Life is always a good. Initiating Processes for a Pastoral Care of Human Life

On 25 March 2025, marks the 30^th Anniversary of the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae. On this occasion, the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life is publishing a Pastoral Framework, titled Life is Always a Good. Initiating Processes for a Pastoral Care of Human Life, on how to initiate ecclesial processes to promote a Pastoral Care of Human Life, with the aim of defending, safeguarding, and promoting it in different geographical areas and cultural contexts, in a time marked by extremely serious violations of human dignity.

"The Pastoral Framework is the result of an ongoing dialogue with the bishops. His Excellency Monsignor Dario Gervasi, Adjunct Secretary of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, says: “The primary recipients of this Pastoral Framework are the bishops who, during their frequent ad limina visits to the Holy See, have always emphasized the urgency of a renewed commitment to safeguard and promote the life and dignity of every human being.” In a webinar organized by the Dicastery in 2024 with the heads of the Family and Life Commissions of the Conferences of Bishops across the world, a shared process to develop a Pastoral Care of Human Life was initiated, in light of the recent guidance provided by the document Dignitas infinita.

To support this process, the Pastoral Framework offers a proposal that also suggests how to apply the synodal method of discernment in the Spirit concerning the many issues related to human life, as well as the ways to defend, safeguard, and promote it across different geographical areas and cultural contexts."

More at:  https://www.laityfamilylife.va/content/laityfamilylife/en/news/2025/la-vita-e-sempre-un-bene--il-sussidio.html

 

 

We are all interconnected

Speaking at a Press Conference presenting the Pontifical Academy for Life's upcoming Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which took place both in-person and online and from 27 to 29 September 2021 (Public Health in Global Perspective: Pandemic, Bioethics, Future), Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia talks about the importance of global equality in healthcare. In his address, Archbishop Paglia noted that the upcoming Assembly, the twenty-seventh since the Academy was founded in 1994, is not about the pandemic, “but about what we have learned from the pandemic”.

“We had never understood so well how much the health of every single individual is connected to the health of all individuals as in the last period: we are all interconnected, for better or for worse”, he stressed, adding that “the privilege of some people at the expense of others is no longer admissible”.

Archbishop Paglia noted that “the backdrop of the Assembly remains Pope Francis’ Encyclical Fratelli tutti” and the concept that “we are part of a single human family and no one will be able to save themselves on their own”.

“We affirm that life and health are equally fundamental values for everyone”, said Archbishop Paglia, reiterating his concern “that there will always be a free health care system”.

He noted that “if the priority for Western countries is vaccines”, then we must not forget the need to build equitable healthcare on a planetary scale. For the majority of the world's population, in addition to vaccines, the priority is real and effective access to care, but also to the goods that "simply" allow us to live. It is necessary to overcome not only the vaccination divide but also the unequal access to public health, removing barriers such as the lack of facilities and managing more wisely the resources for treatment.

Source: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2021-09/archbishop-paglia-academy-life-plenary-assembly-press-conference.html

Made for Each Other...

Does love have anything to do with the human body, with being a man or a woman? Is there anything unique about married love? What is marriage? The answers to these questions can be found in very unique video done by The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage that has launched a new initiative for the protection of marriage. See more at http://www.marriageuniqueforareason.org/sexual-difference-video/.

“Made for Each Other,” the first video of the Marriage: Unique for a Reason series, takes up these and other foundational questions about the meaning of marriage. Marriage is about love, but it’s about a unique love that only a man and a woman as husband and wife can give to each other. In the video, Josh and Carrie talk about why men and women matter for marriage. Their dialogue and interactions illuminate the beauty of sexual difference and complementarity between man and woman as husband and wife. Only through sexual difference can a husband and a wife give themselves completely to one another – so completely that “the two become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). True marital union is not possible without sexual difference.

This is why sexual difference is essential to marriage. Sexual difference is the necessary starting point for understanding why protecting and promoting marriage as the union of one man and one woman isn’t arbitrary or discriminatory. Rather, it’s a matter of justice, truth, love, and real freedom. Only a man and a woman—at every level of their identity: biological, physiological, emotional, social, spiritual—are capable of authentically speaking the language of married love, that is, the language of total self-gift, open to the gift of the other and the gift of life. (Please see the second video “Made for Life,” which explores the topic of marriage and children.)