Family, work and holiday

After Rome (1994), Rio de Janeiro (1997), Rome (2000), Manila (2003), Valencia (2006), Mexico City (2009), it’s again Europe’s turn to host the 2012 World Meeting of the Families. The seventh edition, due to be held in Milan May 30 to June 3rd, is themed: “The Family: Work and Celebration”. “The upcoming World Meeting of Families affords a privileged opportunity to rethink work and celebration in the perspective of a family that is united and open to life, thoroughly integrated in society and in the Church, attentive to the quality of relationship in addition to the economy of the family nucleus itself”, wrote Benedict XVI in his Letter summoning the event on August 23rd 2010. (The full speech in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German is available on the website of the Meeting www.family2012.com). On Saturday June 2 the Pope will take part in the Feast of the Witnesses in Milan and on Sunday 3rd the Holy Father will preside over the Eucharistic celebration. The necessary free pass for the two events can be requested online at the above website.Recovering the true meaning of Sunday. Work and celebration “are closely connected with the lives of families: they condition decisions, influence relations between spouses and between parents and children and affect the relationship of the family with society and with the Church”. “In our day, unfortunately, the organization of work, conceived of and implemented in terms of market competition and the greatest profit, and the conception of a holiday as an opportunity to escape and to consume commodities, contribute to dispersing the family and the community and spreading an individualistic lifestyle”. It is therefore necessary to promote reflection and commitment which aim at reconciling the needs and schedule of work with those of the family. They must also aim at recovering the true meaning of celebration, especially on Sunday”. The Pope conveyed the hope that the event will not remain isolated, but rather “fit into an adequate process of ecclesial and cultural preparation”. Hence Churches must promote “initiatives at parish, diocesan and national levels, which aims to shed light on experiences of work and of celebration in their truest and most positive aspects, with particular concern for their effect on the practical life of families”. SIR Europe will provide updates on the itineraries undertaken by European Churches.“Parents belong to us”. Father Piotr Mazurkiewicz, secretary general of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) delved into the topical relevance and the importance, for European Churches, of “a serious and profound reflection” on the theme of the 2012 Meeting, with Giovanna Pasqualin Traversa (SIR Europe) underlining that in the document “A European Community of Solidarity and Responsibility”, presented in Brussels past January 12, the bishops asked for work-free Sunday throughout the EU. However, this issue, underlines Father Mazurkiewicz, “doesn’t involve only the EU but the whole of Europe”. Speaking of the ongoing negotiations and talks for the revision of the EU Working Hours Directive (2003/88/EC), the COMECE secretary reiterated the need to reintroduce in the directive “the direct reference to Sunday as part of the festive days and the days of rest, which has been eliminated”. The question “doesn’t only involve the Churches or the religious communities. Civil society organizations, cultural and sport associations, and trade unions are actively committed in the European Sunday Alliance network (that includes also COMECE) in order to meet this target, which primarily involves civil society”. “In all of Europe schools are closed on Sundays so that parents can spend some time with their children”. Indeed, the EU Directive on the protection of young people at work “acknowledges Sunday as a weekly day of rest for children and adolescents”. It is therefore important to “synchronize” the times of work and of rest “so that everyone may justly enjoy life in the family enabling parents to take care of their children and allowing children to be with their parents according to the slogan of the campaign, ‘Parents belong to us'”. We cannot “allow this important social right to be lost”. Provided the need to ensure “essential public services”, for Father Mazurkiewicz, “work-free Sunday means establishing a ‘collective pace’ to time across member states” thereby “stepping up social cohesion across societies”. Referring to the “major challenges” of the family that European Churches are called to meet, the COMECE Secretary highlighted its value as “an institution founded on the marriage between man and women, against the attempt to assimilate it with other models; along with support to spouses in difficulty; conscience-awareness against abortionist stands (and against those policies supporting such practice) by spreading the message that each child is a gift for his parents and for society as a whole”.