NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      BUENOS AIRES, AUG 2 (ZENIT).- The 3rd Meeting of Politicians and Legislators, organized by the Vatican Pontifical Council for the Family, presided by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, will be held in Buenos Aires from August 3-5.

      The importance the Church attaches to this meeting, which will focus on "Family and Life 50 Years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," is reflected in the fact that 6 Cardinals and 37 Bishops from Latin American will be attending.

      In calling this meeting, Colombian Cardinal Trujillo said that the "Church starts from the idea that the defense of the family, matrimony and life is indispensable in any coherent society."

      The President of the Pontifical Council for the Family hopes that the participants in the symposium will express their opposition to abortion and the cloning of human beings.

      Argentine President Carlos Menem, who in United Nations forums has supported the defense of human life proposed by the Holy See, will attend the inaugural session, which will bring together some 200 legislators and political leaders from the whole of Latin America.

      During the meeting, there will be talks on "Ethics and Globalization," by the two leading Argentine presidential candidates: Fernando De la Rua of the opposition Alliance, and Eduardo Duhalde, of the governing Justicialist party (the party of the Perons).

      Among the 250 politicians attending are former Colombian President Belisario Betancourt; former Uruguayan Chancellor Hector Gross Espiell; the Second Vice-President of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, Severino Cavalcante Ferreira; and Manuel Aguilera Gomez, deputy of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

      In explaining the purpose of the meeting, Cardinal Lopez Trujillo said that "John Paul II always calls on politicians to respond positively to new problems and challenges connected with the family and life in general. The new globalization cannot be divorced from ethics; here, we think the work of politicians in general and of legislators in particular, is fundamental."

      Special attention will be given to bioethics as related to the scientific challenge, economic development and demography, the family and society, globalization and Christian values, the juridical statute of the human embryo, and the dignity of life and death.

      This is the third meeting of Latin American legislators and political leaders called by the Vatican to discuss issues related to defense of the family and matrimony. The first meeting was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1993 and the second in Mexico City in 1997. ZE99080207

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