Parishes that welcome

The UK has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, with 167,000 couples that separated in 2004. The number of separations has been constantly increasing since 1996 and the average length of a marriage in the UK today is 11.5 years. The crisis of the family in England and Wales is a source of concern to politicians and institutions. Every day it challenges the Catholic Church, which launched a campaign in three phases in 2006 to address the problem. The campaign is called “Everybodyswelcome”. We asked Bishop JOHN HINE , who chairs the committee for marriage and the family for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and ELIZABETH DAVIES , who heads the programme “Everybodyswelcome”, to analyse the state of health of the family in the UK today and to explain what the Church is doing about it. What are the causes of the crisis of the family? “Average life expectancy has increased and couples often have to rebuild their relationship after their children have left home; they must learn anew how to be husband and wife, instead of just mum and dad. Today a family needs two salaries to survive because the cost of houses and the cost of living is very high. The long hours of work also prevent couples from having time for themselves and time to communicate with each other in an adequate way. A culture based on the idea that you need to change, that you need to move on and improve your life, has also had negative repercussions on marriage, and the result is that fidelity, which is a value at the very heart of marriage, has been damaged. Marriage counselling is often divided into two categories, preparation for the ceremony and help in times of crisis; there doesn’t exist a culture that recognises the need for marriage to be constantly nourished”. What does the Catholic Church do to help marriages? “There are weekends of support for families organized by the association “Marriage Encounter”. We try to spread the idea that it’s important for couples to communicate effectively and be realistic and practical without setting their expectations too high. It’s also important to foster the idea that the difficulties inside a relationship can be tackled and the problems overcome”. Could the British government do more to help families? “The government is largely guided by economic considerations and obsessed by the idea of inclusivity, the idea that everyone should be considered in the same way. So unmarried couples or homosexual partners should be considered on a par with husband and wife, and the result is that the value of marriage has been eroded. In this social context the Church must be careful not to give the impression of being a negative voice that only thinks of condemning. Parishes don’t always offer couples psychological support or practical assistance such as babysitter services or help when a baby has just been born. Hours of Masses and of meetings are often difficult to reconcile with family routine, either early in the morning or at dinner time in the evening…” How can this risk be avoided? “A parish that is attentive to families will recognize the difficulties of family life and organize its timetable and services to families accordingly, using imagination and enterprise, for example by offering courses of preparation for baptism in the homes of couples so that they don’t have to find a babysitter to look after their children or by giving families the opportunity to meet together instead of concentrating especially on adults and youths. Celebrating National Marriage Week and World Marriage Day in February or Parents’ Week in October is important. A good sermon or some talk given by a good speaker may be an excellent aid if we consider that our families are already communities of life and of love”. Mrs. Davies, what’s the aim of “Everybodyswelcome”? “The objective is not to tackle the crisis of marriage but to raise the awareness of parishes and make them more welcoming, so as to have stronger communities in which each one of us may feel loved and accepted for what we are. In 2004 we launched “Listening 2004”, a programme with which we asked families to explain what their problems and expectations are. What emerged from it is that what families most want is a welcoming parish. We distributed flyers to help parishes to understand the problems of families. We drafted a ‘vision statement’ which explains what we mean by “Home is a holy place”, the second phase of “Everybodyswelcome”. We concentrated on some key values such as God is love and families are reservoirs of this love. There are families that fail to live up to the Church’s expectations, and yet they feel themselves accepted and welcomed, understood and supported along their difficult path”.