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Pope Benedict Stresses Life and Family Concerns with Italian Political Leaders

ROME, June 24, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI paid a visit to the Italian presidential palace today to meet with Italian President Carlo Campi, and other political leaders including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.  In his speech to the leaders and those gathered the Pope stressed that while states are to be governed by state law and not church law, ethical considerations rooted in religion must not be excluded.  Moreover, he added that laws must be in "harmony with higher and more complex necessities deriving from an integral vision of man and of his eternal destiny."

The Pope indicated that the numerous concerns of the start of his pontificate - concerns "that cannot but be of interest to leaders of public life" - include "the problem of safeguarding the family based on matrimony, as recognized by the Italian Constitution, the problem of the defense of human life, ... and the problem of education."

The Church, he stressed, "sees in the family a very important value that must be defended from all attacks that aim to undermine its solidity and put its very existence in doubt. In human life, moreover, the Church recognizes a primary good, the basis for all other goods." On the subject of schooling, the Holy Father emphasized its role as a "natural expansion" of the formative role of the family. "While fully respecting the competency of the State to dictate general norms for education, I cannot but express the hope that the right of parents to a free educational choice be respected, without their having to support the additional weight of further burdens. I trust that Italian legislators, in their wisdom, know how to find 'human solutions' to these problems, in other words, solutions that respect the inviolable values implicated therein."

Benedict XVI expressed the hope that the Italian people, "not only do not deny the Christian heritage that makes up part of their history, but guard it jealously and bring it once again to produce fruits worthy of the past . . . By virtue of her history and culture, Italy can make a valid contribution, especially to Europe, helping it to rediscover those Christian roots that enabled it to be great in the past, and that still today can favor the profound unity of the continent."

(with files from the Vatican Information Service)

jhw

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