This keynote address, entitled "The Family: Heritage of Humanity; Pastoral Insights and Developments in Today's Context," intended primarily to highlight the reasons for the delay and the poverty of the theology of the family, emphasized the urgent need for its rapid development to respond to the radically changing cultural and social contexts. Indeed, "the family is no longer taken for granted, either in itself or in its connection with marriage. In this crisis, the very heart of what has been described as the 'nuptial mystery' has become visible: the link between sexuality, personal love and generation. Detached from the mutual gift of self between stable, faithful spouses and from the perspective of the procreation and education of children in the family, sexuality appears as an omnipresent meandering mine in society, in the context of pervasive 'pan-sexuality' that makes it almost 'impracticable and unthinkable' to get married and build a family."

To start addressing these changes, Msgr. Simon Vasquez then outlined, in the course of his inaugural lecture, a new integral pastoral approach that abandons the practice of dividing the sphere of marriage and the family into many micro-sectors: "The pastoral ministry of families must embrace every moment of the family's development and it must have a family perspective, that is, no other aim than that of the maturity of the person and the realization of his/her vocation. The element of the 'vocation to love' should be the pivot of the understanding of family ministry; and this requires that we not lose sight of the specific unity of this ministry."