Families and the Church. From Objects of Pastoral Care to Sources of Spiritual Renewal

The article explores the relationship between church and contemporary families from within the Roman Catholic tradition. This relationship is characterized by a growing alienation of families from the church on the one side and a magisterial position on the other side which seems rather unprepared, both in its theology and discipline, to face the increasing detraditionalization and diversification of today’s family life. Although the more recent magisterium and in particular Pope John Paul II have revised previous teaching by depicting Christian families as agents of the Church’s mission rather than as passive recipients of pastoral care and moral instruction, families still feel that the Church does not take them seriously, neither in their daily joys and sorrows nor in the genuine competences they bring into the Church. The author argues instead that families have a specific competence in faith practice and spirituality that is different, but also independent from, and therefore complementarity to the Church’s traditional type of a predominantly monastic and celibate faith practice and spirituality. He refers for that purpose to K. Waaijman’s threefold typology of spirituality in which family life is presented as the primary locus of a ‘lay’ spirituality that has to be distinguished from the theology, spirituality and religious practice of the official religious institution. The author concludes that the relationship between contemporary families and the Church will not improve unless the church community sees it as its major task to support, confirm, and encourage families in the responsibilities their members assume and the daily care they provide for each other.status: publishe