Pope urges US bishops to continue defending marriage, family

(March 09, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday urged a group of Catholic bishops from the United States to continue promoting and defending marriage and the family from every possible misrepresentation of their true nature in this age of relativism and permissiveness, saying “whatever is injurious to them is injurious to society itself.” He was addressing bishops from Minnesota and Nord e South Dakota on their so-called ‘Ad Limina’ visits, which heads of dioceses are required to make every 5 years or so to report on the state of their jurisdiction. Pope Benedict spoke to the US bishop about the Christian vision of human sexuality in the context of the contemporary crisis of marriage and the family caused by permissiveness amidst powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage. Pope Benedict said the Church needs to defend marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons, essentially rooted in the complementarity of the sexes and oriented to procreation. “Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage,” he stressed. Acknowledging that there have been deficiencies in the Church’s catechesis on marriage, family and chastity, the German Pope urged for presenting both the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, in a convincing and attractive way, to move the heart. He said one cannot take lightly the widespread practice of cohabitation, often by couples who seem unaware that it is gravely sinful and damaging to the stability of society. Pope Benedict commended the US bishops’ for their efforts in promoting Christian marriage and appreciated their outreach programmes for those in difficult marital situations, especially the divorced and separated, single parents, teenage mothers and women considering abortion, as well as children suffering the tragic effects of family breakdown. Admitting the clergy paedophilia scandal that has rocked the US Church, Pope Benedict called for caring, defending and teaching children saying they are the greatest treasure and the future of every society.