The family founded on marriage key for personal growth
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "The family can be articulated in many different ways in everyday life, but questioning it and undermining it results in people becoming weak and passive with respect to society, rather than actors / agents that should generate and regenerate the human and social capital of society itself". This is the result of research conducted by Pierpaolo Donati - published in the book "Family a resource for society" (published by Routledge, 2012) - on a representative sample of the Italian population aged between 30 and 55 years (3500 interviews conducted in 2011) which led Card. Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, to affirm today that "the family based on faithful marriage between a man and a woman and open to life, beyond all cultural developments that characterize it, continues to establish itself as the principal route for the generation and growth of the person. "
This is how the VII World Meeting
of Families on the theme: "The
Family: Work and celebration", to be held in Milan from 30 May to 3
June this year, was presented this morning in the Vatican.
Very
significant figures regarding the Meeting were also released today, such as the
million or so people expected for the final mass celebrated by Pope Benedict
XVI; the 300 thousand expected for the Festival of witness; the 50 thousand
visitors expected at the international Family Fair, that
will include over 100 booths; the 6,900 students enrolled in the International
Theological-Pastoral Congress. More
than half coming from abroad (South America, Europe and Africa). Of
these, 900 young people enrolled in the "Youth Congress."
Other data
confirm the high expectations for the meeting: 1023 journalists accredited to
date (one third from abroad), 2200 the press reports from January 1 to date,
633,639 visits to the official website www.family2012.com: 331,042 visitors to
the site, 2,178,263 page views. And
again, 14,148 Friends of the Facebook page, the total flow of users achieved
each week is 213,200 people, 4,451,959 fans. The
nations represented among the visitors of the page are: Italy, Portugal, Spain,
Brazil, France, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Poland, 1368 twitter followers,
100,327 YouTube viewers.
Beyond
the numbers, while strongly suggestive, the title VII World Meeting of Families, according to Card. Scola,
"links the three fundamental aspects of daily life for everyone - family,
work, celebration - bringing into force two constituent, though often
overlooked, features of human experience all over the world: the uniqueness of
individuals and the fact that they are always in relation with others. Thus
this seventh World Meeting of Families has interpreted the perennial importance
of these questions, and of this particular historical moment. "
In this regard, Card. Ennio
Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, answering a
question from journalists on the so-called quickie divorce argued that "it
does not seem to point in the right direction." Instead
"people should be helped to rebuild their families." The
cardinal, in particular, cited the Canadian Association 'Retrouvailles'",
founded by those who had failed in marriage and who experienced the recovery of
the unity of their marriage and have thus become apostles of the possibility of
rebuilding a relationship. They're
getting good results. Such an initiative should not be left only to persons of
good will. " But
institutions should also do everything possible to ensure the marriage is
stable, respecting the freedom of people, while helping them."
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