Card. Parolin urges Christian
families to fight today’s individualistic culture
Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin on
September 15 addressed the 12th World Congress of Families in the Moldavian
capital, Chisinau.
By Robin Gomes
The Vatican’s top official has invited Christians to respond
to the call of Pope Francis in helping realize God’s plan for marriage and the
family, saying “the Gospel of the Family” is a source of hope for our world.
The invitation of Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal
Pietro Parolin came in a talk on Saturday at the 12th World
Congress of Families that took place in the Moldavian capital, Chisinau,
September 14-16.
Hope and light
Reflecting on the Christian vision of marriage and the
family, Cardinal Parolin said that the family needs to be “proclaimed in
its integrity, especially in times like our own, when we are
conscious of how deeply fragile so many human
relationships appear to be.” “Families, whose nature is
God-given and whose vocation is love, are today – perhaps more than ever before
– called to be a beacon of hope, a ray of light in our world,” he said.
Threat to family
The cardinal explained that today’s individualistic,
utilitarian and consumerist culture poses grave challenges to the
family. Extreme individualism weakens family bonds and ends up
considering each member of the family as an isolated unit.
This individualistic culture enjoys enormous prestige in the
world of media, finance and politics, but it ultimately relegates
intermediate institutions like the family to a non-essential option.
Church bodies and organized religion are relegated to the “private
sphere”, and relationships such as the family or those within the
Church are not essential to the process of generating profits.
Family - basic to society
In this situation, Cardinal Parolin said, the Church is
called to reaffirm its confidence in God’s plan for the family and the natural
institution of marriage. As an image of God, he explained, the family is
the building block of every society, where mutual growth
and development are promoted amidst differences.
The lived experience of the beauty of the family is the
strongest argument we have, because it tends to welcomerather than
exclude, show compassion rather than condemn, attract rather
than impose.
Cardinal Parolin stressed that the family contributes, and
will always contribute, to the harmony and development of every society:
the structure of a society is dependent on the structure of the family and on
the relationships nurtured therein.
“May all of us do our part to realize God’s plan for
marriage and the family,” Cardinal Parolin urged.
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