Give priority to family values in New Year - Pope Benedict XVI
"The language of the family is a language of peace; we must always
draw from it, lest we lose the "vocabulary" of peace.
In the inflation of its speech, society cannot cease to refer to that
"grammar" which all children learn from the looks and the actions of
their mothers and fathers, even before they learn from their words, His
Holiness Pope Benedict XVI states in His message to mark the World Day
of Peace which falls today.
The Pontiff writing the Message taking "The Human Family, a Community
of Peace" as the theme says: The family, since it has the duty of
educating its members, is the subject of specific rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which represents a
landmark of juridic civilisation of truly universal value, states that
"the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is
entitled to protection by society and the State".
For its part, the Holy See sought to acknowledge a special juridic
dignity proper to the family by publishing the Charter of the Rights of
the Family.
At the beginning of a New Year, I wish to send my fervent good wishes
for peace, together with a heartfelt message of hope to men and women
throughout the world. I do so by offering for our common reflection the
theme which I have placed at the beginning of this message.
It is one which I consider particularly important: the human family,
a community of peace. The first form of communion between persons is
that born of the love of a man and a woman who decide to enter a stable
union in order to build together a new family.
The natural family, as an intimate communion of life and love, based
on marriage between a man and a woman constitutes "the primary place of
'humanisation' for the person and society" and a "cradle of life and
love".
The family is therefore rightly defined as the first natural society,
"a divine institution that stands at the foundation of life of the human
person as the prototype of every social order," the Pope writes. |
