Posted by Cathy Taggart I always look forward to new articles on your website, Kevin, and I was especially interested in the one by John McSweeney about World Youth Day 2008. This article particularly resonated with me because I’ve recently been thinking about that other big Church event which has just finished – the Fifth World Meeting of Families. It was meant to show how much the Church values and supports marriage and the family, but I can’t help wondering what, if anything, it has achieved for the average family in the pew – let alone for those who are on the margins of the Church! The more I think - and pray - about this issue, the more concerned I become that the Church is making it harder, not easier, for people to come to God and/or live out their Christian faith through their family life. Of course, this may largely be because of the difficulty many modern people have with the Church’s teaching around marriage/sexuality, but I’m convinced that the problem is NOT that this teaching is too hard or too idealistic or too out of touch with today’s culture. For many of us, the problem is simply that we cannot make sense of the Church’s stance in terms of our own, real-life family experience! And when I reflect on my experience in the light of the Gospel, the Church’s understanding of Christian family life makes even less sense. Even when the Church’s teaching seems to come directly from Jesus – as in the matter of divorce and remarriage – the rigid, legalistic form which it takes is about as far from the spirit of the Gospels as you can get! In any case, whether or not the Church’s teaching is correct, there is definitely something else lacking. The theme of the recent Meeting of Families was “The Transmission of Faith in the Family”, and indeed, these days we hear a lot about the importance of parents as their children’s first faith teachers, and the family as the domestic church, etc. Yet in practice, Church leaders don’t really seem terribly concerned whether or not families are effectively fulfilling this role. It just doesn’t seem to be a real-life issue on our public agenda in the same way as, for instance, the question of getting young people involved in the Church. And how much in the way of resources does the Church put into providing formation for parents, practical assistance for families as the “domestic Church”, etc? Somewhere between little and nothing, so far as I can see! Maybe the recent gathering in Spain was an exciting, meaningful experience for those who were there, but what really matters to families is not the big, showy public events but what happens at the other end of the spectrum. That is to say, in the seemingly mundane and trivial happenings and interactions of everyday life. We need a theology and spirituality more firmly rooted in this experience, as reflected upon in the light of the Gospels. And we need a recognition that if the Church seriously expects so much from the family, it will have to put more resources directly into the family. The way things are at present, I believe both Church and the family are losing out.
on July 17, 2006, 11:01 am
That Other Big Church Event….
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