2012-04-30 15:06:15

Family - Pope’s general prayer intention for May


(April 30, 3012) Pope Benedict XVI’s general prayer intention for the month of May is for the family - that initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society. The Pope is drawing our attention to the family ahead of the Church’s 7th World Meeting of Families, that will hosted in the northern Italian city of Milan, from May 30 to June 3. The Pope is scheduled to attend the meet on the last three days. Pope Benedict is concerned about the erosion of values with growing materialism and secularization of society, which is leading to the exclusion of God from life with the resulting disintegration of the family. For example, Pope Benedict says that love between a man and a woman is being reduced to sentimental emotion and to the gratification of instinctive impulses, without a commitment to build lasting bonds of reciprocal belonging and without openness to life. Marriage of a man and a woman, he says is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Addressing ambassadors to the Vatican in January this year, Pope Benedict emphasized that society itself depends on strong families. He says that marriage is “one of the greatest…means of ensuring dignity, equality, and true freedom of the human person.” He has been asking leaders to promote “legal and administrative measures... that support families with their inalienable rights, which are necessary if families are to continue to carry out their extraordinary mission. Let’s therefore join the Holy Father in praying for initiatives that defend and promote families.








All the contents on this site are copyrighted ©.