Pope's campaign

By Paul Kokoski, On e-mail
13 July 2006, 18:00 PM
I commend Pope Benedict XVI's tireless campaign aimed at defending the traditional family against gay marriage and other challenges to church doctrine such as divorce, contraception, abortion, and embryonic stem cell research. Today, the way current laws are progressing - or rather devolving - speaking in defence of life and the rights of families is becoming in some societies sort of a crime against the state.

Being free, in such societies, means being able to do whatever one wants, not being bound to accept any criterion other than and over and above oneself. It means following one's own desires and one's own will alone. Those who live like this very soon clash with others who want to live the same way. The inevitable consequence of this selfish concept of freedom is violence and the mutual destruction of freedom and life.

True freedom is demonstrated in responsibility, in a way of behaving in which one takes upon oneself a shared responsibility for the world, for oneself and for others. In contrast, the freedom of slaves aims to cut itself a slice of the cake that belongs to everyone even if this means that some do not get any. Our world is full of such fictitious forms of freedom that destroy the environment and the human being.

The family is a unique institution demanding universal proclamation of each person's primordial right to life, from conception to natural death, the right to live in a family without it being substituted or confused by other forms or different institutions.