Twelve years ago, when John Paul II made public my appointment to the Diocese of Terni, mentioned his visit to the steel factory of Terni, on the 19th of March 1981. Today Pope Benedict asks me to go back to Rome to preside the Pontifical Council for the family. I feel deeply grateful to the Holy Father and I regard it as extremely meaningful the fact that he appoints me while he is visiting the families struck by the earthquake. I am challenged by this gesture to follow His own path and to face all dire situations, even the most difficult. I will try to fully obey to the teachings of Benedict XVI and John Paul II, who established the Pontifical Council a few days before he suffered the attack in St. Peter Square.
This is a task which requires audacity and courage, cleverness and loyalty. The family is the fundament of the human society and it is to be defended and supported. To the Christian family is entrusted the important task to be light and salt of a new humanity according to the Gospel.
As I am in Terni, I should say that it is more and more urgent to make the family as strong as "stainless steel".
It is with such feelings that I am going to Rome. St Valentine too, much earlier than me, went to Rome to help a family that he converted to the Christian faith. Those were the times of early evangelization. Nowadays times are different but the same passion and the same radicalization are also required to spread and support love all over the world.
S. Ecc. Mons Vincenzo Paglia
