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We know you face obstacles as you try to maintain strong family ties and to follow your calling as a church of the home. The rapid pace of social change; the religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity of our society; the revolution of values within our culture; the intrusion of mass media; the impact of political and economic conditions: Some family pressures are due to broad social forces over which a family has little control. But other pressures are caused by personal choices, sometimes involving human weakness and sinful behavior.
Divorce, a serious contemporary problem, takes a heavy toll on family life. Spouses and children are affected most immediately, but so too are grandparents, other relatives, and friends that make up the extended family. Divorce can create in young people a fear of and a reluctance to make lifelong commitments. It often pushes families into poverty and contributes to other social ills.
Families are burdened also by the economic demands of providing housing, health care, childcare when needed, education, and proper care for sick or elderly members. Unemployment or the fear of losing a job haunts many families. Child and spouse abuse are touching the lives of more families. So, too, is the tragedy of AIDS. Families struggle with alcoholism, crime and gang violence in their neighborhoods, substance abuse, and suicide among youth.
In a neverending stream, communications media bring images and messages into your homes that may contradict your values and exert a negative influence on your children. Some families face multiple burdens of poverty, racism, religious and cultural discrimination. New immigrant families can feel unwelcome in our communities and caught in a conflict between cultures. Not all families experience these pressures to the same degree. Some are damaged by forces beyond their control.
Many more, however, continue with prayerful determination and trust in God. All deserve our compassion and support—those who persevere also our gratitude as they show us the very faithfulness of God. Pressure is brought to bear on families not only by outside forces but by those ordinary and inevitable tensions which arise from within. Daily you discover how different temperaments and opposing points of view can create hard feelings and even lasting bitterness.
Human weakness and sinfulness often make it difficult to accept differences. Recall how the wayward son swallowed his pride and returned home to find a forgiving father awaiting him and a family celebrating his arrival cf. In the same way, all of us who suffer broken relationships are called to make peace, to reestablish trust, and to repledge love. This can be an especially painful task for parents. What if your child becomes addicted to drugs, or harms others through drunken driving, or chooses friends you consider a bad influence.
What if your adult child leaves the Church or makes other choices that cause you pain? Is it still possible to maintain a loving relationship without approving the child's behavior? How much can you accept before you compromise your own integrity? It's not possible in this message to give complete answers to these questions and to the many others you confront. But what we can do, as your pastors and teachers, is to shed the light of Sacred Scripture and our Catholic tradition on a few key issues which you face. In the next few pages we would like to discuss with you four challenges in family life.
They make a claim on your resources and responsibilities as a church of the home. They point out how you can follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you cf. Earlier in our message we affirmed the ancient insight that the Christian family is a church of the home. This understanding has guided and informed all we have written. We know that, in the everyday moments of your family lives, you proclaim God's word, communicate with God in prayer, and serve the needs of others. The graced experience you have as a Christian family in your domestic church should be shared more extensively with all of us.
We encourage you to help the Church by speaking to us, but more importantly to other families, about how you are trying to follow the way of love. Tell us how you work to stay married, how your family has overcome obstacles, how you have made time for each other, sought enrichment opportunities or professional help with your problems. Share with us how you have come to understand your vocation as a spouse or parent. Speak to us of your pain over broken promises and relationships.
Give witness to your belief in God's mercy as you move toward reconciliation both with your family and with the Church. Help us to appreciate the symbols and traditions with which you celebrate and worship. Let us glimpse how you are trying to live a more simple lifestyle, serve the needy, build justice and peace in your community. Tell us what kinds of support you expect from the larger Church. In The International Year of the Family Catholic News Service will provide a forum, through its syndicated "Faith Alive" series, for families to tell their stories. Your words and deeds will lend strength to our exhortations.
Our Pledge At other times we have urged all institutions of society to forge partnerships with families. We now promise to do our part to develop such a partnership within the Church. Specifically, as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, we pledge: Most of these documents those listed with a publication number are available from: Teaching on the dignity of marriage, the role of the family, and the duty of society and the Church to support families.
Encyclical letter on the nature and purposes of married love, the gift of fertility, and the call to responsible parenthood. Pope John Paul II. Apostolic exhortation on the nature and tasks of the Christian family and the scope of pastoral care needed by families. Print Share Calendar Diocesan Locator. Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. Families Are a Sign of God's Presence Ways of Loving When people talk about life in a family, they speak of love with its abiding peace, its searing pain, its moments of joy and disappointment, its heroic struggle and ordinary routines.
The Way of Love Our ministry as pastors and teachers is enriched by our family experience. Reflection Questions What image, feeling, or memory comes to mind when you think about your family? What does it tell you about your life as a family? Your family life is sacred because family relationships confirm and deepen this union and allow the Lord to work through you. The profound and the ordinary moments of daily life—mealtimes, workdays, vacations, expressions of love and intimacy, household chores, caring for a sick child or elderly parent, and even conflicts over things like how to celebrate holidays, discipline children, or spend money—all are the threads from which you can weave a pattern of holiness.
Jesus promised to be where two or three are gathered in his name cf. We give the name church to the people whom the Lord gathers, who strive to follow his way of love, and through whose lives his saving presence is made known. A family is our first community and the most basic way in which the Lord gathers us, forms us, and acts in the world. The early Church expressed this truth by calling the Christian family a domestic church or church of the home. This marvelous teaching was underemphasized for centuries but reintroduced by the Second Vatican Council.
Today we are still uncovering its rich treasure. The point of the teaching is simple, yet profound. As Christian families, you not only belong to the Church, but your daily life is a true expression of the Church. Your domestic church is not complete by itself, of course. It should be united with and supported by parishes and other communities within the larger Church.
Christ has called you and joined you to himself in and through the sacraments. Therefore, you share in one and the same mission that he gives to the whole Church. You carry out the mission of the church of the home in ordinary ways when: You believe in God and that God cares about you. It is God to whom you turn in times of trouble. It is God to whom you give thanks when all goes well. You love and never give up believing in the value of another person.
Before young ones hear the Word of God preached from the pulpit, they form a picture of God drawn from their earliest experiences of being loved by parents, grandparents, godparents, and other family members. You foster intimacy , beginning with the physical and spiritual union of the spouses and extending in appropriate ways to the whole family. To be able to share yourself—good and bad qualities—within a family and to be accepted there is indispensable to forming a close relationship with the Lord.
You evangelize by professing faith in God, acting in accord with gospel values, and setting an example of Christian living for your children and for others. And your children, by their spontaneous and genuine spirituality, will often surprise you into recognizing God's presence. As the primary teachers of your children, you impart knowledge of the faith and help them to acquire values necessary for Christian living. Your example is the most effective way to teach. Sometimes they listen and learn; sometimes they teach you new ways of believing and understanding. Your wisdom and theirs come from the same Spirit.
You pray together , thanking God for blessings, reaching for strength, asking for guidance in crisis and doubt You know as you gather—restless toddlers, searching teenagers, harried adults—that God answers all prayers, but sometimes in surprising ways. You serve one another , often sacrificing your own wants, for the other's good.
You struggle to take up your cross and carry it with love. Your "deaths" and "risings" become compelling signs of Jesus' own life, death, and resurrection. You forgive and seek reconciliation. Over and over, you let go of old hurts and grudges to make peace with one another. And family members come to believe that, no matter what, they are still loved by you and by God. You celebrate life—birthdays and weddings, births and deaths, a first day of school and a graduation, rites of passage into adulthood, new jobs, old friends, family reunions, surprise visits, holy days and holidays.
You come together when tragedy strikes and in joyful celebration of the sacraments. As you gather for a meal, you break bread and share stories, becoming more fully the community of love Jesus calls us to be. You welcome the stranger, the lonely one, the grieving person into your home. You give drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. The Gospel assures us that when we do this, they are strangers no more, but Christ. You act justly in your community when you treat others with respect, stand against discrimination and racism, and work to overcome hunger, poverty, homelessness, illiteracy.
You affirm life as a precious gift from God. You oppose whatever destroys life, such as abortion, euthanasia, unjust war, capital punishment, neighborhood and domestic violence, poverty and racism. That is what love is like: It is easy to find ourselves caught up in the culture of the provisional, the ephemeral, and that culture strikes at the very roots of our processes of maturation, our growth in hope and love. This is a tough question: Here is what I would say to you.
Of all the kinds of human fruitfulness, marriage is unique. It is about a love that gives rise to new life. Their union thus becomes a sacramental sign — this is important — the sacrament of marriage becomes a sacramental sign of the new and eternal covenant between the Lord and his bride, the Church. Jesus is ever present in their midst. He sustains them throughout life in their mutual gift of self, in fidelity and in indissoluble unity cf.
Gaudium et Spes, Gamble big, for your entire life! Because marriage is also a risk, but it is a risk worth taking. For your whole life, because that is how love is. Please, never forget this! God has a dream for us and he asks us to make it our own. So do not be afraid of that dream! Cherish that dream and dream it together each day anew. In this way, you will be able to support one another with hope, strength and forgiveness at those moments when the path grows rocky and it becomes hard to see the road ahead.
In the Bible, God binds himself to remain faithful to his covenant, even when we grieve him or grow weak in our love. What does God say in the Bible to his people? And you, as husbands and wives, anoint one another with those words of promise, every day for the rest of your lives.
And never stop dreaming! Keep repeating in your heart: Stephen and Jordan are newlyweds and they asked the very important question of how parents can pass the faith on to their children. I know that the Church here in Ireland has carefully prepared catechism programmes for teaching the faith in schools and parishes. This is, of course, essential. Yet the first and most important place for passing on the faith is the home. It is in the home that we learn to believe, through the quiet daily example of parents who love our Lord and trust in his word.
They see how their mother and father interact with each other, how they care for each other and for others, how they love God and love the Church. In this way, children can breathe in the fresh air of the Gospel and learn to understand, judge and act in a manner worthy of the legacy of faith they have received. Never forget this, brothers and sisters: The speech of the home, everyday life, life in the family. It is more difficult to receive the faith — it can be done, but it is more difficult — if it has not been received in your native language, at home, in everyday speech.
I remember once — I was about five years old — I came home and there, in the dining room, I saw my mother and my father who had come home from work just before me kissing. I will never forget it! Though weary from work, he had the strength to express his love for his wife. May your children see you do the same, caressing one another, kissing one another, embracing one another.
This is magnificent, because that is how they learn the everyday speech of love, and faith. This everyday speech of love.
So it is important pray together as a family; speak of good and holy things, and let our Mother Mary into your life and the life of your family. Celebrate the feasts of the Christian people; let you children see what it is to celebrate a family feast.
Live in deep solidarity with those who suffer and are at the edges of society, and let your children learn to do the same. I knew a lady who had three children, about seven, five and three years of age.
The couple had a good marriage, they had great faith and they taught their children to help the poor, because they themselves used to help them. Once while they were at lunch, the mother and three children their father was at work , there was a knock on the door and the oldest one went to answer it. He came back and said: They were eating breaded beef — which is very tasty!
In a word, your children will learn from you how to live a Christian life; you will be their first teachers in the faith, handing on the faith. The world tells us to be strong and independent, with little care for those who are alone or sad, rejected or sick, not yet born or dying. In a moment, I will go privately to meet some families facing grave challenges and real hardship, but who are being shown love and support by the Capuchin Fathers. Our world needs a revolution of love! The tumult of our times is really one of selfishness, of personal interests… The world needs a revolution of love.
Let that revolution begin with you and your families! A few months ago, someone told me that we are losing our ability to love. Slowly but surely, we are forgetting the direct language of a caress, the strength of tenderness. There will be no revolution of love without a revolution of tenderness!
By your example, may your children be guided to become a kinder, more loving, more faith-filled generation, for the renewal of the Church and of all Irish society. No family can grow if it forgets its roots. Children will not grow in love if they do not learn how to converse with their grandparents. So let your love sink deep roots!
Those are the words of an Argentinian poem, let me give it a little publicity! Together with the Pope, may the families of the whole Church, represented this afternoon by couples old and young, give thanks to God for the gift of faith and the grace of Christian marriage. In turn, let us promise the Lord that we will serve the coming of his kingdom of holiness, justice and peace by our fidelity to the vows we have made, and by our steadfastness in love! And now I ask you to pray together the Prayer for the Meeting of Families.
Then I will give you my blessing. And I ask you to pray for me. You [the Capuchin Brother who welcomed the Holy Father] said that the Capuchins are known as the Brothers of the People, close to the people, and this is true. If at times, some Capuchin community goes distant from the people of God, it falls.
You are especially attuned with people of God, and indeed, with the poor. You have the grace of contemplating the wounds of Jesus in those in need, those who suffer, those who are unfortunate or destitute, or full of vices and defects. For you this is the flesh of Christ. This is your witness and the Church needs it. One more thing and then [turning to the poor] I will speak to you.
Another thing that you said touched my heart. It is Jesus who comes [in the poor]. You ask no questions. You accept life as it comes, you give comfort and, if need be, you forgive. Your witness teaches priests to listen, to be close, to forgive and not to ask too many questions. To be simple, as Jesus said that father did who, when his son returned, full of sins and vices.
That father did not sit in a confessional and start asking question after question. May your witness to the people of God, and this heart capable of forgiving without causing pain, reach all priests. And you, dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for the love and the trust that you have for the Capuchin brothers. Thank you because you come here with trust! Let me say one thing to you. Do you know why you come here with trust? Because they help you without detracting from your dignity. For them, each of you is Jesus Christ. Thank you for the trust that you give us.
Jesus is with you. They will give you the things you need, but listen to the advice they give you; they will always give you good advice. And if you have something, some doubt, some hurt, talk to them and they will give you good advice. You know that they love you: Thank you for your trust. And one last thing.
Pray for the Church. Pray for the Capuchins. Pray for the bishops, for your bishop. Pray for me too… I allow myself to ask all this. Thank you so much! Now, each of you, think in your heart of all those who are dear to you, because I will also bless them, you and them. I am grateful to all of you for your warm welcome. It is good to be here! It is good to celebrate, for celebration makes us more human and more Christian. It also helps us to share the joy of knowing that Jesus loves us, he accompanies us on our journey of life, and each day he draws us closer to himself.
Today in Dublin we are gathered for a family celebration of thanksgiving to God for who we are: A family in which we rejoice with those who are rejoicing, and weep with those who grieve or feel knocked down by life. A family in which we care for everyone, for God our Father has made all of us his children in Baptism. That is one reason why I keep encouraging parents to baptize their children as soon as possible, so that they can become part of this great family of God. We need to invite everyone to the party, even the smallest child!
That is why children should be baptized soon after birth. There is something else: That child is stronger, because he or she has the strength of God within! You, dear families, are the vast majority of the People of God. What would the Church look like without you? God wants every family to be a beacon of the joy of his love in our world. What does this mean? And what is this called? It is called holiness. Gaudete et Exsultate, The vocation to love and to holiness is not something reserved for a privileged few. Even now, if we have eyes to see, we can see it being lived out all around us.
It is silently present in the heart of all those families that offer love, forgiveness and mercy when they see the need, and do so quietly, without great fanfare. The Gospel of the family is truly joy for the world, since there, in our families, Jesus can always be found, dwelling in simplicity and poverty as he did in the home of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Christian marriage and family life are only seen in all their beauty and attractiveness if they are anchored in the love of God, who created us in his own image, so that we might give him glory as icons of his love and holiness in the world.
Fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, children and grandchildren: All of us are called to find, in the family, our fulfilment in love. Even daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law! No one said this would be easy. You know that better than I. It is like making tea: So it is that each day Jesus warms us with his love and lets it penetrate our whole being.
From the treasury of his Sacred Heart, he offers us the grace we need to heal our infirmities and to open our minds and hearts to hear, understand and forgive one another. They told us a moving story of forgiveness in the family. And that is true: Small and simple acts of forgiveness, renewed each day, are the foundation upon which a solid Christian family life is built. They force us to overcome our pride, our aloofness and embarrassment, and to make peace. It is embarrassing to make peace, but we still want to do it.
Give a caress, and peace is made! It is true that I like to say that in our families we need to learn three words. Ghislain, you spoke those three words. When you quarrel at home, be sure that before going to bed you apologize and say you are sorry. Before the day is done, make peace. Do you want to know why it is necessary to make peace before ending the day?
Watch out for cold wars in the family! Maybe you get mad sometimes and are tempted to sleep in another room, all by yourself. If you feel that way, just knock on the door and say: I say this because when families do this, they survive. There is no such thing as a perfect family; without the practice of forgiveness, families can grow sick and gradually collapse. Jesus always forgives us. By the power of his forgiveness, we too can forgive others, if we really want to. Children learn to forgive when they see their parents forgiving one another.
Christ died for us so that we, in turn, might forgive and be reconciled with one another. Thank you Nisha and Ted, for your testimony from India, where you are teaching your children how to be a true family. Families can connect through the internet and draw nourishment from it. Social media can be beneficial if used with moderation and prudence. For example, all of you gathered for this World Meeting of Families have formed a spiritual network, a web of friendship; social media can help you to maintain this connection and expand it to even more families throughout the world.
It is important, though, that these media never become a threat to the real web of flesh and blood relationships by imprisoning us in a virtual reality and isolating us from the concrete relationships that challenge us to grow to our full potential in communion with others. Because it takes you away from the concrete reality of the family and into a life of distraction and unreality. Be careful about this. Their story reminds us of the tragic situations endured daily by so many families forced to flee their homes in search of security and peace. But they also show us how, starting from the family, and thanks to the solidarity shown by so many other families, lives can be rebuilt and hope born anew.
We saw this support in the video of Rammy and his brother Meelad, where Rammy expressed his deep gratitude for the encouragement and help their family received from so many other Christian families worldwide, who made it possible for them to return to their village. In every society, families generate peace, because they teach the virtues of love, acceptance and forgiveness that are the best antidote to the hatred, prejudice and vengeance that can poison the life of individuals and communities.
In a special way, such a family can be a support for other families that do not live in peace. Following the death of Father Ganni, Enass, Sarmaad and their family chose forgiveness and reconciliation over hatred and resentment. They saw, in the light of the cross, that evil can only be fought by good, and hatred overcome only by forgiveness. Almost incredibly, they were able to find peace in the love of Christ, a love that makes all things new.
This evening they share that peace with us. While I was listening to the choir, I saw a mother teaching her child to make the sign of the cross. Let me ask you, do you teach your children to make the sign of the cross? It is very important that children learn as early as possible to make the sign of the cross well. This evening, before going to bed, ask yourselves, as parents: Think about it, it is up to you!
The love of Christ that renews all things is what makes possible marriage and a conjugal love marked by fidelity, indissolubility, unity and openness to life. It is what we see in the fourth chapter of Amoris Laetitia. We saw this love in Mary and Damian and their family of ten children. Let me ask you [he turns to Mary and Damian], do your children ever make you grow angry? Ah, that is life! But it is beautiful to have ten children. Thank you for your testimony and for your witness of love and faith!
You told us that the key to your family life is truthfulness. From your story, we see how important it is to keep going back to the source of the truth and the love that can change our lives. Jesus, who began his public ministry precisely at a wedding feast. There, in Cana, he changed water into a good new wine that kept the joyful celebration going strong.
Did you ever think of what would have happened if Jesus did not perform that miracle? Did you ever think how terrible it would be to finish a wedding feast by drinking just water? It would be awful! Our Lady understood that, and so she told her Son: And Jesus realized that the party would not have ended happily with people just drinking water. Conjugal love is like that. And also to open their hearts, in turn, to all those in need of love, especially the lonely, the abandoned, the weak and vulnerable so often discarded by our throw-away culture.
The culture we are living in today discards everything, everything that is not useful. Families everywhere are challenged to keep growing, to keep moving forward, even amid difficulties and limitations, just as past generations did. All of us are part of a great chain of families stretching back to the beginning of time. Our families are a treasury of living memory, as children become parents and grandparents in turn.
From them we receive our identity, our values and our faith. We see this in Aldo and Marissa, who have been married for over fifty years. Their marriage is a monument to love and fidelity! Their grandchildren keep them young; their house is filled with laughter, happiness and dancing. It was delightful to see [in the video] the grandmother teaching her granddaughters how to dance! Their love for one another is a gift from God, and it is a gift that they are joyfully passing on to their children and grandchildren.
A society — listen carefully to this! A Church that is not mindful of the covenant between generations will end up lacking the thing that really matters, which is love. Our grandparents teach us the meaning of conjugal and parental love. They themselves grew up in a family and experienced the love of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. So they are a treasury of experience, a treasury of wisdom for the new generation. It is a big mistake not to ask the elderly about their experience, or to think that talking to them is a waste of time.
Here I would like to thank Missy for her words of witness. She told us that, among travellers, the family has always been a source of strength and solidarity. No one is to be excluded; our love and care must extend to all. I know it is late and you are tired! But let me say one last thing to all of you. As families, you are the hope of the Church and of the world! God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, created mankind in his image and likeness to share in his love, to be a family of families, and to enjoy the peace that he alone can give.
For this reason, I wanted to give each of you a copy of Amoris Laetitia, prepared in the two Synods on the family and written as a kind of roadmap for living joyfully the Gospel of the family. May Mary our Mother, Queen of the Family and Queen of Peace, sustain all of you in your journey of life, love and happiness! And now, at the conclusion of our evening together, we will recite the prayer for this World Meeting of Families. Let us all recite together the official prayer for the Meeting of Families:.
Is aoibheann linn do theacht. Holy Father, on behalf of the lay faithful, the religious, and the priests of the Archdiocese of Tuam, and on behalf of the tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered here this morning, it is my great privilege to welcome you to the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock and to the Archdiocese of Tuam.
It is an honour, a privilege, and a tremendous blessing to have Your Holiness, the Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Jesus Christ come among us to bow down in prayer, and to lead us in prayer, before the scene of the Apparition, and to invoke the maternal intercession of Our Lady of Knock for all families and the World Meeting of Families Holy Father, you have chosen to come to this holy place as a pilgrim. In doing so you remind us by your actions of what you wrote in your Apostolic Letter, Sanctuarium in Ecclesia: By choosing to include a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock as part of the celebrations of the World Meeting of Families , Your Holiness is doing something profoundly important.
I am happy to be here with you. I am happy to be with you in the house of Our Lady. And I thank God for this opportunity, in the context of the World Meeting of Families, to visit this Shrine, so dear to the Irish people. Mary our Mother knows the joys and struggles felt in each home. Holding them in her Immaculate Heart, she brings them with love to the throne of her Son.
No one is to be excluded; our love and care must extend to all. In that letter, you call all Catholics to take part in the fight against abuses in the Church. The traditional offering of oil for the votive lamp, which this year is given by the Region of Umbria, is an expression of this. At the same time, Catholic schools and programmes of religious instruction continue to play an indispensable role in creating a culture of faith and a sense of missionary discipleship. Ill wait for a more comprehensive book about him From this City of Peace, I repeat with all the strength and the meekness of love: This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
As a remembrance of my visit, I have presented the Shrine with a rosary. I know how important the tradition of the family rosary has been in this country. I warmly encourage you to continue this tradition. In my prayer before her statue, I presented to her in particular all the survivors of abuse committed by members of the Church in Ireland.
None of us can fail to be moved by the stories of young people who suffered abuse, were robbed of their innocence, were separated from their mothers, and were left scarred by painful memories. This open wound challenges us to be firm and decisive in the pursuit of truth and justice.
I ask our Blessed Mother to intercede for all the survivors of abuse of any kind and to confirm every member of our Christian family in the resolve never again to permit these situations to occur. And to intercede for all of us, so that we can proceed always with justice and remedy, to the extent it depends on us, such violence. My pilgrimage to Knock also allows me to address a warm greeting to the beloved people of Northern Ireland. Although my Journey for the World Meeting of Families does not include a visit to the North, I assure you of my affection and my closeness in prayer.
I ask Our Lady to sustain all the members of the Irish family to persevere, as brothers and sisters, in the work of reconciliation. Now, with these intentions, and all the intentions hidden in our hearts, let us turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the prayer of the Angelus. I offer a special greeting to the men and women in this country who are in prison. I especially thank those who wrote to me upon learning that I would visit Ireland.
I would like to say to you: I am close to you, very close. I assure you and your families of my closeness in prayer. May Our Lady of Mercy watch over you and protect you, and strengthen you in faith and hope! Thirty-nine years ago, over a million Irish people gathered around this Cross for the Mass celebrated by your predecessor Pope Saint John Paul. It was an historical moment.
It is commonplace to say that today you come to a different Ireland. The Church in Ireland has gone through challenging times. This Cross which dominates our gathering today is a symbol. It was probably never intended to be a permanent memorial. There were times when people asked that it be removed. There were times when this Cross appeared starkly isolated in the bleakness of an Irish winter. In these years Ireland has had its winter moments but also its moments of spring.
Those of us who know what an Irish winter is like — and we have had good experience of that this year — know also what happens when the first rays of spring sun emerge. Today we gather around the same cross in the hope of a spring for the Irish Church. We look towards a spring sun that does not wish to cover up the harshness of dark days.
We wish rather to help families realise anew that the future of Ireland needs the light of the message of Jesus Christ to reappear in all its simplicity and hopefulness. It may seem a paradox for me to say in the same breath that the faith in Ireland is strong and that faith in Ireland is fragile. We pray for you and for the ministry that the Lord has entrusted to you. Yesterday I met with eight persons who are survivors of the abuse of power, the abuse of conscience and sexual abuse. We ask forgiveness for the cases of abuse in Ireland, the abuse of power, the abuse of conscience and sexual abuse on the part of representatives of the Church.
In a special way, we ask forgiveness for all those abuses that took place in different kinds of institutions directed by men and women religious and other members of the Church. We also ask forgiveness for cases in which many minors were exploited for their labour. We ask forgiveness for all those times when, as a Church, we did not offer to the survivors of any type of abuse compassion and the pursuit of justice and truth by concrete actions.
We ask forgiveness for some members of the hierarchy who took no responsibility for these painful situations and kept silent. We ask forgiveness those children who were taken away from their mothers and for all those times when so many single mothers who tried to find their children that had been taken away, or those children who tried to find their mothers, were told that this was a mortal sin.
It is not a mortal sin; it is the fourth commandment! May the Lord preserve and increase this sense of shame and repentance, and grant us the strength to ensure that it never happens again and that justice is done. At the end of this World Meeting of Families, we gather as a family around the table of the Lord. We thank God for the many blessings we have received in our families. In this precious moment of communion with one another and with the Lord, it is good to pause and consider the source of all the good things we have received. In response, the Lord tells them directly: These words, with their promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit, are teeming with life for us who accept them in faith.
They point to the ultimate source of all the good that we have experienced and celebrated here in these past few days: Each new day in the life of our families, and each new generation, brings the promise of a new Pentecost, a domestic Pentecost, a fresh outpouring of the Spirit, the Paraclete, whom Jesus sends as our Advocate, our Consoler and indeed our Encourager. Because living in love, even as Christ loved us cf. The love that alone can save our world from its bondage to sin, selfishness, greed and indifference to the needs of the less fortunate. That is the love we have come to know in Christ Jesus.
It became incarnate in our world through a family, and through the witness of Christian families in every age it has the power to break down every barrier in order to reconcile the world to God and to make us what we were always meant to be: The task of bearing witness to this Good News is not easy. Yet the challenges that Christians face today are, in their own way, no less difficult than those faced by the earliest Irish missionaries.
I think of Saint Columbanus, who with his small band of companions brought the light of the Gospel to the lands of Europe in an age of darkness and cultural dissolution. Their extraordinary missionary success was not based on tactical methods or strategic plans, no, but on a humble and liberating docility to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It was their daily witness of fidelity to Christ and to each other that won hearts yearning for a word of grace and helped give birth to the culture of Europe. Yet like Saint Columbanus and his companions, who faced icy waters and stormy seas to follow Jesus, may we never be swayed or discouraged by the icy stare of indifference or the stormy winds of hostility.
But let us also humbly acknowledge that, if we are honest with ourselves, we too can find the teachings of Jesus hard. How difficult it is always to forgive those who hurt us; how challenging always to welcome the migrant and the stranger; how painful joyfully to bear disappointment, rejection, betrayal; how inconvenient to protect the rights of the most vulnerable, the unborn or the elderly, who seem to impinge upon our own sense of freedom. Yet it is precisely at those times that the Lord asks us: With the people of Israel, we can repeat: May our celebration today confirm each of you, parents and grandparents, children and young people, men and women, religious brothers and sisters, contemplatives and missionaries, deacons, priests and bishops, to share the joy of the Gospel!
Share the Gospel of the family as joy for the world! As we now prepare to go our separate ways, let us renew our fidelity to the Lord and to the vocation he has given to each of us.
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Taking up the prayer of Saint Patrick, let each of us repeat with joy: With the joy and strength given by the Holy Spirit, let us say to him with confidence: I thank Archbishop Martin and the Archdiocese of Dublin for their work of preparation and organization, and in a particular way, I express my gratitude for the support and assistance provided by the government, the civil authorities and the many volunteers from Ireland and other countries, who gave so generously of their time and effort.
I want to say a special word of thanks to all those who prayed for this Meeting: May the Lord repay you! On behalf of the members of the Irish Episcopal Conference, I would like to say how deeply grateful we are for the special visit you have made to Dublin for the IX World Meeting of Families. This is a blessing for the Church in Ireland and for our country. The last time we talked together with you was during our ad limina visit to Rome in January last year, when we shared our hopes for the World Meeting of Families.
Today we give thanks to God that the last few days have indeed proven to be such an inspiration and joy for so many people. Your presence with us, Holy Father, has brought great happiness to Ireland and you have given us many reasons to hope for the future of the Church in this island and beyond. The vibrant participation — especially by young families — in the activities of these past few days has encouraged us bishops and reminded us that this is our time to be shepherds, and it is an exciting time to be Church.
This is our time for living. This is our time for believing. Holy Father you have seen during your short visit that Family life remains strong in Ireland. Parents continue to want the best for their children in this complicated world with so many distractions and false promises. Our task is to convince them that in Christ they can find a reason for living, a reason for hoping and a path to genuine happiness and fulfilment for themselves and their family. Your Holiness, as you return to Rome we wish to assure you of a special remembrance in our prayers for your ministry as successor of St Peter, the one who was called to confirm his brethren.
We ask you to carry with you the prayers of the people of God in this country, and us their pastors whom the Lord has appointed to care for them. As my visit to Ireland comes to a close, I am grateful for this chance to spend a few moments with you. I thank Archbishop Eamon Martin for his gracious words of introduction and I greet all of you with affection in the Lord.
Our meeting tonight takes up the fraternal discussion we shared in Rome last year during your visit ad Limina Apostolorum. In these brief remarks, I would like to resume our earlier conversation, in the spirit of the World Meeting of Families we have just celebrated. As good fathers, we want to encourage and inspire, to reconcile and unify, and above all, to preserve all the good handed down from generation to generation in this great family which is the Church in Ireland. It is true, the Church in Ireland remains strong; it is true. In a particular way, I am grateful for the concern you continue to show for the poor, the excluded and those in need of a helping hand, as witnessed most recently by your pastoral letters on the homeless and on substance misuse.
I am also grateful for the support you give to your priests, whose hurt and discouragement in the face of recent scandals are often ignored or underestimated. Be close to your priests! For you, as bishops, they are the closest of your neighbours. Among these, women who were mistreated. In recent years, you as a body have resolutely moved forward, not only by undertaking paths of purification and reconciliation with victims and survivors of abuse, but also, with the help of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Church in Ireland, you have set in place a stringent set of norms aimed at ensuring the safety of young persons.
In these years, all of us have had our eyes opened — painfully — to the gravity and extent of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience in various social settings. In Ireland, as elsewhere, the honesty and integrity with which the Church chooses to confront this painful chapter of her history can offer an example and a warning to society as a whole.
Continue on this path. Humiliation is painful, but we have been saved by the humiliation of the Son of God and this gives us courage. The wounds of Christ give us courage. Do not repeat the attitudes of aloofness and clericalism that at times in your history have given the real image of an authoritarian, harsh and autocratic Church. The World Meeting of Families has given us great hope and encouragement that families are growing more and more conscious of their own irreplaceable role in passing on the faith.