Attacks on the "the true structure of the family" are reducing children to "an object to which people have a right", Benedict XVI said in his annual "state of the world" address to the Roman Curia this morning (full text, video). The design for a new Catholic cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was unveiled yesterday, almost three years after the original was destroyed in an earthquake. Pope Benedict urged Italian children from the youth wing of Catholic Action to "help one another to find the great Author of life, joy, love, and peace" during an audience yesterday (video). The Holy See needs to put new financial control mechanisms in place "because even the best person can be led into temptation", Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Holy See’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said yesterday (video). George Weigel says the US bishops' decision not to issue the pastoral message “The Hope of the Gospel in Difficult Economic Times” was a missed opportunity. Fr Robert Barron tells Brandon Vogt that "to know the great Catholic theological and artistic tradition is key to being a new evangelist". And Carol Glatz watches the Vatican workers known as "sanpietrini" dusting the perilous heights of St Peter's Basilica before Christmas. Follow me on Twitter @lukecoppen for updates throughout the day. The next Morning Catholic must-reads will be on Thursday, January 3.