Loving family unity is crucial
Each year, the Children’s Bureau of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services distributes a terrific resource packet called “Promoting Healthy Families in Your Community.”
When I read my copy this year, one sentence just jumped out at me:
“When families are supported, children are less likely to be at risk for child maltreatment and more likely to grow up happy and healthy.”
Addressing the needs of families has been a particular emphasis for Bishop Gerald Kicanas in the last year. He has listened to parents and grandparents in Tucson and in Yuma. At his request, members of the Diocesan Pastoral Council held their own listening sessions with parents and grandparents and brought what they heard back to him.
The themes raised in these sessions were remarkably similar. Parents and grandparents are concerned that their children and adolescents be taught the facts about our faith. There is a desire to emphasize the connection among parishes, reinforcing our sense of unity as a diocese. There is a desire to reach out to family members and friends who have drifted away from the community of faith.
As important as all these themes are, underlying each one of them is the loving unity of each family. If a family is not functioning, everything else that may be taught by pastoral ministers, every effort to reach out will seem only false, even hypocritical.
What can you do to support families in our Diocese?
Support with your time and your money the programs that exist in our communities to help with housing, utilities, health care and employment. Speak out to elected officials about the importance of these services on behalf of those who need a hand.
In particular, pay attention to the services that support families under the banner of Catholic Community Services. Among those services are pregnancy counseling and shelter, adoption and foster care, education and counseling, health and housing, and prevention of abuse or other domestic violence.
(Visit www.ccs-soaz.org to learn about the programs and services that are supported by the Annual Catholic Appeal and, this year, by Our Faith, Our Hope, Our Future, our diocesan renewal campaign. You will be amazed at the good that is accomplished through your generosity to support families.)
Notice when children around you are hurting. As I noted here last month, the great majority of child maltreatment occurs in the home. In economic downturns, this kind of maltreatment of children tends to increase. Very often, children in this situation suffer in silence, covering up and carrying stoically the family shame. It may be happening in your own extended family or in your parish.
And if you have noticed a child who is hurting, reach out through the reporting options available through law enforcement or Child Protective Services. When they cannot help, bring your concern forward to your pastor or other pastoral leaders. Be involved.
Most of all, live the life. You parents and grandparents can support each other so that each of you can live lovingly this difficult vocation of family.
Reach out to your children and grandchildren to insure that they receive and understand the lessons of our faith in deed as much as in word.
Give them the time and the attention that will mark them indelibly with an understanding of what it means to be loved and to love.
Finally, in this spirit of love, I wish to all the mothers in our Diocese and all who love them a Happy Mothers Day!
(The “Promoting Healthy Families in Your Community” resource packet is available free of charge at www.childwelfare.gov.)