[Updated] – Pope Francis meets with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI today, a truly historic event. Benedict’s frailty was quite evident.

This meeting continues many gestures of respect that Pope Francis has made to the retired pontiff  starting with his appearance for the first time on the loggia.  At a meeting with world diplomats yesterday Pope Francis gave prominent attention to the main theme of Benedict’s pontificate, the “tyranny of relativism,” relating it to the very choice of his name:

It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism,” which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples.

And that brings me to a second reason for my name. Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth!

By uniting his exemplary charity towards the poor (the main reason for choosing the name Francis) with the need for all such charity to be rooted in truth, he clearly is aligning the very core of his pontificate to the both/and theme of charity and truth that Benedict expressed so well in his 2009 encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” (English: Charity in Truth). Here is a good summary.

http://en.romereports.com On Saturday afternoon, Pope Francis met with Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI for the very first time. The meeting was both moving and historic.

The post Pope Francis visits Benedict XVI first appeared on AirMaria.com.