The President of the Pontifical Council for the family Most Rev. Vincenzo Paglia has stressed on the need to protect and defend the family at all cost because human beings are made for communion not loneliness.
Addressing the delegates at AMECEA Plenary in Lilongwe, Archbishop Paglia said that family is still the foundation of society, a place where cultural and spiritual values are learned and transmitted. “The extended family teaches its children the attitudes and behaviors of the whole community,” he said.
“The crisis of marriage and the family is to be considered in the light of the individualization of contemporary society. It seems that the ‘me’ is everywhere prevailing over ‘us’ and individual over family. Consequently the rights of an individual takes precedence over the rights of the family,” he Explained.
Speaking from the context of Africa, the Archbishop quoted the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa which says “In the culture and traditions of Africa, the role of the family is universally considered as fundamental. Open to this understanding of the family, of love and respect for life, Africa loves children and welcomes them joyfully as a gift from God. The sons and daughters of Africa love life. Practices contrary to life are nevertheless imposed on them by economic systems that serve only egoism and money.”
The Archbishop also observed that the threats to family life in today’s Africa are many. These includes breakdown of morels, the attacks on the unity of marriage, dissolution of family ties, and the increase in the de facto unions, as well as poverty, and increased unemployment that makes it impossible for parents to fulfill their responsibilities.
“The family must be defended and protected so that it can render to the society the service that society expects of it, that is to give it men and women who can weave a social fabric of peace and harmony,” he said.
To show that the Vatican is fully committed to promoting the African family, Archbishop Paglia said that the Pontifical Council for the Family has opened a section for Africa that is led by an African Priest.
The Archbishop said that it is not good for the family to be left alone, which is the situation at present. “Children come to church for baptism and then disappear afterword, couples stay away from Church after receiving the blessings of the Sacrament of Matrimony; this needs to stop. The family needs the link of the Church, of the communitas. The Church is the rock on which the family is built.”
The Archbishop said that a new pastoral perspective for the family is therefore highly needed. “My dear brother bishops, what I propose is difficult and complex but cannot be avoided; we need a new alliance between the family and the Church to show the beauty of the ‘us’ to a world that lives in sorrow of shortsighted pride.”
He appealed to the AMECEA Bishops saying, “The Lord has entrusted to us a task that is both worth and fascinating, but he will not deny us his help in carrying it out.”