Vatican
City, 12 April 2013
(VIS) – This morning in the Press Office of the Holy See,
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for
the Family, and Dr. Salvatore Martinez, national president of Renewal
in the Holy Spirit, presented the Vatican Foundation “International
Family Centre in Nazareth”, which will be erected on the outskirts
of that city above the hill that dominates the city centre and the
Basilica of the Annunciation. The press conference also included
Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, auxiliary of Jerusalem of the Latins
and patriarchal vicar for Israel in Nazareth.
Archbishop
Paglia briefly outlined the history of the Centre's creation, noting
that it was John Paul II, who wanted to be remembered as “the Pope
of the family”, who, as a result of the World Encounter of Families
in Rio de Janeiro in 1997, announced the idea of an International
Centre for the Family in Nazareth. On the way to the Jubilee Year
2000, Pope John Paul II considered the construction of this centre as
a sign of encouragement for families around the world.” However,
realization of the idea was delayed until 2009, shortly before Pope
Benedict XVI's pastoral visit of the Holy Land, when “the Secretary
of State and Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical
Council for the Family at the time, decided to recover the initiative
and checked if the ecclesial movement Renewal in the Holy Spirit was
available to undertake the project.”
After
long negotiations with the ecclesiastical, civil, and political
authorities in Israel an executive plan was approved. In 2012, during
the World Encounter of Families in Milan, the “International Family
Centre in Nazareth” was presented as a “working sign” of the
Pontifical Council for the Family. In October of that same year,
Benedict XVI gave “proper legal form to the project, ordering the
erection of the Vatican Foundation “International Family Centre in
Nazareth” with public and civil Vatican juridical personality, as
well as the the 'ad experimentum' approval of its Statute.” The
Foundation was officially established this past 18 January, and is
based at the Pontifical Council for the Family and presided over by
Dr. Salvatore Martinez, national president of Renewal in the Holy
Spirit.
Referring
to the project's deep feeling, Archbishop Paglia noted Benedict XVI's
words during the blessing of the Centre's first stone on Mount
Precipice in Nazareth in 2009: “We pray that this will promote
strong family life in this region, will offer support and assistance
to families everywhere, and encourage them in their irreplaceable
mission to society.”
He
continued, outlining the tasks that the International Centre will
perform. “It will be a centre for spirituality of the family, for
formation in parental and familiar life, of pastoral care for for
workers, of preparation for the new evangelization, and activities
founded in the ecclesial and social subjectivity of the family. It
will be a permanent observatory of study on family ministry in the
world, especially in the Holy Land and the Middle East. … And it
will be a material support to families in need, especially in the
Holy Land, through international fund raising projects.”
“There
are places,” the archbishop concluded, “endowed with an
extraordinary evocative and symbolic strength. Nazareth is one of
those. It is the place where Jesus grew up, where his house was, …
his family. … It is a land—today even more than at his time—full
of tension and pain. But perhaps precisely because of this, it is a
land that more than any other claims the right to peace and universal
brotherhood. … Christian families can become co-authors of this
dream.”
For
his part, Dr. Martinez expressed the desire that it “become a
privileged place for spreading the 'Gospel of the Family', a
'showcase' of all the beautiful, the good, the true, and the just
that the family offers and witnesses to in the world.” He also
noted that the Centre, built upon property held by the Holy See as
neighbouring property, will be divided into two buildings on a one
hectare area. Once fully operational it will consist of a 500 seat
auditorium, a diocesan pastoral centre, meeting and study rooms, a
500 seat church, lodging for a residential community, a 100 room
hotel with restaurant designed to accommodate families, a play area
and outdoor children's entertainment areas, and exterior passages,
car parks, and leisure areas. The total cost of the work will be
approximately 12 million euro and the property will always belong to
the Holy See.
Dr.
Martinez announced the launch of the “Portal of the Family”. “It
is a unique proposition in the international scene. It was created
with the aim of ensuring all families, under a 'horizontal
subsidiarity' and in the name of a 'gift economy', with a wide range
of free services to support the choices and needs that grandparents,
parents, and children encounter everyday in their life journeys. …
The portal, initially only online in Italian, is intended to have
analogous realisations in the world's other countries and languages …
In it, doctors, psychologists, economists, lawyers, educators, and
priests will interact with families.”
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