1. Religion & Spirituality

State Welcome and Audience With Queen Elizabeth II - Pope Benedict in the U.K.

By , About.com Guide

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Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict XVI
Queen Elizabeth and Pope Benedict talk outside Holyroodhouse. (Dave Thompson-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict XVI talk outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland, September 16, 2010, during day one of his four-day state visit to the United Kingdom.

(Photo by Dave Thompson - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

(The text of Pope Benedict's address at Holyroodhouse, continued from previous page)

"Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” (Caritas in Veritate, 29). (continued on next page)

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