The first “Catholic Family Counseling Center” in the center of Chisinau, Moldova’s capital. This is the new project of Regina Pacis in the service of the families, for the protection of life, and to support the disabled, as well as those who live in socially disadvantaged situations.
The structure was inaugurated in recent days, in the presence of Carlo Casini, the historical father of the Pro-life Movement, and Tonino Di Matteo, representing the Christian Workers Movement, which supported the creation of the work. Also present were the Italian Ambassador Enrico Nunziata and the delegate of the local government. The Counseling Center is a work that focuses on the family and “this is happening—said the Bishop of Chisinau, Msgr. Anton Cosa—the year in which Pope Francis has convoked the Synod of Bishops for the family. The Catholic Church of Moldova feels the urgent need to promote the value of the family, in a country where family breakdown is high, and also to turn a thoughtful look toward human life. Moreover, repeating what Pope Francis teaches, I can say that with this structure we touch and serve the suffering flesh of the Moldovan people.”
Moldova has troubling statistics: 150,000 Moldovan children are far from their families because of emigration; a third of the couples married each year end in divorce; life is absolutely not respected from conception on, and abortion is used as a form of contraception; there is a dramatic suicide rate among the young and men, in addition to the great distress of poverty that affects a large part of the population. “The family is the connective tissue of a people and the condition for civil progress which can open the doors of Europe,” said Carlo Casini, adding: “True Europe is a Europe whose real connective tissue is constituted by the families. Restituting the family to Europe means giving back to Europe its true work of art.”
The Christian Workers Movement has intended this counseling center as “a tiny seed planted in the ground, tried and struck in its heart: the family, marked by high female emigration and thousands of children abandoned in the street or to their fathers, with devastating effects.” This project to help Moldovan families, supported by the “Italian workers who even in the midst of a difficult period for them and for their families, shows that they have not lost the sense of the gifts.”
