INTRODUCTION

His Most Reverend Eminence Cardinal

Darío Castrillón Hoyos

Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY

Revered Brothers in the Episcopate and in Priesthood, illustrious Theologians and Professors, dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

I wish to warmly welcome all who are linked to this twenty-third international theological videoconference. The subject is "Marriage and the Family", a theme of fundamental importance for the life of the Church and of humankind.

We shall speak of families founded on marriage, understood as the stable and open-to-life union between a man and a woman, of the family as a natural institution, humankind’s legacy, a fundamental and necessary element for all societies and people, because it is the foundation of society, the primary location for the humanisation of the person and civilised life.

The papers by Theologians will analyse in-depth the truth about the family according to the divine plan of creation, a project established from the very beginning (see Mt 19,4.8); they will explain to us that the family is the environment in which every human being, created in the likeness of God (see Gen 1,26) is conceived, is born, grows and develops; hence the family is the "sanctuary of life…: it is the place in which life — the gift of God — can be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth" (John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus annus, no. 39). We will understand that the family, since it is not humankind’s invention or the result of an ideology, cannot be modified in its nature by any authority on earth.

The Church repeats these truths constantly and the Holy Father has made them one of the fundamental themes of his Pontifical Teachings. The occasions and circumstances on which, during the twenty five years of his Pontificate, John Paul II has proclaimed and defended the truth on the family’s identity and mission have been innumerable. How could one forget his Wednesday catechesis on human love, the Messages and Homilies during the World Forums with Families? And then the Post-Synod Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio dated November 22^nd 1981, the Letter to Families Gratissimam sane dated February 2^nd 1994, and the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae dated March 25^th 1995, to quote only a few of the many Documents from his high Teachings dedicated to the subject of procreation within marriage, to the culture of life and the family’s dignity.

Unfortunately numerous political doctrines and schools of thought continue to instigate a culture that wounds humankind’s dignity, ignoring or jeopardising to various degrees the truth about marriage and the family. At international level there is an orchestrated financial, fiscal and legislative conspiracy against the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of Family Rights, a conspiracy disguised by false ideals of freedom and a so-called "re-conquered maturity and emancipation of humankind from past conditioning": it is a campaign that with ambiguous attitudes requests the legislative powers in many States to revise the announced fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person, distorting human cohabitation and its growth. We cannot forget that the family, which is the par excellence the educator of persons, is indispensable for a real "human ecology" (see John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 39).

It is for these reasons that today, with theological rigour and profoundness, we raise our voices on these truths, with the help of the theologians called upon to analyse in-depth in the light of the faith and of reason, the contents of the Revelation.

In thanking as always those invited to speak, I wish to remind you that they will speak in a live link-up from ten countries in the five continents. Meditations will be presented from Rome, from the Head Offices of the Congregation for the Clergy, by His Excellency Professor Rino Fisichella, Professor Jean Galot, Professor Antonio Miralles and Professor Paolo Scarafoni.

There will also be speeches from New York by Professor Michael Hull, from Manila by Professor José Vidamor Yu; from Taiwan by Professor Louis Aldrich; from Johannesburg by Professor Rodney Moss; from Bogotá by Professor Silvio Cajiao; from Regensburg H. E. Professor Gerhard Ludwig Müller; from Sydney by Professor Julian Porteous; from Madrid by Professor Alfonso Carrasco Rouco, and from Moscow by Professor Ivan Kowalewsky.

I hope you all enjoy our conference