The Pope, America, and the Family

Pope Francis's recent visit to the US and to Cuba was focused, repeatedly, on the family. Here are a few excerpts from different speeches:

"It is my wish that throughout my visit the family should be a recurrent theme. How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement! Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life."

"The family is, forgive me, a factory of hope, of life, of resurrection. God was the one who opened that path." "We renew our faith in the word of the Lord which invites faithful families to this openness. It invites all those who want to share the prophecy of the covenant of man and woman, which generates life and reveals God!"

"I leave you with this question, for each one of you to respond to. In my home, do we yell, or do we speak with love and tenderness? This is a good way to recognize our love."  "Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work.  Homely gestures. Like a blessing before we go to bed or a hug after we return from a hard day's work."

"Family is beautiful, but there's effort involved, and there are problems. Husbands and wives quarrel, and end up badly, separated. Never let the day end without making peace. Let's protect the family, because it’s in the family that our future is at play." 

"In families, children bring headaches. I won't speak about mother in laws. But in families, there is always a Cross. Always.  Because of the love of God, the Son of God opened up that way. But also in families, after the Cross there is Resurrection."

"When one doesn't live as a family, one will strengthen the part that always says: I, me, my, with me, for me. One totally centers around these things and doesn't know solidarity or fraternity." 

At the end of the event, it was announced that the next World Meeting of Families would take place in Dublin, Ireland in 2018. It will be the ninth time it has been celebrated since 1994 when Pope John Paul II launched the first event in Rome.