Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Honiara (Fides Service) - The family as the basic cell of society, the sacrament of marriage as a union of man and woman called by God to share life, the values of faithfulness, sacrifice, love, recipirocal gift of self, proposed by the teaching of Jesus Christ were the principle themes of a seminar of formation for Catholics couples organised recently by the Church in Honiara archdiocese, Solomon Islands.
The local Church realised the need to strengthen family bonds and accompany married couples today in a society ever more secularised in which they are exposed to the risk of divorce and breaking up of families at the first diffuculty encountered by the couple. The seminar proposed an itinerary of formation for married couples, couples engaged to be married and couples anxious to live their marriage on the basis of Christian values .
The seminar organised with the help of experience shared by of couples from abroad, experts in family pastoral, underlined that Christian couples have an irreplaceable mission in the world of today. With their generous and faithful love husband and wife bear witness in a world torn apart by hatred. At the same time Christian families promote simply and profoundly the dignity and value of human life from the moment of conception.
The participants addressed an appeal to young people to rediscover the values of chastity and purity almost in disuse or out of fashion for the world of today. Living between two worlds- a world of consumerism, materialism, hedonism - and the world of traditional values and young people in Solomons experience a crisis and need new points of reference which the Church can offer by reproposing the message of Christ.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 5/9/2005 righe 26 parole 263)
