The President of the Pontifical Council began his intervention by noting the centrality of the family for the Church and for the African society. Msgr. Paglia quoted the African scholar Albert TÉVOÉDJRÈ who, in his book Le bonheur de servir: Réflexions et repères, says: "pour les chrétiens laïcs, dans une Afrique ballottée par des courants divers, défendre la famille, telle qu’elle est voulue par Dieu lui-même, n’est pas seulement un acte de cohérence avec leur foi… c’est préserver les fondements mêmes de la société et de tout vrai développement" – for Christian laypeople, in an Africa swayed by different currents, defending the family, as God himself wants it, is not only an act coherent with their faith … it aims to preserve the very foundations of the society and of all true development).

The intervention and the dialogue that followed the report then touched on the major issues affecting the family today, indicating that an exasperated individualistic culture is at the root of the crisis of the family that has also marked the African context.