Europe is lagging behind

“Creating information and encounter platforms” between Church leaders, associations and movement representatives and individuals engaged in pro-life and family-defense initiatives in order “to plan clear, systematic and concrete interventions for the protection of the family, its values and its rights”. This, according to Maria Teresa da Costa Macedo, Consultant of the Pontifical Council for the Family, former Secretary of State for the Family in the Portuguese government, is one of the major tasks of family pastoral care in a significant number of European countries. In the address delivered during the 19th plenary meeting of the Vatican dycastery, held February 8-10 on the theme of the rights of the child upon the 20th anniversary of the UN international convention (November 20 1989), da Costa provided a snapshot of the family in Europe, indicating a series of guidelines for pastoral care.Ranging between changes and criticality. In the entire continent, the expert said, “the family is the natural environment of human development”. However, the family recently underwent changes affecting its “lifestyle” and “set of values”. There are two major aspects of this transformation, which are due to political, economic, and social reasons. These are, “Women’s increased independence and their professional engagement”, accompanied by an “ambivalent” male role “in the family and across society”, Costa said. Furthermore, “the political sphere is invading the social, economic and cultural” areas of society. “Invading the private sphere of individuals, of the family and of communities”, affects their very “freedom and autonomy”. Referring to an address delivered in Fatima by Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, vice-President of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), on the situation of the family in Europe, de Costa spoke of the major concerns highlighted by His Eminence: the drop in the number of marriages, the increased divorce and cohabitation rates (mostly among the youth), the dramatic birth-rate decrease, the surging number of out-of-wedlock births, legalized unions and marriages between homosexuals (practiced in 6 out of 27 countries) along with the latter’s eligibility to adoption, increasing single-parent households and the promotion of a ‘gender-based’ ideology”.Informing and raising awareness. According to da Costa, European States “don’t promote the defense and the protection of the family”. Policies are aimed “at consecrating new claims, elevating them to the level of human rights, such as abortion, divorce, euthanasia, same-sex marriages” reaching the point of demanding that they be granted legal recognition”, she said. In this prevailing “anti-family and anti-life culture”, she cautioned, “lobbies which seek to transform male and female identity break-up, euthanasia, genetic selection, and birth-control programs as the signs of modernity are gaining ground within parliaments and governments”. This is why “it’s important to spread accurate information that will influence decision-makers, politicians, and the media”. The latter in particular, often campaign “against life and the family, producing information aimed at triggering emotions rather than prompting reflection”.A culture of life. In this scenario, continues da Costa, most European bishops’ Conferences “presented new pastoral models for the family, more updated and dynamic”. Notwithstanding national peculiarities, the bishops of the continent believe that the pastoral initiative ought to focus upon “three axes that will promote and defend human dignity, the sanctity of the marriage sacrament, the inviolability of life and the family”. Faced with scientific embryo research, reproductive and/or therapeutic cloning and euthanasia the promotion of “a pro-life culture” is decisive, said da Costa. Hence it is important “that ecclesial community leaders provide the appropriate responses to cultural, social and political proposals on these themes” so as to prevent “misunderstandings and uncertainties which often determine Christians’ lack of participation, precisely when the view of the silent majority is crucial and often decisive”. As John Paul II and Benedict XVI often said, the pastoral care of the family and life “ought to promote specific and accurate formation”, notwithstanding the peculiar traits of each Country, and the different pastoral approaches. The common objective of “church and social mission” is to “promote the learned and dynamic participation of Christian faithful” while “acknowledging family citizenship and its fundamental role in the erection of a just society”.