Vatican official tells Asian bishops to defend, promote family values

Published: 2004-08-18

TAEJON, South Korea (CNS) -- A Vatican representative to a meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences urged participants to defend and promote traditional family values. "The family must be considered as a starting point of any human and Christian experience," said Archbishop Robert Sarah, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. "We first learn of God, Christ and the things of the Spirit in the familiar surroundings of our homes and families. Deprived of that, faith and human and moral values fail to root." Archbishop Sarah's Aug. 17 remarks at the opening Mass of the bishops' plenary assembly in Taejon were reported by UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. The assembly, whose theme is "The Asian Family Toward a Culture of Life," is set to close Aug. 23. Archbishop Sarah, an African from Guinea, said the modern Western concept of marriage and family life is headed toward a crisis, with legislators increasingly ignoring "the traditional family unit as essential to the well-being of society." For this reason, he said, "the Catholic Church and the Asian and African societies must stand firm in presenting marriage and family life as something precious."

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