Benedict on marriage: key to "world peace"?

"Pope Benedict on Marriage: Key to 'World Peace'?" (Yahoo News, April 15, 2008):

MANASSAS, Va., April 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis
entitled "Pope Benedict XVI on Marriage: A Compendium" and published by the
Institute for Marriage and Public Policy on the eve of Benedict's historic
U.S. visit, finds that in the first three years of his pontificate, Pope
Benedict XVI has spoken publicly about marriage on 111 occasions,
connecting marriage to such overarching themes as human rights, world
peace, and the conversation between faith and reason.

"Over and over again he has made it clear that the marriage and family
debate is central - not peripheral - to understanding the human person, and
defending our human dignity," says Maggie Gallagher, president of the
Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

... Marriage essential to world peace? This may strike American ears as an
oddity. If so, Benedict has made clear it is not an unintentional one. On
September 21, 2007, in an address to participants in a conference of the
Executive Committee of Centrist Democratic International, Pope Benedict
prefigured the same theme:

"There are those who maintain that human reason is incapable of grasping
the truth, and therefore of pursuing the good that corresponds to personal
dignity. There are some who believe that it is legitimate to destroy human
life in its earliest or final stages. Equally troubling is the growing
crisis of the family, which is the fundamental nucleus of society based on
the indissoluble bond of marriage between a man and a woman. Experience has
shown that when the truth about man is subverted or the foundation of the
family undermined, peace itself is threatened and the rule of law is
compromised, leading inevitably to forms of injustice and violence."