In the wake of what Benedict XVI said in his recent travels, the chairman of the Italian Bishops’ Conference said that the “Church defends the identity of the people, respecting a ‘proper separation between state and Church,’ whilst suggesting ‘the great principles and binding values, giving people direction and offering them an option in life’.”The recent celebration of Family Day “is now waiting for a response from the authorities that is equal to the seriousness of the problems indicated.”
“Christ and the Gospel concern us; nothing else.”
From this stems the Italian Church’s missionary choice, its concern for man’s total reality, its defense of the family and its concern for people’s real life, its openness to everyone, its lack of duplicity vis-à-vis political authorities when it denounces what it considers wrong, and where necessary, demands action.
The first prolusion by the new chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Italy (CEI), Mgr Angelo Bagnasco, deals first of all with the Church’s mission and he made at the beginning of the CEI’s 57th assembly that opened this afternoon in the Vatican.
The mission and protecting the family, but also the Church’s relations to the state, were among the most important issues he touched upon.
More to come.
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