Food For Thought

In September 2015, the United States will be the setting for the church’s World Meeting of Families.

Jun 20, 2014

In September 2015, the United States will be the setting for the church’s World Meeting of Families. It will provide an occasion for the church to present, on a world stage, the importance it places on what Pope Francis has called the “fundamental cell” of society.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Vatican Pontifical Council for the Family, spoke on May 15 to the United Nations on the topic. Family is “at the very heart of human development,” he said.

Unlike the friends we choose or a favourite channel we tune into, the family cannot be changed when we stop liking them. This teaches us to live with someone who is different, “the ‘other’ cannot be ignored,” Archbishop Paglia said.

In that sense, the family is “a very special school of education in ‘otherness’ and in love for another.” As a school, it teaches us many lessons we will need because it mirrors society, since a family is “a delicate but stable community of life among different persons,” the archbishop said.

Our experience in a family allows us “to foster and protect the sensitive relations between individuals and diverse social realities, thus allowing for the harmonious development of society as a whole,” Archbishop Paglia said.

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