Bishop of Shrewsbury: Catholics need to be more faithful to Church teaching on marriage and family

image Simon Caldwell

Catholics need to be increasingly faithful to the Church's teaching on marriage and the family if future generations are to find happiness and secure salvation, the Bishop of Shrewsbury has said. The Rt Rev Mark Davies said that children were the primary victims of the confusion caused by the failure to transmit the teachings of the Church. It was now the task of the Church to present once again the vision of marriage as a "divine vocation", the Bishop said.

"I am conscious that many of our young people have been failed," Bishop Davies said in his homily during Mass at Shrewsbury Cathedral on Saturday.

"The vision of marriage as a divine vocation for their own happiness and salvation and that of children has been allowed to fade.

"Often, we find that God's plan for human love, chaste and pure, and the family built on the marriage commitment has not been proposed to them in all its truth and beauty. It is this divine calling, 'the vocation and mission of the family', which Pope Francis has asked the Synod of Bishops to address. It is only by the recovery of this divine vision in all its grace and truth that so many wounds can be truly healed."

Bishop Davies noted, however, that it would not be easy to "give such witness" because "we live in strangely volatile times when merely to disagree with someone's direction in life, to question another's lifestyle or a moral choice is perceived as hostility, rejection, even hatred of that person".

"It is, of course, as crazy as being a passenger in car which has taken a wrong turn and is going in a dangerous direction and remaining silent about the error because we fear to offend the driver," Bishop Davies said.

"True care and charity, demand we do not remain silent about what is for the happiness and the ultimate good of each other," the Bishop said.

"God's plan is the sure basis for marriage and the family and when this plan is spoken in love, seen in its beauty, the shadows and confusions are dispelled, much as the sun on these mornings breaks through the autumn mists.

"The voices of confusion and dissension will pass. It is this witness to truth and love which will remain. And it is those who have given such witness amid the shadows of the age who will shine like the stars for all eternity."

The comments of Bishop Davies came during a Mass for grandparents celebrated during a day-long vigil of prayer for the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, which opened at the Vatican on Sunday. He reminded the congregation that "marriage is not a human invention" but a "vocation, by which man and woman are called to be united in a lasting, faithful union which forms the foundation of the family".

Pope Francis, the Bishop continued, was concerned that such foundations were being called into question, adding that "we share a deep concern for the many victims of this confusion, not least the children".

He reminded Catholics that "whatever our age, whatever our state of life" they shared a duty to stand united with Pope Francis in bearing witness to the truth about marriage.

Pope Francis opened the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Sunday with the reaffirmation of the teaching of the Catholic Church that a marriage was a life-long unions between a man and a woman.

During his homily at the opening Mass, Pope Francis began by lamenting the increasing numbers of people afflicted by loneliness because of the widespread collapse of the family, particularly across the developed world. The grace of the sacrament of marriage gave people the "ability to love seriously", Pope Francis said.

"The number of people who feel lonely keeps growing, as does the number of those who are caught up in selfishness, gloominess, destructive violence and slavery to pleasure and money," the Holy Father said.

"Love which is lasting, faithful, conscientious, stable and fruitful is increasingly looked down upon, viewed as a quaint relic of the past," the Pope added.

"It would seem that the most advanced societies are the very ones which have the lowest birth-rates and the highest percentages of abortion, divorce, suicide, and social and environmental pollution."

The Pope said however that Christ joins couples together "in unity and indissolubility ... to love one another for life".

He said the indissoluble character of valid marriage served invited believers to "overcome every form of individualism and legalism which conceals a narrow self-centredness and a fear of accepting the true meaning of the couple and of human sexuality in God's plan".

"For God, marriage is not some adolescent utopia, but a dream without which his creatures will be doomed to solitude," Pope Francis continued. "Indeed, being afraid to accept this plan paralyses the human heart.

"Paradoxically, people today - who often ridicule this plan - continue to be attracted and fascinated by every authentic love, by every steadfast love, by every fruitful love, by every faithful and enduring love," he added.

"We see people chase after fleeting loves while dreaming of true love; they chase after carnal pleasures but desire total self-giving."

'Wellspring of salvation'

The Pope told the Synod Fathers that the Church now found herself carrying out her mission in an "extremely difficult social and marital context", comparing her voice to one "crying out in a desert".

This voice of the Church, however, was resolute in defending the sacredness of human life and the unity and indissolubility of marriage, he said.

But it was important that the Church conducted her mission in charity, the Pope added, "not pointing a finger in judgment of others, but - faithful to her nature as a mother - conscious of her duty to seek out and care for hurting couples with the balm of acceptance and mercy; to be a 'field hospital' with doors wide open to whoever knocks in search of help and support; to reach out to others with true love, to walk with our fellow men and women who suffer, to include them and guide them to the wellspring of salvation".

Pope Francis said: "The Church must search out these persons, welcome and accompany them, for a Church with closed doors betrays herself and her mission, and, instead of being a bridge, becomes a roadblock."

The Synod has taken the theme: "The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world".

It will run until October 25 and its conclusions will form the basis of a document which will be written by the Pope and released during the forthcoming Year of Mercy.