JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Cardinal Scola's championship of family is highlighted by Pontifical Council on eve of papal election

Monday 11 March 2013

Cardinal Scola's championship of family is highlighted by Pontifical Council on eve of papal election

I am encouraged to notice that, on the eve of the conclave, the Pontifical Council for the Family has published Cardinal Angelo Scola's recent, profoundly topical and relevant, opening address at the recent 7th World Meeting of Families in Milan.

Cardinal Scola, the archbishop of Milan, who served as Patriarch of Venice from 2002 - 2011, said that the church's "passionate" care for the family was a "decisive contribution" for each person and for "today's society and that of the future".

He said: "It is a contribution to civilization, because the family is the appropriate place of procreation and education understood as an introduction to the whole person to all of reality".

I am encouraged that the Pontifical Council for the Family has put the central moral and political issue of the modern world - the family as "the appropriate place of procreation and education" - centre stage as the papal election commences.

At a time when the British government is seeking to institutionalise fatherless families and motherless families by legalizing same-sex marriage, and "gay marriage" is being championed by the world's most powerful politician, Barack Obama, the US president, let's pray that Cardinal Scola's sentiments concerning the family are "centre stage" in the cardinals' considerations and decision in the week ahead.

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.