Pope Encourages Americans to Defend Life, Traditional Marriage and Family

(Hat tip: PewSitter.com)

From Catholic News Agency:

Vatican City, Feb 29, 2008 / 10:38 am (CNA).- In a discourse addressed to Mrs. Mary Ann Glendon, the new US ambassador to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged Americans to defend the right to life from conception to its natural end, traditional marriage and the family.

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After revealing that he is looking “forward to my Pastoral Visit to the United States in April," the Pope noted that "from the dawn of the Republic, America has been a nation which values the role of religious belief in ensuring a vibrant and ethically sound democratic order."

“Your nation's example of uniting people of good will, regardless of race, nationality or creed, in a shared vision and a disciplined pursuit of the common good has encouraged many younger nations in their efforts to create a harmonious, free and just social order", he added.

"I am confident that your country,” Pope Benedict explained, “established on the self-evident truth that the Creator has endowed each human being with certain inalienable rights, will continue to find in the principles of the common moral law, enshrined in its founding documents, a sure guide for exercising its leadership within the international community."

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In the most important part of his address to Professor Glendon, the Pope said that "the American people's historic appreciation of the role of religion in shaping public discourse and in shedding light on the inherent moral dimension of social issues - a role at times contested in the name of a limited understanding of political life and public discourse - is reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life from conception to natural death, and the safeguarding of the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman, and that of the family".

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