BRAZILIAN BISHOPS: HELP THE FAMILY ESPECIALLY

VATICAN CITY NOV 16, 2002 (VIS) - In his speech to prelates from Eastern Region II of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, who just completed their "ad limina" visit, the Pope spoke about the need to especially support families, resisting "the harmful threats of an individualist culture."

After recalling that during his pontificate he has insisted on the importance of the family's role in society, John Paul II emphasized that in addition to the values of the Brazilian tradition, such as respect, solidarity and privacy, other social factors exist which threaten to "de-stabilize the family nucleus."

"A lack of moral values," he said, "opens the door to infidelity and the dissolution of marriage. The civil laws that promote divorce and threaten life by trying to introduce abortion officially; the population control campaigns that ... encourage thousands of women to be sterilized and to use contraception, especially in the north, have dramatic consequences."

In addition, he continued, "there are many attempts, in public opinion and civil legislation, at equating the family with mere de facto unions and at recognizing same sex unions as marriages. These and other anomalies urge us to proclaim with pastoral firmness the truth on marriage and family. It would be a serious pastoral omission not to do so."

"It is necessary to give a firm response to this situation, especially through more incisive educational and catechetic activity. ... In this sense, I would like to recall the need to respect the inalienable dignity of the woman, in order to strengthen her important role, in the home as well as in society in general."

The Holy Father underscored that one cannot "forget that the family must bear witness to its own values before itself and society. ... Married couples must be the first to give testimony to the grandeur of conjugal and family life, founded in fidelity to the commitment assumed before God. Thanks to the sacrament of matrimony, human love acquires supernatural value."

The Pope asked those who work in the pastoral ninistry for families to give a "new impulse to the defense and promotion of the institution of family" through the teachings of the Church, courses for those getting married and encounters with couples leading an exemplary married life or with priests experienced in dealing with married couples.

John Paul II said that "the contrasting opinions of theologians, priests and religious, disclosed extensively by the media, on premarital relations, birth control, the admission of divorced people to the sacraments, homosexuality and lesbianism, artificial insemination or the use of abortive practices or euthanasia, show the great uncertainty and confusion that disturb and numb the conscience of many faithful."
At the end of his speech, the Holy Father referred to marriage annulments. The ecclesiastical judge, he affirmed, must keep in mind that "to authentically apply the norms, the credibility of the revealed faith and peace of consciences are also at stake. ... I hope that in this delicate interdisciplinary process," he concluded, "faithfulness to the revealed truth on marriage and the family, interpreted in an accurate way by the Magisterium of the Church, is always the point of reference and the true stimulus for a profound renewal of this sector in ecclesiastical life."

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