I am increasingly convinced that the battle for civilisation is centred on the family. As the fundamental unit of society, it is increasingly under threat from moral, social, and economic pressures. The family should be our principle focus of pastoral support and encouragement. Today, the Holy Father spoke to the Forum of Family Associations and the European federation of Catholic Family Associations. He said:
We are well aware of the many challenges facing families today, and we know how difficult it is, in current social conditions, to achieve the ideal of fidelity and solidarity in conjugal love, to bring up children, and to preserve the harmony of the family unit. While on the one hand – thanks be to God – there are shining examples of good families, open to the culture of life and love, on the other hand, sadly, an increasing number of marriages and families are in crisis. From so many families, in a worryingly precarious state, we hear a cry for help, often an unconscious one, which clamours for a response from civil authorities, from ecclesial communities and from the various educational agencies. Accordingly, there is an increasingly urgent need for a common commitment to support families by every means available, from the social and economic point of view, as well as the juridical and spiritual. In this context, I am pleased to recommend and encourage certain initiatives and proposals that have emerged in the course of your Conference. I am thinking, for example, of the laudable commitment to mobilize citizens in support of the initiative for "Family-friendly fiscal policy", urging Governments to promote family-related policies that give parents a real possibility of having children and bringing them up in the family.
Have a look at the
VIS report which also refers to Pope John Paul's affirmation that "the future of humanity passes by way of the family."
I am increasingly convinced that the battle for civilisation is centred on the family. As the fundamental unit of society, it is increasingly under threat from moral, social, and economic pressures. The family should be our principle focus of pastoral support and encouragement. Today, the Holy Father spoke to the Forum of Family Associations and the European federation of Catholic Family Associations. He said:
7 comments:
Only an idiot would miss the link! It's a shame about the Catholic Children's Society falling out of Church jurisdiction. Yet another nail in the coffin of the family.
http://carpe-canum.blogspot.com/2008/05/catholic-childrens-society.html
Not for public comment post.
Hi,
Just wanted to ask permission to put you in my links and to ask if you might add me to yours also?
You are welcomed to continue to use any holy cards froom my blog to add to anything you post. It's an honor to share my cards with you. Here's my e-mail.
mjcesa1@excite.com
Thank you....love your posts.
The family is the building block of society and also of the Church in some ways, but can true Catholic families exist in today's society?
Even the Church herself has blended herself with the world and has lost some of Her identity what hope then can there be for the individual families if the community that is meant to nourish and strengthen them so often merely reflects the secular world instead of the heavenly one to come.
YES YES YES! Families with one parent at home should not be penalised!
eutychianFor years I have thought a simple effective solution to our plight would be to promote Family Evenings Together.
Reading aloud to one another, playing board games together, singing together, saying a decade or two of the rosary together, taking a walk down to the ice cream shop together, playing hide and seek, going for a bike ride together, putting together a family scrap book, making a visit to the Blessed Sacrament together, visiting grandparents, making a two mile pilgrimage over to the next parish for success in the next term of studies, doing a bit of catechism-there are an infinite number of possibilities.
If we spent as much time and thought and energy on displacing the secular culture as we do on worrying about it, we would be much, much better off. Our children would eventually be such glowing advertisements Catholicism and a holy way of being family that the forces of darkness would be pushed back into the pit and the Church would triumph once again.
We cannot win this war with well placed arguments, only with sanctity, and raising up a great quantity of holy children.
There is simply no other solution. It's that or be swamped.
Lee - we do this in England with various sorts of "family days" organised by different groups. There' usually some prayer, some catechesis for different age groups, a meal together, some playing, and lots of good conversation between parents and with the priest. I agree that this sort of thing is essential. Other informal links grow out of these activities - days out with one or two families together, getting together on the day of a High Mass and procession, going up to London to a beautiful Church and a solemn liturgy and then having a meal together... This confirms families in their vocation and displaces the sordid culture of secularism, preventing it from infecting their lives.
The family is fundamental, but so is the Church, and the Church is actually more important. That's why it is so wrong and dangerous that the Human Right to "private and family life" is held in international law to be more important than the right to practice one's religion. The family in fact is often used to undermine the Church just as much as the State is. (Of course the State itself is also being badly undermined - and often by well-meaning but misuided clergymen at that - but that's another story.)
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