Today, the Vatican Press Office released the text of a Message which His Holiness, Pope Francis sent to those who are participating in the first Latin American Congress on the Pastoral Care of Families. This gathering, sponsored by CELAM's Department of Family Life and Youth, is taking place in Panama City between August 4 and 9, and is focused on the theme: Family and social developments for the fullness of life.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I unite with all the participants in this first Latin American Congress for the Pastoral Care of the family, organized by CELAM and I congratulate you on this initiative in favour of a value so dear and important today for our peoples.
What is the family? Beyond its more pressing problems and its most urgent needs, the family is a centre of love, where the law of respect and communion reigns, able to withstand the attacks of manipulation and dominance carried out by the worldly centres of power. In the home, the person is integrated in a natural and harmonious way in a human group, overcoming the false opposition between the individual and society. Within the family, no one is discarded: both the elder and child are welcome. The culture of encounter and dialogue and openness to solidarity and transcendence carry these truths in its heart.
For this reason, the family is a great social wealth (cf. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 44). In this sense, I would like to emphasize two primary contributions: stability and fertility.
We learn to live in the nuclear family based on loving relationships that are faithful unto death, such as that of a spouse, a father, a child, a brother or a sister. These relationships form the basic fabric of human society, when they are given cohesion and consistency. We cannot be part of a community that opens itself up to others, or feel close to one another, or take account of the most needy and most unfortunate, if the human heart were to shatter these relationships that provide basic security to man.
In addition, family love is fruitful, not only because it generates new lives, but also because it broadens the horizon of existence, creates a new world; makes us believe, against all despair and defeat, that a coexistence based on respect and trust is possible. Faced with a materialistic view of the world, the family does not reduce man to sterile utilitarianism, but channels his deepest desires.
Finally, I would like to tell you that, thanks to the establishment of family love, man also grows in his openness to God as his Father. For this, the Aparecida document indicates that the family should not only be considered the object of evangelization, but also an agent of evangelization (cf. nn. 432, 435). The family reflects the image of God, in his deepest mystery, and in this way allows you to see human love as a sign of God's love and presence (Lumen fidei, 52). In the family, faith is mixed with maternal milk. For example, the simple and spontaneous gesture of asking for a blessing which is maintained in many of our peoples, encapsulates the biblical conviction that God's blessing is passed on from father to son.
Aware that family love ennobles everything that man does, giving it an added value, it is important to encourage families to cultivate healthy relationships among their members: to know how to say to each other forgive, thanks , and please, and how to turn to God with the beautiful name of Father.
May Our Lady of Guadalupe obtain from God abundant blessings for the families of America and make them the seeds of life, harmony and a strong faith, nourished by the Gospel and by good works.
I ask you, please, to pray for me because I need it.
Fraternally.
Francis
Message of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the First Latin American Congress
for the Pastoral Care of Families
Dear brothers and sisters,
I unite with all the participants in this first Latin American Congress for the Pastoral Care of the family, organized by CELAM and I congratulate you on this initiative in favour of a value so dear and important today for our peoples.
What is the family? Beyond its more pressing problems and its most urgent needs, the family is a centre of love, where the law of respect and communion reigns, able to withstand the attacks of manipulation and dominance carried out by the worldly centres of power. In the home, the person is integrated in a natural and harmonious way in a human group, overcoming the false opposition between the individual and society. Within the family, no one is discarded: both the elder and child are welcome. The culture of encounter and dialogue and openness to solidarity and transcendence carry these truths in its heart.
For this reason, the family is a great social wealth (cf. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 44). In this sense, I would like to emphasize two primary contributions: stability and fertility.
We learn to live in the nuclear family based on loving relationships that are faithful unto death, such as that of a spouse, a father, a child, a brother or a sister. These relationships form the basic fabric of human society, when they are given cohesion and consistency. We cannot be part of a community that opens itself up to others, or feel close to one another, or take account of the most needy and most unfortunate, if the human heart were to shatter these relationships that provide basic security to man.
In addition, family love is fruitful, not only because it generates new lives, but also because it broadens the horizon of existence, creates a new world; makes us believe, against all despair and defeat, that a coexistence based on respect and trust is possible. Faced with a materialistic view of the world, the family does not reduce man to sterile utilitarianism, but channels his deepest desires.
Finally, I would like to tell you that, thanks to the establishment of family love, man also grows in his openness to God as his Father. For this, the Aparecida document indicates that the family should not only be considered the object of evangelization, but also an agent of evangelization (cf. nn. 432, 435). The family reflects the image of God, in his deepest mystery, and in this way allows you to see human love as a sign of God's love and presence (Lumen fidei, 52). In the family, faith is mixed with maternal milk. For example, the simple and spontaneous gesture of asking for a blessing which is maintained in many of our peoples, encapsulates the biblical conviction that God's blessing is passed on from father to son.
Aware that family love ennobles everything that man does, giving it an added value, it is important to encourage families to cultivate healthy relationships among their members: to know how to say to each other forgive, thanks , and please, and how to turn to God with the beautiful name of Father.
May Our Lady of Guadalupe obtain from God abundant blessings for the families of America and make them the seeds of life, harmony and a strong faith, nourished by the Gospel and by good works.
I ask you, please, to pray for me because I need it.
Fraternally.
Francis
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