VATICAN CITY, OCT. 20, 2002 (Zenit.org).- A «cultural manipulation» that tries to bestow credibility on cohabiting and same-sex couples is seriously threatening the survival of the family, a cardinal warns.
Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo gave that warning Friday at the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family, of which he is president. He highlighted the grave dangers the fundamental cell of society is facing.
This is «a most difficult historical time for the survival of the family,» the cardinal said.
The family is endangered by a «cultural manipulation that has reached the point of recognizing de facto couples and homosexual couples with the same rights as homes with civil or sacramental marriages,» he warned.
The meeting focused on the topic «Family Pastoral Care and Couples in Difficulty.» It was attended by cardinals and bishops of the executive committee of the pontifical council, as well as married couples who are members of the Vatican organization and expert consultants.
«Under the cultural profile,» Cardinal López Trujillo said, «the family is presented today as an obstacle for a woman’s fulfillment, assuming that as wife and mother there is discrimination in her integration in society and politics.»
«Marriage is regarded as a private event, dissociated from any commitment or responsibility in relation to a spouse and more generally to children and the family as a whole,» he lamented.
At a «most difficult historical time for the survival of the family and of its human reality, the institution of the family continues to be a necessary good and an important truth, the basis and foundation of human coexistence,» the cardinal continued.
This is why the Church hopes to safeguard «the family from a secularized culture that presents, ambiguously, reasons and justifications for iniquitous laws.»
That’s why the Pontifical Council for the Family is preparing a 1,000-page lexicon which includes «90 ambiguous terms used by various parliaments worldwide, when they debate and legislate on the topic of the family,» the cardinal said.
The initiative is an effort to «enlighten consciences and foster the necessary discernment from the ethical point of view,» he concluded.
