ASIA/KOREA - “The Family, a place of love and life” is the title of a pastoral letter issued by the Catholic Bishops for Advent 2004

Seoul (Fides Service) - Advent is a time to sanctify and evangelise the family, the Korean Bishops say in a pastoral letter for Advent with the title The Family, Place of love and Life. The letter with 83 paragraphs took inspiration from the meeting of the Korean Bishops early this year and a meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in August held in Korea.
The Bishops voice concern for the crisis affecting the family: today our families face serious problems including the loss of significance of marriage, tendency to moral laxity preference for life styles which do not envisage marriage, increase in the number of irregular unions, spreading domestic violence and juvenile delinquency. The Bishops say every family must help to heal wounded and destroyed families.
The letter recognises that the agent which sanctifies and evangelises the family is the family itself: all families are called to be communities of communion and love.
The text offers practical suggestions, how to develop formation programmes, build small communities of families, form lay persons for family pastoral, offer human and spiritual counselling to divorced persons, remarried persons, persons suffering from domestic violence.
The letter will be distributed during Advent to all dioceses and parishes and it will be used for reflection and meditation in churches, associations and movements.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 26/11/2004 righe 25 parole 262)