Spanish cardinal calls on all people of good will to save family from ruin

Madrid, Spain, Apr 5, 2006 / 22:00 pm

The Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, has denounced the attacks on the family in Spain and is calling on “all people of good will” to defend the family and its anthropological underpinnings.

During the presentation of a new collection of John Paul II’s writings on marriage and the family, the cardinal said the well being of man and of society “is profoundly linked to” and inseparable from the family, and as a consequence “it is crucial and urgent, in the face of the pressures and harassment the family is enduring, that all people of good will strive to defend it and protect its values.”

Cardinal Cañizares noted that one of the particular difficulties facing the family is the imposition of laws “in favor of new unions, including those between persons of the same sex, that constitute an attack on marriage and the family, destroy its truth, harm the most elemental dignity and truth of the human being, lead to the breakdown of humanity and, as a consequence, endanger the stability of society itself.”  Likewise, the cardinal said that people are aware of the problems that are besieging marriage and the family institution in our times, due to a certain “hedonistic and permissive” mentality.

The cardinal recalled the vast contributions of John Paul II to the family, “in order to defend it, to proclaim the Gospel of the family in season and out of season, the tabernacle of life, the hope of humanity.”