Your gift counts double until 5/31: $27,385 to go in our Easter Campaign. Please help now!

World Meeting of Families opens in Milan

CWN - May 31, 2012

Cardinals Ennio Antonelli, Angelo Scola, and Gianfranco Ravasi addressed families from 150 nations at the Seventh World Meeting of Families, which began in Milan on May 30 and will culminate with Mass on June 3 celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

The theme of the meeting is “The Family: Work and Celebration.”

The family, said Cardinal Scola of Milan, “makes possible the understanding and development of two constitutive differences of the human being: the difference of gender between a man and a woman and the difference between the various generations of children, parents and grandparents. In keeping these two differences united, the family is the first and irreplaceable school of communion.”

Cardinal Antonelli, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, defended the natural family founded on matrimony, while Cardinal Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, discussed the family “between the creation work and the salvation feast.”

Luigino Bruni, coordinator of the project Economy of Communion, said in his talk that

one of the typical tasks of the family is forming in people the ethics of work well done simply because… things should be done well, because there is a vocation in things that must be respected as such, even when no one sees, or applauds, rewards, or punishes me … The dominant capitalist economic culture is creating a silent revolution with epochal consequences about which we say too little even as Christians: money has become the main or only reason to work.

Additional sources for this story
Some links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

An appeal from our founder, Dr. Jeffrey Mirus:

Dear reader: If you found the information on this page helpful in your pursuit of a better Catholic life, please support our work with a donation. Your donation will help us reach five million Truth-seeking readers worldwide this year. Thank you!

Easter Campaign:
Progress toward our Spring 2013 goal ($27,385 to go):
$80,000.00 $52,614.70
34% 66%
Sound Off! CatholicCulture.org supporters weigh in.

All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!

There are no comments yet for this item.

Catholic World News Email Newsletter
Donate to Support this Site: Your contribution will be put to good work.
Tour the CatholicCulture.org Site
Shop Amazon to Raise Money for Catholic Culture

Recent Catholic Commentary

The Mystery of the Spirit 9 hours ago
Against a Facile Assurance of Salvation, the Need for Mystery 11 hours ago
Making Sense of Society: The Ebook 16 hours ago
An exorcism? No, a blessing. You'd think reporters would know the difference. 18 hours ago
Learning from the sick, and from the death of a child May 17

Top Catholic News

Most Important Stories of the Last 30 Days
Pope strongly supports call for reform in religious life CWN - May 8