This week in Bacolod City, Philippines, a National Conference is being held on the theme “Family and evangelization.” The meeting, sponsored by the Bishops’ Commission on Family and Life, bears the title “The Good Shepherd Gives Life to the Family.”
 
All the speakers at this Conference teach at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and come both from the headquarters in Rome and the local center in Bacolod City. The working sessions will be devoted to the anthropology of marriage and the family; matrimony in the Holy Scriptures and the theology of the body; the vocation to love and Christian ethics; the sociology of the Filipino family and the ambivalence of national values; religious marriage, civilian marriage and de facto unions; family rights and Familiaris Consortio; policies against marriage; family ministry and the role of the laity. The meeting will conclude with an evening dedicated to engaged couples.