THE FAMILY: PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

VATICAN CITY, OCT 20, 2001 (VIS) - This evening in St. Peter's Square, John Paul II participated in the National Encounter of the Family, organized by the Italian Episcopal Conference on the theme, "To believe in the family is to build the future." The Pope's arrival was preceded by songs and the testimonies of several families.

The encounter, celebrated a year after the Jubilee of Families, took place in the presence of the statue of Our Lady of Loreto, proclaimed Queen of the Family by the Pope, and brought to the Vatican for the occasion.

The Holy Father emphasized before the 50,000 faithful present that the family "is the principle source of hope for the future of humanity. ... If we lose the conviction that the family founded upon marriage cannot be equated with other forms of affective union, then the very social structure and its juridical foundation is threatened. The harmonious development and progress of a people depend in large part on their ability to invest in the family, ensuring at the legislative, social, and cultural levels the full and effective realization of its functions and duties."

"A particular responsibility lies on the shoulders of politicians and those in government whose duty it is to apply the constitution and welcome the most authentic requests of the population composed in large part of families who have based their union on the bond of matrimony. Rightly, therefore, legislative interventions are awaited, centered upon the dignity of the human person and the correct application of the principle of subsidiarity between the State and the family."

The Pope underlined that "it is important and urgent, in particular, to fully bring about a scholastic and educational system which is centered in the family and in its freedom of choice. This is not a matter, as some erroneously affirm, of taking from the public school to give to the private school, but rather of overcoming a substantial injustice which penalizes all families, hindering an effective freedom of initiative and choice."

"Particular attention," he concluded, "must then be reserved for the legitimate concerns of the many families who report a growing degradation in the means of communication, which, transmitting violence, banality, and pornography, are ever less attentive to the presence of minors and their rights. Families cannot be abandoned by institutions and social forces in the effort to ensure for their children milieux which are healthy, positive, and rich in human and religious values."

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