On Tuesday April 16th, in the Press Office of the Holy See, a meeting was held with journalists to present the Vatican Foundation “International Family Centre in Nazareth”. The speakers were: the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia; the Patriarchal Vicar for Israel, Msgr. Giacinto Boulos Marcuzzo; and Dr. Salvatore Martinez, national president of Renewal in the Holy Spirit.

 

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia retraced the evolution of the project in the hearts of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the history of the Center, created and sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family, which houses the office of the Vatican Foundation desired by Benedict XVI, whose implementation is entrusted to the Renewal in the Holy Spirit, so that it may be born in Nazareth, since − as the video proposed at the VII World Meeting of Families in Milan, in 2012, says − “It all began in Nazareth, and from Nazareth the family takes off again”. A new culture and a new family ministry sets out from Nazareth, the subject of the new evangelization, “in a historical moment, in which the family is marginalized and subjected to unprecedented direct attacks", because − as Benedict XVI said during his visit to the Holy Land, in 2009 − “all of us need to return to Nazareth, to contemplate ever anew the silence and love of the Holy Family, the model of all Christian family life". In fact, said Msgr. Paglia, “there are places endowed with an extraordinary evocative and symbolic strength. Nazareth is one of these places. That is where Jesus grew up, where his home was; here he lived with Joseph and Mary, his family. With them he learned to read the Scriptures and to call God ‘Abba,’ Papa, as Pope Francis recently recalled". The International Family Centre of Nazareth will therefore be a place of formation in parenting and family life, in pastoral ministry for the family and life, and of preparation for the new evangelization, including through the establishment of a permanent Observatory in collaboration with the Bishops’ Conferences, Universities, Institutions of Christian inspiration and lay associations throughout the world, so that it may be the reference in the world to “the pivotal role of the of the family institute in the construction of human society, the fruitfulness of the Christian family for the Church’s mission of evangelization, the attention to all issues concerning the family, the centrality of God’s Word on the path of every believer".

 

The Vatican Foundation, explained Dr. Salvatore Martinez, aims to “promote the spiritual formation and evangelization of the family, as well as to support the pastoral care of families all over the world, and particularly in the Holy Land, for the defense and the promotion of the family in its dual subjectivity: social and ecclesial”. Nazareth is a model to be applied in the world. The Center is the home of the families in the Holy Land, “a special spiritual home for the world’s families, where they can find concrete closeness and material aid”, but also the “privileged place for the spreading of the Gospel of the Family, a showcase presenting the beautiful, the good and the just that the family offers and manifests in the world,” because “this world, gripped by crises, yearns for a more fraternal humanity, more focused on the family than States or markets”. In the Holy Land − Martinez said − “there is an ecumenism of peoples. Here we make families talk in order to create a dialogue between the religions”. Then, the President of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit presented the project of the “family friendly” Portal of the Family, “the first of the concrete tools for creating a network of families around the world, virtual and virtuous, according to a principle of horizontal subsidiarity and in the name of the gift economy”. It will initially be in Italian, but with the prospect of existing in other languages of the human family, and firstly in those most widely spoken: Spanish, English and French.

 

The intuition of the Family House in Nazareth − Msgr. Giacinto Boulos Marcuzzo said − came from Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo when, as President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, he visited Cana in 1994. “How beautiful it would be to have a Center for the family, for the Resurrection of the family in Nazareth, par excellence the place of the Family”, the Cardinal said on the occasion, recalled Mgr. Marcuzzo, then Bishop of Nazareth. John Paul II immediately took up the idea and developed it with enthusiasm, presenting it in Rio de Janeiro, at the II World Meeting of Families, in 1997. So, when Cardinal Ennio Antonelli was President of our Dicastery, after years of a standstill due to the Intifada, the project was launched again, especially in 2009, with Benedict XVI’s visit to the Holy Land. “It all began in Nazareth; that’s true”, said the Patriarchal Vicar. “Biblically and theologically, this is where the new covenant between man and God begins; everything starts again from this well where the living water of the family can be drawn”. Christianity is not a philosophy, a doctrine or an ideology, but “life, with a history and geography”. The community of Christians of the Holy Land is a minority, representing 2 percent of the believers, and in Nazareth 40 percent — that is an exception. “Here, then, Christians are stewards of our history; they are the direct descendants of Jesus’ first Church, of those who lived with him and listened to him personally”. The Gospel —continued Msgr. Marcuzzo— says that Jesus often returned to Nazareth. “So, let us also return to Nazareth to draw water that flows from the Holy Family”. In the Holy Land there is a time of truce now, but this is not Peace. “Peace comes from the heart of people and families. The family is the strongest and most stable rock on which to build peace”, concluded the Patriarchal Vicar. So, “the International Family Centre of Nazareth will have a Catholic Christian identity, but it will be ecumenical and inter-religious, the house of the families of the world”, In the Holy Land, in fact, the people of different faiths don’t do anything separately; on the contrary, they always work together for the good of all.