Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Jul 28, 2009 / 20:57 pm
Moral crisis in society must be cured by the family, archbishop says
Archbishop Julian Barrio of Santiago, Spain praised the values of family, respect for life and human dignity this past Saturday as ways to overcome the “grave consequences” of an “anthropological and moral” crisis in society.
On the Feast of St. James, Archbishop Barrio urged Spaniards to “recognize the transcendent meaning of the person” in “today’s difficult situations.” He also denounced abortion and euthanasia, saying “respect for life from conception to natural death is fundamental.”
In this sense, he continued, the “anthropological and moral” crisis affecting society is spreading the idea that “everything goes” and that it is okay to “experiment with the person in the different dimensions of his existence.”
“Man has inherent dignity and cannot be considered as an end for someone else,” he stressed.
The archbishop called for the building up of “a society in which the moral and spiritual principles that guarantee the sacred respect for the person are lived out.”