Card. Farrell: “Our new Dicastery is the Home of the ecclesial movements”

During the meeting with the international leaders of ecclesial movements and new communities, held on 14 June, at the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, Card. Farrell chose to present to the leaders the organization of the new Dicastery, founded nearly one year ago, reassuring them that: “the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life is, so to speak, your ‘home’ within the Holy See, your main point of reference!” “That is why I hope,” said the Prefect, “that all of you may find here a ‘home where the doors are always open,’ where you can find acceptance, dialogue, encouragement, and help in facing difficulties.”

Speaking to over fifty international leaders of ecclesial movements and new communities from around the world, Card. Farrell pointed out two of the Dicastery’s priorities for which he requested effective collaboration: the family and the young. Both themes at the heart of Pope Francis’ pontificate, and in these areas the movements “not just those who, with their charisma and statute, devote themselves specifically to family ministry, but all without distinction” can do a great deal. “The movements—Card. Farrell concluded—must be the ‘young face’ of the Church!”

The purpose of the meeting was, above all, to listen: therefore, after two brief interventions on the World Meeting of Families and the World Youth Day given by Father Carlos Simón Vázquez, Delegate for the family, and Father João Chagas, director of the youth office, ample time was left to engage in dialogue with the leaders of ecclesial movements and new communities present and to ask them for their suggestions with respect to the Dicastery’s activities.

Here, laityfamilylife.va is publishing three short interviews with leaders who took part in the meeting. Many of the interventions mentioned the value of fragile life and how families with disabled members can be promoters of cultural change with regard to the issue of suffering; of the need for movements to live the conversion to the mercy to which Pope Francis has been calling just the entire Church; as well as of the theme of violence among the young and that of human accompaniment and pastoral care for the elderly. Many of the representatives present, then, insisted on the importance of training and promised to be present at the encounters in Dublin and Panama.

Concluding, Card. Farrell recalled that the task of the Roman Curia and the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life is, above all, to “listen and help—and that is why meetings of this kind will become increasingly frequent.”