Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - Benedict XVI on Saturday 3 December received in audience participants in the meeting of presidents of the Latin American Bishops’ Commissions for the Family and Life. The meeting is being promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Family presided by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo. “It is necessary to announce with new enthusiasm that the Gospel of the family is a path to human and spiritual fulfilment, in the certainty that the Lord is ever present with his grace - the Pope told the participants - . This announcement has often been deformed by mistaken concepts of matrimony and the family which fail to respect God’s original project. To the point that we have the invention of new forms of matrimony which alter its specific nature and are unheard of in many cultures” he said.
“Also with regard to life we see new attitudes which threaten this fundamental right - the Pope continued -.The elimination of the embryo is being facilitated, as is its use in the name of scientific progress which, in not recognizing its own limits and not accepting all the moral principles that enable the dignity of the person to be protected, becomes a threat to human beings themselves. When these levels are reached society suffers the consequences and its foundations are shaken with all sorts of danger”.
In his address the Pontiff thanked the Bishops for their pastoral efforts “to safeguard the fundamental values of marriage and the family threatened by the present day phenomenon of secularisation which prevents the social conscience from fully realising the identity and mission of the institution of the family and more recently by pressure of unjust laws which ignore the family’s fundamental rights”. Pope Benedict XVI also recalled the Church’s duty to “present in all its richness the unique value of matrimony which is a natural institution and is therefore ‘patrimony of humanity”.
The Holy Father noted with satisfaction growing and consolidated efforts on the part of local Churches in Latin America to support the family which is “rooted in God’s loving plan and is an irreplaceable model for the common good of humanity”. He said also that in Latin America, as everywhere “children have the right to be born and to grow up in a family founded on marriage where parents are the children’s first educators in the faith and where children reach full human and spiritual maturity. Children are truly the greatest treasure and wealth of every family” the Pope said. Hence the need to help people “realise the intrinsic evil of abortion which kills life as it is beginning and is an attack on society. Therefore politicians and legislators, as servants of the common good, have the duty to defend the fundamental right to life, fruit of God’s love”. This calls for sound preparation of all pastoral workers, clergy and laity.
At the end of his address the Holy Father mentioned the 5th World Meeting of Families which will take place next year in Valencia, Spain, encouraging those with “the difficult task of preparing the event”, and he said he hoped many delegations from Latin America would be present. “For my part - the Pope concluded -, I give full support to this meeting and place it under the loving protection of the Holy Family”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 5/12/2005, righe 40, parole 563)
