Consideration for family central to development efforts, says nuncio

Published: 2004-12-08

UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- The Vatican nuncio to the United Nations said Dec. 6 that international concern for development should lead to support for the family unit as indispensable to achieving security and development in any nation. Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the family as "the stable and lasting union of a man and a woman" not only ensures the "replacement of the generations" but enables a child to become a "creative constructor of society." The nuncio, speaking in French, made his statement to a session of the U.N. General Assembly marking the 10th anniversary of the 1994 International Year of the Family. Archbishop Migliore was among those who took the initiative last year to ensure that the anniversary observance would not be left up to individual governments, but marked by the United Nations as a body through activities including a session of the General Assembly. "As the first place of formation of human capital, the family appears truly indispensable to development," he told the session at U.N. headquarters in New York. "The family is not only a place of consumption but also of creation of a true wealth, quite ignored today," he added.

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