An English bishop has urged the faithful to promote “the cause of life at this moment of crisis across the western world”. Speaking at the national shrine at Walsingham on Sunday, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury said Catholics must promote the “Gospel of Life with joy” and that their descendents will ask them what they did to make it known. He said: “We will be asked whether we stood idle all day or whether we prayed and made reparation, used our own voices for the defenceless and gave witness to the sanctity of human and family life.” Bishop Davies was speaking at the annual pro-life pilgrimage to Walsingham. He said: “Today, amid a new crisis which has shaken our still United Kingdom the witness of Walsingham reminds us how the well-being of society will always depend on the foundation of the family. On the health and strength of this first cell of society rests not a political union but those timeless bonds which hold human society itself together. “And wherever we have allowed the institution of marriage and this house of the family to fall into disrepair the Family of Nazareth offers us in St John Paul II's words: ‘The incomparable model of how new life should be welcomed and cared for.’ “The Gospel shows us how this Holy Family stood secure in their union amid the hardships of homelessness in Bethlehem and as refugees in Egypt. Likewise, our society will hold together in its deepest bonds, Walsingham reminds us, when we begin to rebuild the neglected fabric of the family founded on marriage. It is precisely this ‘crisis of the family in the context of evangelisation’ which Pope Francis wishes us to address in next month’s worldwide synod of bishops in Rome."