Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Canberra (Agenzia Fides) - Catholic families from a number of Australian dioceses are preparing to take part in the 5th World Meeting for Families to be held in Spain in the city of Valencia in July. There is fervid activity in diocesan councils involved with family and marriage pastoral care. The organisers expect between 1 and 1.5 million people to take part in the main event, the Mass presided by Pope Benedict XVI.
The local Church is deeply committed to protecting the family, the founding cell of society, a place where life is welcomed and nurtured and faith and the founding values of the society and the nation are handed on to the new generations. The Church is Australia has called on religious communities to work together to protect the family and to guarantee a future of wellbeing for the country which cannot be separated from the wellbeing of the family.
“Missionary family” was the theme of a series of reflections involving as many families as possible in view of mission to other families. Moreover a series of talks on the missionary dimension of the family presented models for authentic missionary animation of families, to increase awareness of the missionary responsibility of every Christian according the state and situation of life.
Special attention of the Church in Australia is testified by precise structural decisions: for example the archdiocese of Sydney recently opened an Office for Marriage and Family to improve and intensify pastoral care for families and “promote the truth, goodness and beauty of married and family life”, the Archdiocese explained. (Agenzia Fides 31/5/2006; righe 24, parole 243)
