BARCELONA, Spain, NOV. 7, 2010 (Zenit.org).- It’s not enough to advance as a society in the technical, social and culture spheres if society doesn’t also make similar «moral advances,» says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this today at the dedication Mass of Barcelona’s Church of the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family), which he also designated a basilica.
He recalled that the church began as an initiative of the Association of the Friends of St. Joseph, «who wanted to dedicate it to the Holy Family of Nazareth.»
«The home formed by Jesus, Mary and Joseph has always been regarded as a school of love, prayer and work,» he explained. «The promoters of this church wanted to set before the world the love, work and service lived in the presence of God, as the Holy Family lived them.»
«Life has changed greatly,» the Holy Father stated, «and with it enormous progress has been made in the technical, social and cultural spheres. We cannot simply remain content with these advances.
«Alongside them, there also need to be moral advances, such as in care, protection and assistance to families, inasmuch as the generous and indissoluble love of a man and a woman is the effective context and foundation of human life in its gestation, birth, growth and natural end.»
«Only where love and faithfulness are present can true freedom come to birth and endure,» Benedict XVI affirmed. «For this reason, the Church advocates adequate economic and social means so that women may find in the home and at work their full development, that men and women who contract marriage and form a family receive decisive support from the state, that life of children may be defended as sacred and inviolable from the moment of their conception, that the reality of birth be given due respect and receive juridical, social and legislative support.
«For this reason the Church resists every form of denial of human life and gives its support to everything that would promote the natural order in the sphere of the institution of the family.»
— — —
On ZENIT’s Web page:
Full text: www.zenit.org/article-30878?l=english
