OCEANIA/AUSTRALIA - Archdiocese of Sydney opens new Office for Marriage and Family

Sydney (Fides Service) - The Archdiocese of Sydney recently opened a new Marriage and Family Office. The mandate of the office, an initiative promoted by the Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal Gorge Pell, is to promote the truth, goodness and beauty of Marriage and the Family the cradle of values and first place for the handing on of the faith.
The office is headed by Mr Chris Meney who recently moved to Sydney with his wife and eight of their nine children. Meney has been involved in both Church and secular family organisations over many years. He has had previous employment experience in biomedical science and a masters degree in Bioethics at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family..
A key focus of the work at the Marriage and Family Office will be to project the Church’s vision of marriage and family out into the culture. It will also look to establish links with parishes and other agencies working to support family life. The new Office will help explain and defend the Christian understanding of marriage and the family both to the Church community at to wider society. Meney says “The truth about the beauty of marriage and family is something we need to re-discover - to realise that faithful and enduring married love is worthwhile and achievable. We need to grasp the real grandeur of this most intimate and loving of relationships and the preciousness of its fruit - the gift of children”. (Agenzia Fides 14/2/2006 righe 21 parole 208)