ROME (CNS) — Invoking Mary as Mother of Unity, Pope Benedict XVI prayed that Italians would overcome the tensions between their wealthy north and poorer south.

The Pope joined the bishops of Italy May 26 at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major for a special recitation of the Rosary to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unity.

“Help the North recover the original motivations for that vast, Christian-inspired cooperative movement that gave life to a culture of solidarity and economic development,” the Pope told the bishops.

“Similarly, for the benefit of all, help the South put into play its resources and qualities and the traits of welcome and hospitality that characterize it,” he said.

Italy’s political system, particularly its efforts to promote economic development in the south, has been dogged for years by a political movement pushing for greater autonomy in the north and, particularly, for fiscal policies that would ensure more revenue from Northerners’ taxes would stay in the North.

Marking the anniversary of the unity of Italy, which also meant the end of the Papal States and the temporal rule of the pope, Pope Benedict said the Catholic Church is always ready to serve the Italian people, while recognizing the legitimately secular nature of the country’s government.

The Church does not seek special privileges, the Pope said, but speaks out when called to do so for the good of individuals and the nation.

“The Church — strengthened by a collegial reflection and direct experience in the country — continues to offer its contribution to building up the common good, reminding everyone of the duty to promote and safeguard human life in all its phases and to actively support the family,” he said.

The traditional family, the Pope said, is “the primary reality in which it is possible to raise free and responsible persons formed by those deep values that open a person to brotherhood and also allow them to face the adversities of life.”

He also attended a meeting this week with Caritas Internationalis.

Because it acts in the name of the Catholic Church in promoting development and helping the needy, Caritas Internationalis must be guided by bishops and the official teaching of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The Vatican is responsible for following the activities of Caritas and “exercising oversight to ensure that its humanitarian and charitable activity, and the content of its documents, are completely in accord with the Apostolic See and the Church’s magisterium,” the Pope said May 27 during a meeting with delegates to the Caritas general assembly.

Representatives of the 165 national Catholic charities that make up the Caritas Internationalis confederation met in Rome May 22-27. The general assembly’s agenda included work on new statutes that would strengthen Vatican oversight of the organization’s operations, reflecting Pope Benedict’s teaching on Christian charity and that in 2004 Caritas Internationalis was given a special juridical status by the Vatican.

Pope Benedict said that with the new juridical status, Caritas “took on a particular role in the heart of the ecclesial community and was called to share, in collaboration with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in the Church’s mission of making manifest, through practical charity, that love which is God himself.”

Caritas, he said, is called to bring the Church’s message to international political and social discussions. However, he said, “in the political sphere — and in all those areas directly affecting the lives of the poor — the faithful, especially the laity, enjoy broad freedom of activity.”

“No one can claim to speak ‘officially’ in the name of the entire lay faithful, or of all Catholics, in matters freely open to discussion,” Pope Benedict said. “On the other hand, all Catholics, and indeed all men and women, are called to act with purified consciences and generous hearts in resolutely promoting those values which I have often referred to as ‘non-negotiable,’” he said.

The Pope has used the term in reference to the obligation to protect human life and to support the traditional family based on the lifelong marriage of a man and a woman open to having children.

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, who was re-elected president during the assembly, told Pope Benedict, “Wherever a sign of God’s love is needed, Caritas is there.”

Caritas, the cardinal said, “is a faith-filled answer” to people’s cries for help and is an advocate for the dignity of the poor and their human rights.

“We have dreamed and continue to dream of a world formed by one human family and with zero poverty,” he said.

Pope Benedict told members that because their confederation is able “in a certain way to speak and act” in the Church’s name, Caritas has “particular responsibilities in terms of the Christian life, both personal and in community. Only on the basis of a daily commitment to accept and to live fully the love of God can one promote the dignity of each and every human being.”

For Catholics, “charity is understood not merely as generic benevolence, but as self-giving” designed to help each and every person come to know the love of Christ, he said.

Pope Benedict said that without recognizing that human beings were created by God and are called to eternal life, “we risk falling prey to harmful ideologies” that do not advance the good of the whole human person because integral development includes the person’s spirituality and eventual salvation.

As a global confederation helping millions of people in dozens of countries each year, Caritas increasingly is listened to in international forums, the Pope said, and he thanked Caritas for being an advocate of “a sound anthropological vision, one nourished by Catholic teaching and committed to defending the dignity of all human life.”