Pope to parents: Come out of ‘exile’ and educate your children

May 28, 2015

VATICAN: In his general audience on Wednesday, May 20, Pope Francis spoke of the essential role parents play in educating their children — a role, he said, that has been usurped by so-called experts who have taken the place of parents and rendered them fearful of making any correction.

“If family education regains its prominence, many things will change for the better. It's time for fathers and mothers to return from their exile – they have exiled themselves from educating their children – and slowly reassume their educative role,” the Pope said May 20.

He gave harsh criticism to the “intellectual critics” that he said have “silenced” parents in order to defend younger generations from real or imagined harm, and lamented how schools now are often more influential than families in shaping the thinking and values of children.

“In our days the educational partnership is in crisis. It's broken,” he said, and named various reasons for this.

“On one part there are tensions and distrust between parents and educators; on the other part, there are more and more ‘experts’ who pretend to occupy the role of parents, who are relegated to second place,” he said.

The Pope spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience. His focus on the vocation of families to educate their children is part of his ongoing series on the family.

Since the end of last fall Francis has been centering his Wednesday catechesis on the theme of family as part of the lead-up to the World Day of Families in September, as well as October’s Synod of Bishops on the Family.

In his address he stressed that educating and raising children in the human values which form the “backbone” of a healthy society is a responsibility that each family has.

However, many difficulties often impede parents’ ability to properly educate their children. Today parents are spending less and less time with their children, and meeting their needs after a long day of work can be exhausting, he noted.

In off the cuff remarks, Francis also highlighted the struggle faced by the increasing number of divorced or separated families. Many times children in these families are “taken as a hostage,” while their mother and father speak badly about each other.

To do this “does so much bad” to children, the Pope noted, and stressed the importance for parents in these situations to “never, never, never take your child hostage.”

“You are separated because of many difficulties and reasons, life gave you this trial, but may the children not be the ones who bear the weight of this separation! May children not be used as hostages, against the other (parent),” he said.

Although this important task can be very difficult for parents who are separated, the Pope said that it’s not impossible, and that “you can do it.”--CNA/EWTN