President of the Italian bishops’ conference Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco spoke out in an address to a council of bishops saying that the family “does not exist for society or the state, but society and the state exist for the family.”
With the Italian Senate set to vote on a bill granting an official status to civil partnerships, Cardinal Bagnasco insists that the country’s bishops are united in reaffirming the rights of children to be raised by both a mother and a father.
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco said that the rights of children should not be “subordinate to the desires of adults.” He said that it is “irresponsible” to encourage the acceptance of new models of household life that devalue the vital role of the family based on marriage.
Opponents of the bill have argued that the recognition of the bill violates the country’s constitution, would erode religious freedoms, undermine a right of children to be raised by their biological mother and father or erode the institution of marriage itself.
Quoting the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church the Cardinal said, “We hope the collective conscious will never lack the precise and unique identity of this institution, which ‘possesses inviolable rights and finds its legitimization in human nature and not in being recognized by the state.”
Pope Francis, in an address to members of the Vatican court said, “there can be no confusion between the family God wants and any other type of union”.
“The family, founded on indissoluble matrimony that unites and allows procreation, is part of God’s dream and that of his Church for the salvation of humanity,” he said on Friday in an address to members of the Vatican court that rules on marriage annulments.
In his remarks to the bishops’ permanent council, Cardinal Bagnasco stressed that Children, are not a right “because they are not things to be produced; they have a right to every precedence and respect, security and stability.”
“Children have a right to be raised by a mother and a father. The family is an anthropological fact, not ideological,” he said.
Cardinal Bagnasco also added that the Italian bishops are united in reaffirming the “beauty, centrality and uniqueness” of the family.
