The President of the Evangelical Churches, Pastor Nikolaus Schneider, recalled with emotion his previous meeting with Msgr. Paglia, in 2005, when he came to bring a letter, written by the Austrian Catholic peasant Franz Jägerstätter, martyr of the Nazis in 1943, a few days before his death in the prison in Berlin. The relic of the Holocaust victims was kept in the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Tiber, during a ceremony attended by all the Austrian bishops. Franz Jägerstätter, beatified in 2007, is an example of heroic faith and conjugal love. He refused to serve in Hitler's army because he didn’t wanted perform acts contrary to respect for human dignity and Christian values, and he found in the faith of his wife Franziska strength to face death. Franziska had written to the prison chaplain who had assisted her husband the following words: «I lost a courageous husband and a good father. Our couple was one of the happiest of the parish community».

During the encounter, they talked about the importance of the family and its core values: love, solidarity, loyalty, education, the Christian heritage as a resource for contemporary society, and especially for Europe in crisis. «Traditional families − said Msgr. Paglia − are saving the social fabric, and they are the last bastion in the economic drama of our time».

During the meeting, the doctrinal differences on marriage were evoked, but with the shared conviction that the elements of communion prevail over the differences. The Dicastery was also represented by Fr. Riccardo Mensuali, who accompanied Msgr. Paglia.