“People of today, lost and deceived, seduced and blackmailed by false promises and vacuous life projects, are invited to stop and ponder on the meaning of life, which finds its true dimension in the family.” These are words that the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, pronounced in his homily for the Mass dedicated to the family on March 16th, in the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The celebration was marked by the prayer for the two assemblies of the Synod dedicated to the family (in 2014 there will be an extraordinary one and then in in 2015 the ordinary one) and for all the families of the world. From the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí, the Cardinal spoke about the phenomena that destabilize the family: “The growing number of singles or provisional unions, the drama of those who are separated or divorced and civilly remarried, the children of these unions, all manifest a deep crisis of the institution of the family, the lack of confidence that accompanies it and undermines social stability and the common welfare.” The consequences of all this, he warned, “are serious:” from the “flight from responsibility” to the “dramatic loss of memory and belonging with incurable generational factures” and even to “ideological doggedness against the institution of marriage and family unprecedented in history.” In light of this reality, Cardinal Baldisseri concluded, “the appeal to reflect on the family, that the Synod proposes to us, is an imperative.”