Vatican
City, 13 September 2013 (VIS) – Francis sent a message to
participants in the 47th Social Week for Italian Catholics, which
will be held from 12 - 15 September in Turin, to commend their choice
of the theme “The Family: Hope and Future for Italian Society”
and for linking the family with these two concepts. The Pope also
commented that for the Christian community, the family is “a path
for generations through which faith, love and fundamental moral
values are transmitted, as well as concrete solidarity, hard work,
patience, and also plans, hope, and future. All of this - which the
Christian community lives in the light of faith, hope and charity -
it has never kept to herself, but every day it becomes leaven in the
dough of society, for the greater common good.”
The
tradition of the Social Weeks began in 1907 and one of its promoters
was the blessed Giuseppe Toniolo. This will in fact be the first Week
convened since his beatification on 28 April 2012. The Weeks are
proposed as high profile cultural and ecclesiastical initiatives
which aim to face and, if possible, anticipate the at times radical
challenges posed by the evolution of society.
“Hope
and future”, writes the Pope, “presuppose memory. The memory of
the elderly gives us the support we need to continue on our path. The
future of society ... is rooted in the elderly and the young: the
latter because they have the strength and youth to carry history
forward, and the former because they are the source of living memory.
A population that does not take care of the elderly and of children
and the young has no future, because it abuses both its memory and
its promise”.
“As
the Church, we offer a concept of the family rooted in the Book of
Genesis, of the unity in the difference between man and woman, and
the fruitfulness of this complementarity, and we recognise it as an
asset for all, as the first natural society. … The family
understood in this way remains the first and principle building block
of society and of an economy on a human scale. … The consequences,
positive or negative, of decisions of a principally cultural or
political nature in relation to the family touch upon the various
areas of the life of a society and a country”.
In
his message, Pope Francis reiterated that we cannot ignore the
suffering of many families caused by a lack of employment, housing
problems, the fractures that may develop within a family or a
marriage, and “the violence that unfortunately lurks and does
damage inside our homes”. However at the same time, he concluded,
we must remember the “simple, but beautiful and courageous witness
given by many families, who experience matrimony and parenthood with
joy, illuminated and supported by the grace of the Lord, without fear
of facing the moments of the cross that, lived in union with the
Lord, do not obstruct the path of love, but rather make it stronger
and more complete”.
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