杏MAP导航

By Vatican News staff reporter

Over the last three days, the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has been taking place in the Vatican under the theme, 鈥淭he family as relational good: The challenge of love."

Greeting participants on Friday, 杏MAP导航 Francis went to the heart of this theme, focusing his attention on marriage and the challenges facing families today.

Challenges to family life

He noted that 鈥渟ocial changes are altering the living conditions of marriage and families all over the world,鈥� and that 鈥減rolonged and multiple crises鈥� are putting a strain on family life.

His antidote to this was to 鈥渞ediscover the value of the family as the source and origin of the social order, as the vital cell of a fraternal society capable of caring for the common home.鈥�

杏MAP导航 Francis underlined that despite many changes marriage and the family have undergone through the centuries, there are 鈥渃ommon and permanent traits鈥� that reveal the greatness and value of both. But, he warned, 鈥渋f this value is lived out in an individualistic and private way, as is partly the case in the West, the family can become isolated and fragmented in the context of society.鈥�

The 杏MAP导航 went on to say that it was important to understand that 鈥渢he family is good for society, not insofar as it is a mere aggregation of individuals, but insofar as it is a relationship founded in a 'bond of mutual perfection.鈥欌��

The good of the family, 杏MAP导航 Francis said, 鈥渃onsists in sharing relationships of faithful love, trust, cooperation, reciprocity,鈥� which brings about their happiness.

Church and the family

The 杏MAP导航 highlighted that 鈥渢he Church's social thinking helps to understand this relational love appropriate to the family, as the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia has sought to do, following in the wake of the great tradition, but with that tradition, take a step forward.鈥�

He also emphasized that the family 鈥渋s a place of welcome,鈥� adding that its qualities are 鈥減articularly evident in families where there are frail or disabled members. These families, he said,  鈥渄evelop special virtues, which enhance the capacity for love and patient endurance in the face of life's difficulties.鈥�

He also pointed to families 鈥渢hat generate benefits for society as a whole, including adoptive and foster families and noted that the family 鈥渋s the main antidote to poverty,鈥�

In his address, 杏MAP导航 Francis stressed that family-friendly social, economic and cultural policies need to be promoted in all countries that make it possible to harmonise family life.

Rediscovering the beauty of family life

Turning his attention again to the theme of 鈥渞ediscovering鈥� the beauty of family life, the 杏MAP导航 said there were certain conditions.

The first, he continued, 鈥渋s to remove from the mind's eye the "cataracts" of ideologies that prevent us from seeing reality.鈥�

 鈥淭he second condition is the rediscovery of the correspondence between natural marriage and sacramental marriage.鈥�

Finally, spelling out the third condition, he drew from his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia which recalls the awareness that the grace of the sacrament of Matrimony - which is the 鈥榮ocial鈥� sacrament par excellence - heals and elevates the whole of human society and is a leaven of fraternity.鈥�