Family can play significant role in societal progress: Mumbai Bishop

New Delhi – Speaking to a Christian news agency at the end of the 11th Asia–Pacific Congress on Love, Life and Family held in Bangalore in the middle of this month, Rev. Agnelo Gracias, Auxiliary Bishop of Mumbai and chairman of the Family Commission of Conference of Catholic Bishops’ of India, emphasized that family could play a very significant role in the societal progress of our nation.

The theme of this year’s Conference was “Family: A Conscious Choice for Happiness”.

Though delighted that globalization is touching every corner of the society, yet, the Bishop cautioned that it has its negative effects too. “But in spite of the onslaught of the media which to a large extent promotes a ‘culture of death’, multi–religious India is a place to promote a ‘culture of life’,” he said. More importantly, “India’s cultural heritage stresses family values. Here, the family is still a cell which transmits a hierarchy of values to the next generation.”

In a place like Bangalore, which is known as ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ and which has a large number of yuppies whose lifestyle is equal to their Western contemporaries, planting the seed of family could, in the Bishop’s words, could “transform and change our future generations.”

Remembering Pope John Paul II’s statement that “the future of humanity passes by way of the family (Familiaris Consortio, 86),” he said, “without the family, there can be no human being.”

Bishop Gracias ended his interview on a more general note about the definition and future of the family. “The family, “ he said, “has always been regarded as the basic cell of society and the Church. Even the ancients recognized its importance. They regarded it as the nursery of civilization, the workshop where character is formed, the garden where virtues are planted to bloom in later life.”

“Very aptly,” he insisted, “the family has been described as a community of love and life, of a man and a woman open to life, the ‘crib’ of life, as the Holy Father likes to say.” For him, “it is in the family that life begins, develops itself and matures.” Therefore, “the one who attacks the family also attacks life; the one who defends the family also defends human life.”

“I am confident,” Bishop Gracias concluded, “that the Congress will fulfill its mission to disseminate the culture of life, to protect and defend family values and to expose and combat modern threats to life and the family. I pray that its efforts may bear abundant fruit.”