"Charity work takes and must take an increasingly prominent place in the evangelising mission of our Churches": it was said yesterday evening in Rome by card. Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Bishops Conference, in his opening address for the Permanent Council. After making an invitation to "respond to the materialistic and hedonistic culture with a consistent evangelising work", he spoke of the impending political election in Italy (13-14 April 2008), highlighting the "risk of political and legislative choices that contradict some fundamental anthropological and ethical values and principles that are rooted in the nature of the human being, especially in connection with the protection of human life (..) and the promotion of the family based on marriage". He thus made an invitation to avoid "introducing in the public legislation any forms of union that would concur in destabilising it, overshadowing its peculiar character and irreplaceable social role". Then he spoke of the "problem of price rises" which is so deeply felt by the Italian public opinion, with reference to the need to "increase the minimum wages, defend the spending power of the pensions, from the housing emergency to measures in support of motherhood, from measures for more security on the workplace to the improvement of some essential infrastructures, to serve commuters as well".
