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Pope: Catholic Church's "Principal Focus" in Public Arena is Life and Family

Countries Which Ignore Christian Influence Demonstrate "Immaturity"

By John-Henry Westen

VATICAN CITY, March 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking to members of the European People's Party today, Pope Benedict XVI praised them for their "support for the Christian heritage" of Europe.  The Pope spurred the group on to "defeat" what he described as "a culture that is now fairly widespread in Europe, which relegates to the private and subjective sphere the manifestation of one's own religious convictions."

Benedict warned, "Policies built on this foundation not only entail the repudiation of Christianity's public role; more generally, they exclude engagement with Europe's religious tradition, which is so clear, despite its denominational variations, thereby threatening democracy itself, whose strength depends on the values that it promotes."

The Christian tradition, said the Pope, "conveys values that are fundamental for the good of society" and as such, "the European Union can only be enriched by engaging with it."  He added, "It would be a sign of immaturity, if not indeed weakness, to choose to oppose or ignore it, rather than to dialogue with it. In this context one has to recognize that a certain secular intransigence shows itself to be the enemy of tolerance and of a sound secular vision of state and society."

"As far as the Catholic Church is concerned," he said, "the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable."

"Among these the following emerge clearly today:

- protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;

- recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family - as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage - and its defence from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role;

- the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.

These principles are not truths of faith, even though they receive further light and confirmation from faith; they are inscribed in human nature itself and therefore they are common to all humanity."

See the full Papal address in English here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/march/documents/hf_...

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