The family: backbone of the Church and a pastoral ministry priority

Chesterton once observed with characteristic wit—as though speaking directly to our twenty-first century—that the true adventure of modern man does not consist in crossing oceans, but in marrying and raising a family. Our pastoral objectives seem to interpret “adventure” in a similar sense when they speak of the need to proclaim Christ, in hope, at all times and in every circumstance, in a manner “joyful and free of prejudice,” with particular attention given to the family, the “primary challenge of evangelization.”

At the heart of the Gospel shines the family, as a sanctuary of love and a school of humanity. Family ministry, far from being a marginal or an ornamental concern, is the backbone of a Church that walks alongside her children—especially in an age when family life is beset by multiple crises: cultural, social, and above all spiritual. Faced with this undeniable fact, we are left with a choice: either a sterile lament, or a sound diagnosis joined to pastoral creativity, with new methods, new fervor, and, ultimately, a new evangelization.

In this regard, recent popes have spoken with clarity, placing the family within the keynotes of truth, mercy, and accompaniment. Benedict XVI, in continuity with the teaching of Saint John Paul II, reflected on the truth of human love. In his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (2007), he emphasized the profound bond between the Eucharist and married life, reminding us that conjugal love finds its source and summit in the sacrifice of Christ. Benedict, as a theologian of hope, offered families a vision deeply rooted in revealed truth: never minimizing the demands of the Gospel, yet always suffused with charity. In harmony with Saint Augustine, whom he greatly admired, he recognized that the human heart finds rest only in God, and that all authentic love is configured by this search for unity and total self-gift.

To speak of Pope Francis and of the family is, in large part, to speak of Amoris Laetitia (2016), the apostolic exhortation born of the Synod on the Family. There, we encounter a profoundly pastoral approach, one that does not renounce doctrinal truth, yet places at the center the lived reality of families—their wounds, their searching, their hopes. Francis calls the Church to be a “field hospital,” where husbands, wives, and their children are welcomed, healed, and strengthened.

The Family: Essential for Building Peaceful Societies

Leo XIV, in the first steps of his pontificate, has already spoken of the family, founded upon the stable union of a man and a woman. Investing in the family, he has said, is indispensable for building those peaceful societies to which the Augustinian pope has so often referred in these initial months of his ministry.

One of the great ecclesial events in which Pope Leo XIV took part during his first month as pontiff was the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly, held in Rome from May 28 to June 3.

Under the theme “Pilgrims of Hope,” families from parishes and Augustinian fraternities across the world, where the Order of Saint Augustine is present, gathered in the Eternal City to live the faith together and to bear witness to the beauty of family life.

On Saturday, May 31, they prayed the Rosary in common; and on Sunday, June 1, they joined in the Eucharist, presided over by Pope Leo XIV in Saint Peter’s Square, together with some 70,000 participants.

There the Pope emphasized the family’s importance as the leaven of society and the seed of unity, speaking with particular tenderness of grandparents, who in so many personal histories are the first heralds of the faith.

At the close of the Jubilee, families returned to their daily struggles—struggles which in recent years have revealed an urgent need for formation and accompaniment. In this context, and under the breath of the Holy Spirit, an extraordinary variety of pastoral responses is taking shape, with diverse emphases across dioceses, movements, orders, and religious congregations.

It may sound grandiloquent, but it is a truth easily verified: there is no future without the family. This is why the Order of Saint Augustine seeks to commit itself wholeheartedly to family ministry—a concrete way of incarnating itself in history: in the concrete history, with names and faces, of each household. There, so often, faith is forged, hope is nurtured, and charity is learned. Within the walls of the home, the future of humanity is shaped, as the Second Vatican Council affirmed.

Today, more than ever, the Church is called to accompany families with both tenderness and firmness, with clarity and compassion, as they journey amid light and shadow. They are families—pilgrims of hope—who know well the weariness of daily life, and who therefore all the more need their hearts to remain restless until they find rest in God.