The Rector Major, Fr Pascual Chavez, in the January 2006 edition of the Acts of the General Council, writes about the dangers and threats facing the family at the present time.
"The challenge of life", said Pope John Paul II, "has also emerged with regard to the very sanctuary of life: the family.
Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural pressures which tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the family is also threatened by legislation which, at times directly, challenges its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between man and woman founded on marriage.
Accepting the Pope's invitation to defend life through the family, and prompted by the 150th anniversary of the death of Mamma Margaret, mother of the educative family created by Don Bosco at Valdocco, I have thought it well to invite the Salesian Family to renew the commitment to:
Ensuring that special attention be given to the family, the cradle of life and love and where one first learns how to become human.
If it is through mankind that the Church fulfils its role, it is through the family that men and women pursue their destiny, the natural setting in which they open themselves to life and to their role in society. It is the place where their affective life flowers, the context in which they come to know themselves. The place where they learn to become human, the means by which their religious sensibilities develop, the family provides that stability necessary for the harmonious growth of the children and for the educational mission of the parents in their regard.
Fr Sean Murray