Families have their say” “

It’s a project called “Listening 2004: my Family. My Church”. Comprising conversations, questionnaires, even dedicated telephone lines to safeguard anonymity, it has lasted for a year and involved all the dioceses of England and Wales. Over 15,000 families were contacted. The aim: to test in depth how families regard themselves today, their relations with their faith and with the parish, and especially to understand how the teachings of the Church on all aspects of family life are perceived by those directly concerned. The result is a book with four chapters. A LISTENING CHURCH. From the report of the English Church it emerges that the family today lives “under strong pressure”, due to the lack of sharing of Christian values in society, economic difficulties, lack of time, and overburdening with various commitments. The report also registers a great deal of loneliness. With regard to the teachings of the Church, especially on divorce and second marriages, many families ask for “greater generosity and charity from the Church”. Others ask for “more information and greater clarity”. From the survey the bishops have drawn a series of challenges for the future: not least the invitation to all parishes to be “friends of families” in all seasons and situations of life (married couples, widows, young singles, divorced, separated, couples with and without children) by offering their understanding and support, “assistance in case of need” and places of “friendship and sharing”, in case of loneliness. THE FAMILY IN A CHANGING WORLD. A large part of the responses emphasized the difficulties of Christian families in living in a world in which the values of Christianity are no longer shared. Many also underlined the difficulties of families in “surviving economically and managing to reach the end of the month”. “There is no doubt – comment the authors of the Report – that this problem has a serious impact on the stability and quality of relationships”. To all this is added a total lack of time for the couple, in families that are increasingly “focused on children”. A whole section of the Report is dedicated to the many stories of divorce and second marriages. The family, moreover, is at the centre of a vast and growing network of communication comprising internet, e-mail, cell phones, radio and TV, but “paradoxically the more the means of communication are developed round the family, the less face-to-face communication there is between the members of the family within the walls of the home”. Nor does the Report draw a veil over the darker aspects of family life, those of violence, drugs, alcohol and depression, which especially emerged where the anonymity of the interlocutor could be guaranteed. FLIGHT OF THE YOUNG. The families interviewed said that faith is “extremely important because it helps to tackle the difficulties of life at home and in the world”. The same goes for the values of Christianity. The problem – families are almost unanimous on this – consists in transmitting this entire heritage to the young generations who “seem to have become impervious to the faith and to the teachings of the Church”. The Report calls them the “lost generation”. Many parents and grandparents lamented the difficulties in responding to questions about prayer, Mass, religious practices and moral questions. PRECEPTS. The teachings of the Church on moral questions are often perceived as “inappropriate” and this is especially the case when it comes to divorce and sexuality. The greatest challenge emphasized by the Report is that of making the faithful fully understand the “richness” of the Catholic and Christian vision of the family “without diminishing it in any way”, but without making them perceive it as an “unrealisable ideal”. The questions linked to sexuality and tackled in the Report cover a huge range of situations: marriage, cohabitation, life as singles and homosexuality. Some lament the “lack of understanding” by the Church. Others tell of brothers and sons who are homosexual. Others again consider that “the celibacy of priests has become unrealistic and unnecessary”. And lastly there is the problem of contraception and the ban on the use of condoms, which many families have difficulty in understanding, “specially when used to prevent the spread of diseases”. The exclusion of the divorced from the Eucharist is another great difficulty underlined by families because it is perceived as “a lack of forgiveness and mercy on the part of the Church of Christ”. Challenged by these responses, the bishops of England and Wales intend to put in place “a better system of communication with a view to a deeper understanding of the teaching of the Church in the field of marriage and family life, based especially on the real experience of the family”.