VATICAN, June 6, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A letter from Pope Benedict XVI commits the Catholic Church to always proclaiming that marriage is between a man and a woman and that the Church can never admit alternatives.
In the letter released Saturday and addressed to Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Pope Benedict says, “The marriage bond, in which man and woman together constitute a life-long association, ordered by its very nature for the good of the spouses and the generation and education of children,” is the basis of the family, the heritage and shared wealth of humanity. “Thus the Church cannot cease to announce that, in accordance with God’s plans, marriage and the family are irreplaceable and admit no alternatives.”
The letter which renews the invitation made by John Paul II to attend the Fifth World Meeting of Families, due to be held in Valencia, Spain, in July 2006, notes that “today more than ever, the Christian family has a most noble and inexorable mission, that of transmitting the faith. … Parents are the first evangelizers of their children, precious gifts of the Creator, beginning with teaching them their first prayers. Thus a moral universe is created, one rooted in the will of God and in which children are raised in human and Christian values that give full meaning to life.”
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