The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Family is a gift, and our most precious treasure

Pope Francis recently spoke to participants in a meeting promoted by the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe. Although his audience was European, the implications of his remarks are universal.

The pope began his remarks by calling the family Europe’s most precious treasure. “This image of ‘treasure’ was present in your meeting yesterday, which brought families from many countries of Europe to Rome,” the Holy Father said. “It is an image that well reflects the esteem that all of us must have for the family. In effect, families are not museum pieces, but through them, the gift is made concrete in mutual commitment and generous openness to children, but also in service to society. Families are thus a kind of leaven that helps to make the world more humane and more fraternal, where no one feels rejected or abandoned.”

Families are not outdated social structures whose functions have been superseded in modern times by government, educational institutions, the news and entertainment media or other expressions of secular culture. The family maintains a unique and irreplaceable role in human life—as a kind of “leaven” that has a transformational influence on individuals and communities, allowing them to become something greater than they otherwise might be.

Without families, human society would be greatly diminished—less humane and less fraternal. In fact, as Pope Francis sees it, the gift that is family life is absolutely essential for the health and well-being of human society.

“In ‘Amoris Laetitia’ [“The Joy of Love”], I emphasized how, on the basis of the family, we can make the gift concrete through the beauty and the joy of mutual love,” the pope told the conference participants. “Seen in this light, your activity should help remind everyone that there is no better ally for the integral progress of society than to favor the presence of families in the social fabric. Today too, the family is the foundation of society, and it remains the most suitable structure for ensuring for people the integral good necessary for their continuing development. I wanted to stress how the unity of all the members of the family, and the fraternal commitment of the family with society, are allies of the common good and of peace.”

Family teaches us to work for the common good and for peace among all nations and peoples. It teaches us that we are all sisters and brothers united in the one family of humankind, which people of faith recognize as the family of God.

“The family is the interpersonal relationship par excellence, inasmuch as it is a communion of persons,” Pope Francis says. “Your relationships as spouses, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, make it possible for every person to find a place in the human family. The way to live out these relationships is dictated by communion, the driving force of true humanization and evangelization.

“Today more than ever, we see the need for a culture of encounter that can enhance unity in diversity, reciprocity and solidarity between generations. This ‘family capital’ is called to impregnate the economic, social and political relationships of the European continent. The way of ‘being family’ that you want to spread is not subject to any contingent ideology, but grounded in the inviolable dignity of the person.”

Of course, what is right for Europe in its efforts to “impregnate” its economy and all of its socio-political structures is also right for the Americas and for the rest of the world. The family transcends all ideologies and all political philosophies. It unites women and men of faith with all people of good will. The family is not an anachronistic museum piece. It is a gift, humanity’s most precious treasure.

May the Holy Family serve as our model always, helping us transform society for the good of all.
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †