Vatican City, Feb 25, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Pope John Paul II stressed today that “recognizing the centrality of the family in God’s plan for man and therefore, for the life of the Church and of society, is a task, that can never be relinquished.”
The Holy Father addressed a message to the pastors of the Diocese of Rome, following a tradition at the beginning of Lent. The text says that “marriage and family cannot, be considered a simple product of historical circumstances, or a superstructure imposed on human love from the outside. On the contrary, they are an interior demand of this love so that it may be carried out in the truth and fullness of self-giving.”
“When creating man and woman in His image,” he continued, God inscribed in them a vocation, “and therefore, the capacity and responsibility for love and communion. This vocation can be carried out in two specific ways: marriage and virginity,” he explained.
Unity, indissolubility, and openness to life, characteristics of the conjugal union, “which today,” he said, “are frequently misunderstood and rejected, are necessary so that it may be an authentic pact of love.”