Becoming a father is one of life’s greatest joys, but these days there are many obstacles. Francisco recalled this on Saturday morning in the audience to participants in the general assembly and conference of the European Parents Association.
Mário Galgano – Vatican City
It can be said that the task of education is successful when children discover the fundamental beauty of their existence and when, strengthened by this conviction, they approach the adventure of life with confidence and courage, convinced that they too have a task to fulfill. to fulfill. where they will find fulfillment and happiness. The Pope highlighted this to guests at the Vatican. Then he remembered:
“Today, the parental mission of raising children is certainly not favored by the cultural context, at least not in Europe. In fact, it is characterized by ethical subjectivism and practical materialism. The dignity of the human person is always affirmed, but sometimes it is not truly respected.”
Listen – what the Pope said in the audience
Cultural atmosphere
Parents are aware that their children will be immersed in this cultural atmosphere. What they “breathe”, what they absorb from the media, is often in contradiction with what was considered “normal” just a few decades ago, explained Francisco, and today the previous “normality” is often no longer valid or is bad. Parents must, therefore, show their children every day the goodness and reasonableness of decisions and values that are no longer evident, such as: Francisco listed, for example, the value of marriage and family or the decision to accept children as a gift from God.
The audience at the Vatican
Faced with these difficulties, which can be discouraging, parents and all believers in general must support each other to awaken in parents a “passion” for education. Educating means “humanizing people, making them fully human”, explained the Pope. Then he added, deviating from the speech manuscript:
“Life opens up in all its richness when you give. This is the great educational task of parents: to form free and generous people, who know the love of God and who freely give what they have received as a gift. It’s a bit – let’s say – the transmission of gratuitousness, which is not easy to transmit.”
All of these are values that make young people a reliable, loyal person, capable of contributing to work, civil society and solidarity. Otherwise, children would grow up as “islands”, disconnected from others, incapable of a common vision, accustomed to considering their own desires as absolute values, the Pope concluded.
(Vatican news)
The audience at the Vatican