October 28, 2009

Speakers urge faithful to save the family to restore a culture of life

By John Gleason

More than 150 people attended the 2009 Gospel of Life Conference, which explored the theme, “The Family: Hope for the Future” and which, for the first time, offered simultaneous translation of the lectures into Spanish.

The archdiocesan conference was held Oct. 24 at Christ the King Church in Denver. The event featured local and national speakers who focused on the family, its health and happiness and addressed how the health of the family directly impacts the future of our culture.

The conference began with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., and concelebrated by Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley.  Speakers included Helen Alvaré, associate professor of law at the George Mason School of Law; Father Jorge Rodriquez, vice rector at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary; and Jonathan Reyes, president and CEO of Catholic Charities in the Denver Archdiocese. 

Sponsored by the Archdiocesan Respect Life Office, the bilingual event was held in collaboration with the Office of Hispanic Ministry.

“This year’s theme came about in part as a result of the Spanish-language pro-life congress we held in June,” Mimi Eckstein, director of the Respect Life Office, told the Denver Catholic Register.  “Both offices wanted to continue to bring the two communities together and we knew that there were many excellent speakers on the subject.”

Archbishop Chaput opened the conference by thanking those who gave up their Saturday for their commitment to life issues, noting the broad age spectrum of people in attendance.

“This is an important issue for our whole community, not just part of it,” he told the gathering.

Alvaré is a former spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on life issues. In presenting a global perspective on the family, she told the audience that numbers show more people have less desire to commit to a matrimonial relationship.

“One of the global universalities is that fewer people are getting married at all,” she said.  “It used to be 80 to 90 percent of people got married.  That number is gradually declining.”

Alvaré said that young people are replacing completely or delaying marriage with cohabitation.  In 1970, U.S. census figures showed there were 500,000 cohabitating couples.  The latest figures, she said, put that number at 6.4 million and 40 percent of them have children in their household. 

“Study after study shows that more of these couples think it’s appropriate to bring children deliberately into a cohabitation household because you’re ‘almost’ to that point of commitment,” she said.  “Another trend suggests that many young people think that the 20s are way too young to think about a mature future and too young to be settling down.  They see marriage as the end of freedom, the end of fun.”

Alvaré said that marital and child-bearing ages are getting, in her words, “way up there,” despite the fact that a woman’s fertility starts to decline in her late 20s.

“Women say they don’t want to be told when to have babies, rather that they would decide when they want to,” she said.

In a shift from the global perspective to what God wants from the family today, Father Rodriguez focused on the word “hope” from the conference’s theme. He told the audience that hope is always used in reference to the future.

“What that means is that our reflection on ‘today’ must be done with our eyes looking intently to the future,” he said. ”This is a very Christian perspective.  Therefore, we’ve been asked to sow hope in our hearts.”

Challenges confronting the family today, Father Rodriguez said, include struggles to defend life, to encourage the stability of the matrimonial bond, to keep family values and to center the family in Christ.

“Families of the world, especially Catholic families, are all called to a personal commitment in the cause of life, matrimony and family values,” he told the audience. “God expects us to save the family.”

Reyes explored the topic, “What does a Christian Catholic family look like today?”  He told the Register that the model of the Christian family has not changed.

“They are communities ordered in service to Christ,” he said.  “Families do love (Christ) but because of the dynamics of our culture we have to establish certain practices that are new and we have to re-establish certain things, including re-establishing the basics of prayer, service and cultural practices that embrace Christian truths.”

The family is bombarded from all sides from a materialistic world, the fragmentation of relationships and media saturation, all of which attack the authority of and undermine the family structure.

“As an example, look at what our culture celebrates,” he said.  “Most of our celebrations tend to be governed by the way culture celebrates them.  We as Christians need to look at what we celebrate.  What happened to All Saints Day next to Halloween?  And what about keeping the Sabbath?  We need to honor the Lord’s Day, not just because it’s a commandment, but because it’s a way of restoring order.  We have to get the busyness out of our lives so we have time to think about how to restructure our lives.”