Cardinal Nichols on need for stronger support to family life

(Vatican Radio) Cardinals from across the globe have been meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican over the past two days to discuss the theme of the family, ahead of the Synod of Bishops on that same subject to be held next October.Among them is England’s new cardinal Vincent Nichols who receives his red hat from the Pope at Saturday’s consistory. Archbishop Nichols, who heads the diocese of Westminster and serves as president of the bishops conference of England and Wales, told us there is a need for renewal of pastoral practice to provide better support for families who are facing so many serious challenges. Despite the difficulties, he says, the questionnaire sent out in preparation for the Synod shows most people share the aspirations of the Church and want ‘permanent, stable, fruitful family lives’....Listen to Philippa Hitchen’s interview with Cardinal Vincent Nichols:  

The reflection of the church on the family is now going to be a consistent theme over the next 2 years so my first though is that I don’t need to rush…….uppermost in my mind is to recognize the pressure that people are under – social pressures, pressure to hold together their families – and I think we have to be deeply compassionate about the actual situation that people are in….
We did a listening exercise on family life 9 years ago and we’ve been trying to make adjustments to the help we provide, particularly in marriage preparation, as a result of that listening. Now we’ve been listening again through the questions for the preparation of the extraordinary synod next October. I think what’s clear is that people share the aspirations of the Church, they want permanent, stable, fruitful family lives but the difficulties they face are very real…

I believe the questions and responses together present the challenge that is facing parishes, because the work has to be done at parish level, so we’re trying to reflect on that and begin to see what parishes are going to do if they’re going to be more sensitive, more responsive to the challenges….

We were asked by the secretary of the synod not to make public the responses we were sending to the Holy See and I agreed to that…..we got 16.500 responses, 80% were lay people, 69% were married people…..it has been a useful exercise….there was some frustration with the framing of the questions and we have to be attentive now to make sure people do not think that was an opinion poll leading to a readjustment of policy. It was a listening exercise trying to pay attention to people’s experience of trying to live the life of faith within the family, the experience of support they get – or don’t get – so a lot of these things are about pastoral practice and I do think we need a renewal of pastoral practice….

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