Cardinal Mejia signals need for authentic family life in today’s world

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Oct 4, 2006 / 22:00 pm

Cardinal Jorge Mejia, former archivist and librarian of the Roman Catholic Church, said it was urgent that families be constant witnesses of authentic family life, despite ridicule they might receive from today’s society.

During a meeting organized by the Medical Sciences Faculty of the Catholic University of Cuyo, in Argentina, the cardinal spoke of the current situation of the family in light of the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI.

The prelate expressed his sadness that the belief in the family as a good and divine work, once considered indisputable, is today subject to widespread questioning.  “And not only questioning,” he emphasized, “but also direct denial, if not mockery, ridicule, and scorn.”

Cardinal Mejia said the attack on the family has come in a series of “manifestations,” including the acceptance of same-sex unions, sex change operations, in vitro fertilization, and other forms of assisted reproduction, as well as the dehumanization of the human embryo.

Affirmations such as these, promoted and spread by the mass media, are not just personal choices that people make, the cardinal said, “which in and of itself is alarming enough,” but rather, “they have become realities of social behavior, voted into law by parliaments and similar institutions and made equivalent, if not superior, to the traditional affirmations of old.”

Cardinal Mejia said the solution to such a situation is for families to live the truth about marriage and family life, and to not “give in to the temptations of today’s illusions.”

Catholics should pray, he underscored, that God “protect the family amidst the darkness, deviations and perversions of mankind, as in our short-sightedness and stupidity we often create things to our own detriment.”