Romana

The sixth annual Theological Dialogues program was held from January 13 to April 20 at the Almudi Priests’ Library, under the title: “Marriage and the Family, Keys to the New Evangelization.” One of the objectives of the work carried out during these months was to help prepare for the World Conference on the Family, scheduled for Valencia in 2006.

In the first conference, Bishop Juan Antonio Reig of Segorbe-Castellón presented a panorama of the present situation of the family in Spain and the Church’s evangelizing mission. He emphasized the importance of the Spanish bishops’ new Pastoral Directory for the Family in connection with this mission. Following his address, Juan Perez Soba, Vice-Dean of the San Damasus School of Theology in Madrid spoke on the pan-sexualism of contemporary culture.

The presentation by Jose Noriega Bastos from the Lateran University’s John Paul II Institute in Rome was entitled “The Holy Spirit in Christ and in Spouses.” José Alfredo Peris, Dean of the “Edetania” School of Human Sciences, spoke on “Sexual and Reproductive Rights.”

Juan Andres Talens, from the John Paul II Institute on the Family in Valencia, spoke on contraception and natural methods of regulating fertility, and Father Ignacio Carrasco, Professor of Bioethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, spoke on prenatal diagnostics.

Also speaking were Professor Jutta Burggraf from the School of Theology in the University of Navarre and Miguel Villalba, President of the Diocesan Commission on Life and the Family in Valencia.