"Increasingly, in the feeling of the people, importance is given—he continued—to love and to the belief that the family, as our Constitution says, is the foundation and the center of the social fabric, the reference point, the place where warmth is received and given, where we go out to meet each other in the beauty of complementarity and responsibility to generate new lives, to love and grow. Therefore, every State assumes duties and charges with regard to the family based on marriage, recognizing in it not only the future, but also its own stability and prosperity. We hope that the collective consciousness will never lose the sense of the identity and the uniqueness of this institution, as a 'subject of inviolable rights that finds its legitimization in human nature and in recognition by the State. Hence, the family is not there for society and for the State, but rather the society and the State exist for the family."

On the family's "vital front"—he continued—"special attention and heated debate have been ignited. It is good to recall that our founding fathers gave us a particular treasure that we must all appreciate and cherish as the dearest and most precious heritage, with the awareness that 'there can be no confusion between the family willed by God and any other kind of union.' This treasure chest of relationships, generations and genres, of humanism and grace, contains a diamond: the children. Their true good must prevail over any other interest, since they are the weakest and most exposed: they are never a right, because they are not things to be produced; they are entitled to respect and, above all, security and stability. They need a complete microcosm with all its essential elements, in order to breathe a certain breath: 'Children deserve to grow up with a father and a mother. The family is an anthropological fact, not an ideological one."

Cardinal Bagnasco said that "the Bishops are united and unanimous in sharing the difficulties and trials of the family and in reaffirming its beauty, centrality and uniqueness: insinuating conflicts and divisions means loving neither the Church nor the family. Having been made messengers and heralds of the Gospel of the family and marriage, we not only believe that the family is 'the Constitution of the Church,' but also the dream of a 'country of family size,' where respect for all is a lifestyle and the rights of each person are guaranteed at different levels, according to justice. Justice, in fact, implies living in the truth, recognizing the different situations for what they are, and knowing that—as the Holy Father repeatedly has said—' so many people (...) living in an objective state of error continue to be the object of the merciful love of Christ and therefore of the Church herself.' The faithful—he concluded—have the duty and the right to participate in the common good with serenity of heart and a constructive spirit, as the Second Vatican Council solemnly reiterated: the laity has the responsibility 'to inscribe the divine law in the life of the earthly city. May they assume their responsibilities in the light of Christian wisdom and with keen attention to the teaching of the Magisterium."