Cardinal Nichols on need for stronger support to family life
(Vatican Radio) Cardinals from across the globe have been meeting with Pope Francis
in the Vatican over the past two days to discuss the theme of the family, ahead of
the Synod of Bishops on that same subject to be held next October. Among them is
England’s new cardinal Vincent Nichols who receives his red hat from the Pope at Saturday’s
consistory. Archbishop Nichols, who heads the diocese of Westminster and serves as
president of the bishops conference of England and Wales, told us there is a need
for renewal of pastoral practice to provide better support for families who are facing
so many serious challenges. Despite the difficulties, he says, the questionnaire sent
out in preparation for the Synod shows most people share the aspirations of the Church
and want ‘permanent, stable, fruitful family lives’....
Listen to Philippa
Hitchen’s interview with Cardinal Vincent Nichols:
The reflection
of the church on the family is now going to be a consistent theme over the next 2
years so my first though is that I don’t need to rush…….uppermost in my mind is to
recognize the pressure that people are under – social pressures, pressure to hold
together their families – and I think we have to be deeply compassionate about the
actual situation that people are in….
We did a listening exercise on family
life 9 years ago and we’ve been trying to make adjustments to the help we provide,
particularly in marriage preparation, as a result of that listening. Now we’ve been
listening again through the questions for the preparation of the extraordinary synod
next October. I think what’s clear is that people share the aspirations of the Church,
they want permanent, stable, fruitful family lives but the difficulties they face
are very real…
I believe the questions and responses together present the challenge
that is facing parishes, because the work has to be done at parish level, so we’re
trying to reflect on that and begin to see what parishes are going to do if they’re
going to be more sensitive, more responsive to the challenges….
We were asked
by the secretary of the synod not to make public the responses we were sending to
the Holy See and I agreed to that…..we got 16.500 responses, 80% were lay people,
69% were married people…..it has been a useful exercise….there was some frustration
with the framing of the questions and we have to be attentive now to make sure people
do not think that was an opinion poll leading to a readjustment of policy. It was
a listening exercise trying to pay attention to people’s experience of trying to live
the life of faith within the family, the experience of support they get – or don’t
get – so a lot of these things are about pastoral practice and I do think we need
a renewal of pastoral practice….