Cardinal urges families to be in frontline of fight for goodness

ROME (Zenit) — The president of the Pontifical Council for Families is hoping that the world meeting in Milan at the end of the month will help families to form ties with each other so that they can defend themselves and issues they hold dear — similar to the way that workers’ unions do.
This was a reflection offered by Cardinal Ennio Antonelli speaking of the 7th World Meeting of Families, which will be held from May 30 to June 1 in Milan. Benedict XVI is planning to close the event.
The cardinal was offering his proposals at a conference held on May 4, organised by the group Cultural, Educational and Family Initiatives (ICEF) at the Roman parish of St Eugene.
The pontifical council president exhorted the laity to take up their role: “Although it’s true that the Church could always do more, meanwhile the laity must be in the frontline, they must become direct interlocutors, as the labour unions are for workers. They must be aware of themselves and of their importance.”
The cardinal said that today society is lay and secularised; there was a time when the Church had a privileged role. Today, instead, it’s just one element like others.
“It’s absolutely necessary that associations be reinforced,” he said. “There are many, there is the Forum of Family Associations. However, effectiveness depends not only on the quantity of families that join them but also on how rooted they are in the territory and at all levels.”
They must intervene, he said, “to reconcile family-work, family and labour unions, family and businesses.
“I think action in all countries is important. I never tire of recommending it,” the Italian-born cardinal continued. Because lay or family associations “in some countries are active, but not in others. In Brazil, for example, there are so many ecclesiastical associations but they are lacking in the civil realm. Who must propose legislation in favour of the family? Christians must, and to do so they must move.”
At another point in his conference the cardinal said that “pastors and bishops should give courage to families so that they join family associations and they should help them to establish themselves in the territory so that they acquire strength”.
Cardinal Antonelli reflected that strong family groups — “as strong at least as the labour unions are” — would change the cultural situation and the political one.