Addressing members of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, Pope Francis highlighted the need for Church and State to “attend and support families” in these turbulent times.
C. Roubini CTC, Vatican News
He warned against ideological approaches and reminded that the family is the building block of society.
Pope Francis was meeting on Monday with the academic community of the “John Paul II” Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.
Established in 2017
In 2017, John Paul II launched the Pontifical Institute for the Study of Marriage and the Family, founded in 1981 on the back of the 1980 Synod of Bishops on the Family. The main concern of the family Pope Francis was more able to respond to the challenges that arose at the beginning of the third millennium through Motu Proprio.
Its main mission is to develop the study of marriage and the family and to prepare graduate lay, clergy and laity for teaching, research and pastoral work in this field.
Its aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of marriage, family and modern world assumptions about man in the light of Catholic teachings.
On his own initiative, Pope Francis’ 2017 Motu Proprio expanded its mandate to include non-Catholic experts, giving the institute new energy and a broader scope.
“Theology is called to the elaboration of a Christian vision of parentage, sonship and fraternity in the horizon of the whole human community. Therefore the experience of family is not only the marriage relationship,” the Pope said in the message. Pope Francis commended and encouraged the institute’s commitment to implement this authentic project “with unity and creativity.”
Saying that there is a need for a concrete theology of the state of the family, the Pope went on to state that there is an urgent need to integrate a “theology of marriage” with a “more concrete theology of the state of the family”. “Unprecedented Turmoil” of Our Time
Pointing out that pressure is placed on all family relationships, the Pope underlined that “a careful discernment is needed to perceive the signs of God’s wisdom and mercy”.
“We are not prophets of doom but prophets of hope. Therefore, when we consider the causes of this crisis, we must never lose sight of the consoling and sometimes touching signs that family ties continue to show, benefiting the community of faith, civil society and human coexistence,” the Pope recalled.
Describing the family as the irreplaceable anthropological grammar of society, Pope explained that when this grammar is neglected or disturbed, “the whole order of human and social relations suffers its wounds.”
“The quality of marriage and family determines the quality of a person’s love and the quality of relationships of human society itself.” Therefore, the Pope recalled that “the State and the Church have a responsibility to care for and support families” in order to create “a more supportive, more fraternal, more humane world”.
Family is not an ideology, it is a reality
The Holy Father warned against “imprisoning” the family in ideological positions. “We must protect the family, but not imprison it, nurture it as it should grow. Beware of intervening ideologies to explain the family from a conceptual perspective. Family is not an ideology, it is a reality. A family grows by the power of reality. But everything falls apart when ideologies come to explain what family is. Ideologies ruin things!”
Marriage and family should not be expected to be perfect. The Pope went on to say that we do not need to wait for families to achieve perfection in order to support their important mission in society. “Marriage and family”, “will always be incomplete and incomplete until we are in heaven”. Papa added.