Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Tomorrow, September 10 the World Assembly of Families begins in India on "Challenges to the Family in the Emerging Global Reality," organized by the Christian Family Movement. Bishop Agnelo Gracias, auxiliary bishop of Mumbai and president of the Family Commission of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), spoke to AsiaNews about the role of the family in a globalized world: "a community of love and life, a man and a woman , open to life. " The path traced by Pope Paul VI and John Paul II.

Pope John Paul II, in his Message for the 31st World Day of Peace, 1989, observed: “We are on the threshold of a new era which is the bearer of great hopes and disturbing questions”.  We are on the threshold of a new era, the Pope said in 1989.  Today, in 2010, we are right in the midst of that era! The Pope well says that the era is one of great hopes and disturbing questions.

Basically, globalization would mean interdependence. I recall how the CBCI Commission for Labour in its 2004 May Day Message pointed out that interdependence is the central fact of the 21st century.  It implies that we are tied together and that we cannot escape each other. It makes the whole world one family. People around the world are more connected to each other today than ever before.

By and large, most will agree that globalization, in its present form, has had over-all negative results. Rather than becoming a “global village”, we have been subjected to what …is termed as a “global pillage”. ……….massive dislocation of people; labour exploitation for maximum profit; farmers and indigenous peoples’ displacement in their own lands..etc

At our Assembly, we are more interested in the impact of globalization on family life. The family does not live in a vacuum, but is interrelated with other institutions in society.

Economic Globalization has surely had an adverse effect on family life. It has aggravated especially the poverty of rural families as many farm products of agricultural families are less in demand because of economic liberalization and deregulation. It has aggravated the poverty of urban families: the rapid exodus of rural families to the city has resulted in the proliferation of slums with awful family living conditions.

In Asia, for example, with increasing poverty, the number of migrant workers grows, and this creates problems of disunity, unfaithfulness on the part of couples and inadequate supervision of the children left behind in the home country. 

This growing erosion of cultural values is a challenge for the Church. Pope John Paul II post-synodal Ecclesia in Asia, particularly stresses that cultural globalization made possible by the modern communications media, is quickly drawing Asian societies into a secularist and materialistic global culture. It has resulted in the eroding of traditional family and social values which had given them direction in life”.

Rather than see what is happening in the world as threats, we can see them as challenges. Challenges to be faced by the Church in the spheres of faith, morality and evangelization. 

For a Catholic, this faith-commitment …is commitment in the Church which is the community of faith

The child is baptized into the faith of the Church through the family.  The family plays a key role in nurturing Faith.

Pope John Paul II repeated the words of Pope Paul VI: “The parents not only communicate the Gospel to their children, but from the children they can themselves receive the same faith as deeply lived by them”. Note the words of the Pope. It is a two-way traffic: parents to children and children to parents. To quote from the Conclusions arrived at the Theological Pastoral Congress of the 5th World Meeting of Families meeting in Valencia, Spain:  “Starting from family life, children begin a path of learning and deepening of the faith that continues in the parishes and other ecclesial institutions”.

[In today’s globalised world] it is a challenge to the Church to deepen family catechesis so that each one can be truly evangelized and make a personal commitment to Jesus as Lord and Saviour.  Only in that way can we help the child as he/she enters the adult world to cope with the challenges from a globalized world without walls where people of different faiths intermingle.  Family catechesis is the answer to this challenge.

This clearly outlines the four main tasks of the Christian family: to form a community of people, to serve life, participate in the development of society, participate in the life and mission of the Church.

Specifically, it means that a Christian family is open to life and all life in it is welcome and children are valued more than the possession and material things ... In a Christian family, God comes first. This does not mean long prayers, but it does mean that the child who sees father and mother command him, bow down themselves in lowly submission to God the great Father of us all... In a Christian family children see their father and mother who asked forgiveness to each other after a quarrel. and I might add, asking forgiveness from the children too when we wrong them... A Christian family is marked by contentment. The advertising world constantly creates new needs in our children’s young hearts, fuelling consumerism.  A Christian family opens the children’s eyes and hearts to the less fortunate, to the have-nots who surround our homes.

Just to take a couple of examples with regard to human life from my own country, India.  In India, the government has gone all out to promote artificial contraception in the guise of `Family Planning’. A contraceptive mentality is gaining ground. Abortion has been promoted.  Figures indicate that India’s 200 thousand gynaecologists perform about 120 million abortions a year – that is a staggering number.   With the spread of what the Pope describes as “the culture of death”, human life has been imperilled from the very start:  the womb of the mother which should have been the safest possible place has become at times a tomb. 

Every week almost there’s a sex crime reported. We express horror, dismay and shock – but beg for more!  Mainstream newspapers carry provocative pictures on the front page.  This has created a ‘I feel therefore I do’ casual attitude to relationships and fidelity in marriage.  This casual attitude contributes to ‘sex for fun’ and promiscuous behaviour.  The rising trend of pre-marital sex and extra-marital affairs has contributed to instability in family life.

In a world, where cheap abortions are advertised in the trains- the Christian family is called upon to uphold the sacredness of all human life. In a world where life is treated like a commodity produced in a test-tube and couples would like to have tailor-made babies, the Christian family is called upon to proclaim the unbreakable link between love and life and to receive each new life as a gift of God.

A Christian family evangelizes the children, but they in turn go out to become an evangelizer to other families- by the witness of its life.”

(with the collaboration of Nirmala Carvalho)