Catholic World News News Feature

Rights to life, family, are "non-negotiable," Pope tells Chilean envoy September 08, 2006

Pope Benedict XVI laid out some "non-negotiable principles" during a September 8 meeting with a new ambassador from Chile to the Holy See.

As he accepted the diplomatic credentials of Pedro Pablo Cabrera Gaete, said that the Church cannot compromise in the defense of certain human rights. He listed the right to life in all stages of human existence and the right to form a family based on marriage. These rights, he said, must be protected by government. The Pope stressed that every state has the obligation to defend the family in its "incomparable mission to be the source of communal life and the building block of all society."