“In Africa, the family is honored” and its values are surrounded by “enthusiasm.” The Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Msgr. Jean Laffitte, said this in an interview with Stephen Leszczynski for Vatican Radio, after returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he took part in the conference dedicated to “The Question of Family Values in the Congolese Society,” sponsored by the “Communauté Famille Chrétienne” with the support of the local Bishops’ Conference. In discussing the contribution that the African Church can give in defense of the family, Bishop Laffitte also highlighted some “difficulties concerning the material conditions, precariousness, and insecurity in areas where there is a form of civil disorder.” The Congolese society, he said, is subject to “cultural pressures, through the media or coming from other cultures;” indeed the Country’s door is closed to any attempt to “extend the concept of the family, for example, to the de facto union between persons of the same sex.” The Congolese society “resists and it is strong. There is—he concluded—a large family movement that is very promising.”