Pope: Catholic politicians should protect human life, family, marriage

September 24, 2012

The moral commitment of a Christian politician must not be “limited to responding to the requirements of market logic,” Pope Benedict XVI told a group of Catholic political leaders at a private audience on September 22.

The Pope told the members of Christian Democrat International that they should work to advance the common good and to promote human dignity. In practice, he said, this will mean defending human life and marriage. He explained:

The commitment to respecting life in all its phases from conception to natural end--and the consequent rejection of abortion, euthanasia and any form of eugenics--is, in fact, interwoven with respecting marriage as an indissoluble union between a man and a woman and, in its turn, as the foundation for the community of family life. ... Thus the family, the basic cell of society, is the root which nourishes not only the individual human being, but the very foundations of social coexistence.

The Pope acknowledged that political leaders today face special difficulties in coping with the worldwide economic crisis. He encouraged the members of Christian Democrat International to approach their work with “a spirit capable of seeing in these transformations the incessant and mysterious presence of God in history.”

 

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Further information:

• Realism and Hope in the Face of the Crisis (VIS)