Earlier this week at the World Meeting of Families:

On July 4, the opening day,the program began at 4 PM and was scheduled to go until 8:00. But the opening day had a cloud hanging over it. A subway accident in Valencia claimed the lives of 41 people and injured many others. The conference was originally scheduled to have ing speeches by the major of Valencia, Mrs. Rita Barbera, and the Archbishop of Valencia, the Most Rev. Agustin Garcia-Gascon Vicente. But because of the accident, they were not in attendance.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo quoted a Spanish proverb, "The true friend is like blood: which always goes to the wound, unbidden." He said that we needed to be in solidarity with the victims of the subway accident.

The first speaker was His Eminence Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Italy. His talk was called "The Family and Secularism." Most memorable quote from this presentation: "Real education must train people to be truly free and freely true."

He decried the loss of a sense of the meaning of marriage. January 18, 2006 was a dark day: the Parliament of the European Union passed a resolution giving the sense of the Parliament in favor of same sex marital unions and condemning anything less than that as "homophobia." Cardinal pointed out that same sex relationships have always been judged differently that marriage or opposite sex unions. He asked two questions:

1. How did we get to this point?

2. What are we risking by taking the step of legalizing same sex unions?

In answer to the first question, same sex marriage is one logical e of the secular state. The first step is to declare that all understandings of one’s own sexuality are equally valid. This is radical autonomy. The second step is to claim that no sexual practice can be preferred by the law. To do otherwise, would violate the impartiality of the law, and the principle of equality.

These two, autonomy and equality, are the pillars of liberal society.

He outlined two assumptions of radical secularism. First, no concept of life is "true." There is no truth regarding the good of the person or society. Second, we must organize society without any reference to any particular idea of the good. These two ideas imply that all ideas about the goods of marriage have to be replaced by something neutral, or at least, something everyone would agree upon.

What are we risking by the EU declaration normalizing same sex marriage?

1. We are creating a society of strangers. No one is truly related to anyone else through permanent bonds. The law is a teacher: it forms the ideas that people share. Instead of forming the shared idea that marriage is about lifelong monogamous reproductive unions, the law will promote the idea that marriage is whatever each couple says it is. The shared idea about marriage is that there is not allowed to be a shared idea about marriage.

2. These new ideas about marriage will promote ways of looking at marriage that undermine monogamy.

3. Normalizing same sex unions will create pletely contractual model of the family and marriage. this will marginalized the weakest members of society, who need the protections of family to sustain them.

Conclusion: Man is fascinated by Beauty and Holiness, which are the Splendor of Truth and Goodness. The splendor of married love shines in many couples. This give people a glimpse of Beauty. The struggle over same sex marriage is a struggle over Truth. We have an entire generation of parents who don’t really know how to educate the young, because they are afraid of the idea of Truth. This is where he made his most memorable statement: "Real education must train people to be truly free and freely true."

Cardinal Caffarra was terrific in my opinion.