Family based on marriage, defence of life from conception to natural death, greater distribution of work and wealth, acceptance of immigrants and also the enunciation of some basic principles on the occasion of the forthcoming elections in France: these were the main points touched on by Cardinal Ricard, President of the French Bishops’ Conference, in his address to the plenary assembly that opened at Lourdes yesterday (until 30 March). The cardinal declared that “Catholics, at the time they make a political choice, must act in conformity with their Christian convictions”. Among these convictions he cited the value of the family, “basic cell of the human community which has more than ever need to be supported at the present time”. “Let us say ‘yes’ to the family founded on the marriage of a man and a woman, open to procreation, ‘yes’ to the child’s right to have a father and mother”. The President of the French bishops expressed a firm ‘no’ “to the recognition of a claimed right to death that would constitute a legalization of euthanasia”. His opposition to abortion was equally strong. According to Cardinal Ricard, we have passed in this field “from a logic of debate to the assertion of a right that seems self-evident, and each time it becomes more difficult to resist in the face of strong pressure”.
