"It is essential to give a central role to the family pastoral" to answer challenges such as "the low rate of marriages, increase in common-law marriages, the fragility of the couple’s stability, divorce, increase in the number of common-law unions, the search for the fabrication of the perfect child", produced by the “strong secularization affecting a certain number of European countries, including France", and by the influence of some lobbies wishing for "acknowledgement of homosexual unions and the possibility for them to adopt children". "It is a process according to which one part of the population distances itself from Christian faith and ecclesial belonging". It was said by the president of French bishops, Card. Jean-Pierre Ricard, today, in his speech at the assembly of the presidents of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) which is going on in Fatima, in Portugal. Family pastoral: "not as one of the particular dimensions of the pastoral, but as fundamental element touching the other fields of the pastoral", so as to be "more effective". (to be continued)
