The Vatican held a three-day conference defending the institution of traditional marriage.
On Monday, Pope Francis led a conference in the Vatican, defending traditional marriage. 30 religious leaders from different countries, backgrounds, and faiths gathered at the Vatican for the "Complementarity of Man and Woman" conference.
"To reflect upon 'complementarity' is nothing less than to ponder the dynamic harmonies at the heart of all Creation. This is a big word, harmony. All complementarities were made by our Creator, so the Author of harmony achieves this harmony," began Pope Francis.
The three-day conference supports the values of traditional marriage. Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church, and Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, both spoke at the conference.
"Complementarity (between men and women) is the basis of marriage and the family, which is the first school where we learn to appreciate our gifts and those of others and where we learn the art of living together "¦ Children have the right to grow up in a family, with a mother and a father who can create a suitable environment for their development," said Pope Francis at Monday's conference.
Despite recent trends of the legalization of same-sex marriage, the religious leaders expressed their firm beliefs in the distinct union between man and woman.
"We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment. This revolution in manners and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable," said Pope Francis.
Moore, a prominent figure in the Southern Baptist community, is considered strongly conservative and shared his thoughts on the current status of Western culture at the conference.
"Western culture now celebrates casual sexuality, cohabitation, no-fault divorce, family redefinition, and abortion rights as parts of a sexual revolution that can tear down old patriarchal systems," said Moore.
"We see the wreckage of sexuality as self-expression all around us, and we will see more yet. And the stakes are not merely social or cultural but profoundly spiritual," he said. "In the evangelical Christian perspective, this is because there is no such thing as a casual sexual encounter at all, when we are speaking in spiritual terms."
Warren added to the conference with an explanation of steps the church needs to make in defending the Christian definition of marriage.
"The church cannot be salt and light in a crumbling culture if it caves in to the sexual revolution and fails to provide a counter-culture witness. It is a myth that we must give up Biblical truth on sexuality and marriage in order to evangelize," he said.
The pastor continued to define marriage through the Apostle Paul's message.
"In this same way, husbands must love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds it, and cares for it, just as Christ does his church- for we are members of Christ's body! It is for this reason that man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and his church! So, each of you must also love your wife as your love himself, and you wife must respect your husband," Eph. 5:23-33.
Warren stressed the importance of defending this definition of marriage.
