New Year Message

Family can be basis for peace, says Pope
The Pope has marked New Year's Day with a traditional peace Mass before the Vatican diplomatic corps.

He stressed the role of the family as an agent of peace.

"The natural family, founded on marriage between a man and a woman, is the cradle of life and love and the primary and indispensable conduit of peace," said the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.

Recalling that the UN General Assembly published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights four decades ago, the Pope noted that 2008 was also the 25th anniversary of the Holy See's Charter of the Rights of the Family.

"I ask every man and woman to become more aware of the shared belonging to the sole human family and to commit themselves to it" on a path to "true and lasting peace", the 80-year-old pontiff said.