.- The president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, said last week that a culture and society that is faithful to the Gospel “must derive from the person and the family.”
The cardinal made his comments during the National Congress for Family Ministry in the city of Crotone, Italy.
According to L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Bagnasco underscored that “in the heart of the couple, in the family founded upon marriage, is found the natural vocation to life, the first school of humanity, where distinct generations learn and exercise day in and day out the joy and virtue of living the signs of the expression of love: gift and forgiveness, sacrifice, patience and daily perseverance, joy and sorrow.”
The cardinal went on to underscore the need to learn and live out the Church’s teachings on the family in order to confront a culture that scorns the objective value of the good as if it were “something old and outdated.”
“The human and sacramental beauty of marriage demands all of the Church’s attention, and care for couples and families has always been an essential part of our pastoral work,” he added.
