After recalling humanitarian crises and migratory phenomena, Benedict XVI drew attention to the “endless attacks on life, from conception to natural death”. About this he said: “Such attacks do not spare those regions in which the culture of the respect of life is a tradition, for instance in Africa, where they try to surreptitiously trivialise abortion through the Maputo Protocol, as well as through the Action Plan adopted by the Health Ministry of the African Union, which is to be submitted to the summit of the heads of state and government soon”. “Likewise – he added – threats are uttered against the natural structure of the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, and attempts to relativise it by giving it the same status as that of dramatically-different forms of union. All this is an offence to the family and helps destabilise it, breaching its specific nature and unique social role” (to be continued).
