"A strong injection of family spirit." This is what is needed most, with an attentive look towards the daily life of today's men and women. This statement was made by Pope Francis during this morning's audience in St. Peter's Square, which was dedicated to the family spirit. After asking the faithful to accompany the synodal period with prayer, the Pope stressed that, in today's society, "the style of civil, economic, legal, professional, citizen relations" appear "very rational, formal, organized, but also very 'dehydrated,' arid, anonymous." Yet, "the family opens a human perspective for all of society." All of us, he said, "are aware of irreplaceable attention to members who are smallest, most vulnerable, wounded and devastated in life. In society, those who put these attitudes into practice have assimilated them from the family spirit, and certainly not from those of competition and the desire for self-realization."
Nevertheless, " the family is not given due recognition, but it no longer generates learning! Sometimes one could say that, with all its science and technology, modern society is not yet able to translate this knowledge into better ways of civil coexistence." In this context, "the Church today recognizes the historic meaning of Her mission in regard to the family and the true family spirit: beginning with an attentive revision of life, which concerns Herself. We could say that the 'family spirit' is a constitutional charter for the Church."
If Peter—Francis explained—"was called to be a 'fisher of men', today a different, newer nets are needed: We could say that today families are one of the most important nets for the mission of Peter and of the Church. This is not a net that makes us prisoners. On the contrary—he said—, it frees from the evil waters of abandonment and indifference, which drown many human beings in the sea of loneliness and indifference."
