Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, celebrated the opening Mass of the seminar, saying, "It is in this context of serious anthropological crisis, where humankind wants to 'go it alone' and the criteria of humanity have become uncertain and extremely confusing and fluid, that we Christians are called to defend the nature and dignity of the human person, women and men."
"As Christians in today's world, we are called in a special way to safeguard humanity. By means of this seminar that starts today, we wish to assume this responsibility," he continued. "In other words, we wish to safeguard what it is to be a human being, to be human beings who are God's creatures, women and men."
Helen Alvare, professor of law at George Mason University and founder of Women Speak for Themselves, spoke on how ideas about women have developed since the publication of "On the Dignity and Vocation of Women" in 1988, and how the Church might respond to those changes.
"We have had a more or less 'natural experiment' over the last several decades, allowing us to observe what happens when a substantial number of women can choose how they wish to spend their lives," she explained.
The "preliminary results" show that "women still wish for the most part to marry and to have children" and that "women are happy to exercise their talents outside the home as well as in it." Moreover, "when they are mothers, most women prefer to work part-time, or in cycles responsive to their children's needs."
"Furthermore," Alvare went on, "modern empirical data is confirming the beneficial effects, not only of attending to the importance of stable relationships in personal lives, but of participating in labor imbued with meaning as human service."