Catholic News Agency:

Pope Benedict XVI has told the 7th World Meeting of Families in Milan that the family based upon marriage can revolutionize modern society for the better.

“Your vocation is not easy to live, especially today, but the vocation to love is a wonderful thing, it is the only force that can truly transform the world,” he said during his homily to almost 1 million pilgrims gathered in Milan’s Bresso Park on June 3.

Pope Benedict was concluding a three-day visit to the event in northern Italy. Over the past week it has brought together families from over 150 countries to pray, celebrate and study marriage and family life. The theme for this year was “The Family: Work and Celebration.”

... The Pope also stressed the importance of family life built upon a man and woman who are married to each other. This is because God “created us male and female, equal in dignity, but also with respective and complementary characteristics, so that the two might be a gift for each other, might value each other and might bring into being a community of love and life.”