CWN - Speaking at a diocesan conference in Sessa Aurunca, Italy, the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops emphasized that the Church must “include” rather than “exclude.”
In his September 15 address, which was summarized in a brief article in L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri said that “the crisis of the family is due also to the hiddenness of the Church,” which is called to “listen,” “accompany,” and “include,” rather than “exclude,” so that all may experience the “incomparable beauty of matrimony.”
Three serious challenges that foster an “anti-family” mentality, he continued, are “individualism and emotional fragility,” “lack of faith,” and “economic insecurity and social exclusion.”
The upcoming Synod on the family, he said, is called to give “authoritative and shared” answers to these challenges as the Church rediscovers “the art of accompaniment.”
“Without renouncing the proclamation, according to the truth of Christian doctrine, of matrimony, one, faithful, and indissoluble,” the Church must “discern among diverse situations,” “include” rather than “exclude,” and show herself a “mother with arms open to all,” he said.
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