

So here we go via Vatican Radio - Full text of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Message for Lent .

There is a lot here that I am likely going to discuss closer to Lent. It's all good stuff. A few highlights that caught my eye. First the piece on fraternal correction is big. He says in part of very large paragraph on this:
The Church’s tradition has included “admonishing sinners” among the spiritual works of mercy:

It is important to recover this dimension of Christian charity. We must not remain silent before evil. I am thinking of all those Christians who, out of human regard or purely personal convenience, adapt to the prevailing mentality, rather than warning their brothers and sisters against ways of thinking and acting that are contrary to the truth and that do not follow the path of goodness. Christian admonishment, for its part, is never motivated by a spirit of accusation or recrimination.

Elsewhere this might make the "headlines" :

The Servant of God Pope Paul VI stated that the world today is suffering above all from a lack of brotherhood: “Human society is sorely ill. The cause is not so much the depletion of natural resources, nor their monopolistic control by a privileged few; it is rather the weakening of brotherly ties between individuals and nations” (Populorum Progressio, 66).Concern for others entails desiring what is good for them from every point of view: physical, moral and spiritual. Contemporary culture seems to have lost the sense of good and evil, yet there is a real need to reaffirm that good does exist and will prevail, because God is “generous and acts generously” (Ps 119:68). The good is whatever gives, protects and promotes life, brotherhood and communion. Responsibility towards others thus means desiring and working for the good of others, in the hope that they too will become receptive to goodness and its demands. Concern for others means being aware of their needs. Sacred Scripture warns us of the danger that our hearts can become hardened by a sort of “spiritual anesthesia” which numbs us to the suffering of others.