VATICAN CITY, JAN. 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI appealed to civil authorities of Rome for more concrete support for young and numerous families.
The Pope said this Thursday during a traditional beginning-of-the-year address to representatives from the Latium Region and the Province and City of Rome
As is traditional, given that the Pontiff is also Bishop of Rome and head of the ecclesiastical province of Rome (the territory that coincides with the region of Latium), he received the civil authorities in audience to express his best wishes for the New Year.
The Holy Father focused today’s audience on the family and the education of young people. He also spoke about the need for urban planning that is «thought out for the person.»
In particular, he praised the initiative of some parishes in new neighborhoods that are helping young families with small children, who often have difficulties in combining work with family life.
These communities, «conscious that openness to life is at the center of true human development,» have established «oratories of little ones,» Benedict XVI noted, where children can spend the day while their parents are working.
He expressed the hope that similar initiatives will spread to the whole city in order to «help young parents in their educational task.»
«I also hope that further procedures can be adopted in favor of families,» so that «the whole city can enjoy the irreplaceable function of this institution, the primary and indispensable cell of society,» added the Pope.
He also addressed the problems of young people, especially in regard to education, and insisted on the need to teach a correct view of sexuality.
«Before everyone’s eyes is the need and urgency to help young people plan their life on authentic values, which make reference to a ‘lofty’ vision of man and find in the Christian religious and cultural patrimony one of their most sublime expressions,» the Pontiff affirmed.
He added that young people «want to know who man is and what his destiny is, and they seek answers capable of showing them the way to follow, in order to base their existence on everlasting values.»
True love
In regard to sexual education, the Holy Father stressed that «it is necessary to avoid proposing to adolescents and young people things that favor the trivialization of these fundamental dimensions of human existence.»
Benedict XVI invited his listeners «to understand that, in saying ‘no,’ the Church in fact says ‘yes’ to life, to love lived in the truth of the gift of self to the other, to love that is open to life and not closed in a narcissistic view of the couple.»
He affirmed that «the ecclesial community cannot fail to be faithful to the truth» when speaking about these topics such as the family, marriage and respect for life from conception until its natural end.
The Pope called attention to the need for urban planning based on «the centrality of the human person and of the family.»
In particular, he spoke about the need to plan the city’s new settlements so that «the complex dwellings that are arising are not just dormitory neighborhoods.»
The Pontiff spoke of the benefit of structures that are planned to «favor the processes of socialization, thus avoiding the emergence and growth of narrow-mindedness in individualism and exclusive attention to one’s interests, which is harmful for the whole of human coexistence.»
The Holy Father ended by speaking about health care, particularly Catholic health entities, and asking the authorities to support them.
These entities, he said, try to «combine professional competence and care of the sick with the truth and charity of Christ.»
The Pope added that these organizations serve «persons that suffer with love and hope, supporting their search for meaning and trying to offer answers to the questions that arise inevitably in the hearts of those who live the difficult dimension of sickness and pain.»
