{"id":4566,"date":"2010-05-17T07:02:57","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T11:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=4566"},"modified":"2010-05-17T17:45:18","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T21:45:18","slug":"abortion-gay-marriage-among-the-most-insidious-and-dangerous-challenges-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/abortion-gay-marriage-among-the-most-insidious-and-dangerous-challenges-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion, Gay ‘Marriage’ among the Most ‘Insidious and Dangerous’ Challenges: Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pope<\/a>
\n5\/15\/2010 – Hilary White –<\/p>\n

In an address to assembled social and pastoral care workers in Fatima, Portugal yesterday, Pope Benedict identified abortion and the pressure for gay \u201cmarriage\u201d as among the most \u201cinsidious and dangerous challenges that today confront the common good,\u201d and expressed his \u201cdeep appreciation\u201d for those who fight for the rights of the unborn.<\/p>\n

Benedict hailed \u201call those social and pastoral initiatives\u201d that combat the \u201csocio-economic and cultural mechanisms which lead to abortion, and are openly concerned to defend life and to promote the reconciliation and healing of those harmed by the tragedy of abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n

These \u201cinitiatives aimed at protecting the essential and primary values of life, beginning at conception, and of the family based on the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman, help to respond to some of today\u2019s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good. <\/p>\n

\u201cSuch initiatives represent, alongside numerous other forms of commitment, essential elements in the building of the civilization of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the address following a huge open-air Mass at the famous shrine of the Fatima apparitions, the pope highlighted current social trends that present \u201ca scenario of socio-economic, cultural and spiritual crisis, which highlights the need for a discernment\u201d guided by the Church\u2019s social teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Catholic social agencies, such as the British and some American Catholic adoption agencies, must fight these trends to maintain a true Christian identity in the face of ideological pressure from the \u201cprevailing culture.\u201d This culture \u201cconstantly holds up a lifestyle based on the law of the stronger, on easy and attractive gain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Such trends risk \u201cemptying\u201d social works of \u201cthe motivation of faith and Christian hope which had originally inspired them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cguiding principles\u201d of Catholic social agencies, he said, \u201cneed to be clear, so that they can be clearly identifiable by the inspiration of their aims, in the choice of their human resources, in their methods of operation, in the quality of their services, and in the serious and effective management of their means.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called it \u201ca fundamental step\u201d to ensure that such organisations are \u201cranted autonomy and independence from politics and ideologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

HT: LifeSiteNews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5\/15\/2010 – Hilary White – In an address to assembled social and pastoral care workers in Fatima, Portugal yesterday, Pope Benedict identified abortion and the pressure for gay \u201cmarriage\u201d as among the most \u201cinsidious and dangerous challenges that today confront the common good,\u201d and expressed his \u201cdeep appreciation\u201d for those who fight for the rights … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[85,37,8,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-abortion","category-culture-war","category-gay-marriage","category-roman-catholic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}