Against the backdrop of an effort to recognize “gay marriage” in France, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of French bishops that the truth about marriage and the family is vital to society and must be promoted in bold and creative ways.

He said marriage and the family “must be promoted and defended from every possible misrepresentation of their true nature, since whatever is injurious to them is in fact injurious to human coexistence as such.”

The family is the “foundation of social life” but it is “threatened in many places by a faulty conception of human nature,” the Pope said Sept. 21. The defense of the family and of human life promotes “values that allow the full development of the human person created in the image and likeness of God.” It is “not at all backward-looking but prophetic.” --CNA