VATICAN CITY (LSN) — As the Vatican geared up for the World Meeting of Families in Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, told media at a Vatican press conference on May 22 that the family, based upon the marriage of a man and a women, is still “the best way to generate and raise children”.
For this reason, he said, and because of the ongoing attacks on that basic paradigm of the family, the Vatican had committed itself to holding the World Meeting of Families every three years in different cities around the world.
Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that subjects to be covered in the catechesis at the event, already translated into 11 languages, will be “inter-religious marriage, regulation of fertility, demography, the ethic of life from conception to natural death, the ethics of health, the rights of minors”.
Officials expect at least a million to attend the papal Mass launching the event on May 30, and at least 300,000 to attend the Feast of Testimonies.
Bishop John Hine, the head of the Committee for Marriage and Family Life of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and a delegate to the meeting, told Vatican Radio that the trend to redefine marriage in many countries is one of the greatest threats to the family, calling it a move towards “destroying the home and the family”.
The World Meeting of Families is a major project of the Vatican and a favourite movement of Pope Benedict XVI, who has mentioned it twice in public speeches in the past two weeks. From May 30 to June 3, officials and family-promoting NGOs and groups will discuss the theme, “The Family: Work and Celebration”.
Bishop Hines noted that the British government’s consultation on “gay marriage” excluded the possibility of discussing whether the definition of marriage should be changed, allowing only submissions on how it will be changed.
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales, he said, have raised with politicians the fact that “this was never in any party’s political manifestos; they didn’t get elected to do this and yet they’re suddenly foisting it upon us”.