'Hypocritical' to exclude religion from public life, pope tells synod

Pope Benedict XVI opened a three-week meeting of over 250 Roman Catholic bishops at the Vatican on Sunday, telling the synod it was "hypocritical" to exclude religion from public life.
The 78-year-old pontiff's first synod since his April 19 election will tackle the problems facing the Roman Catholic Church at the beginning of his pontificate and will focus largely on theological issues linked to the Eucharist, the Christian service of Holy Communion.
But more importantly for the wider world, it will also touch on thorny social problems like abortion and divorce, as well as attendance at Sunday mass and ecumenism. "A tolerance which allows God as a private opinion but which excludes Him from public life, from the reality of the world and our lives, is not tolerance but hypocrisy," the pope said in the homily he gave at the synod's opening mass in St Peter's Basilica.