SW News: The Family Global Compact, which is being introduced to enhance family welfare, has received the approval of Pope Francis, who has called it decisive for the future of the world and that of the Church. The Compact is a project of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life and the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. The pontiff praised the Compact's objectives in a message made public on Tuesday, May 30.

The project strives to engage with family study and research institutes housed in Catholic universities all around the world, especially in light of the contemporary issues families are facing. In his message, the Pope said that it is also mutually advantageous to enable the pastoral care of families in particular Churches to benefit from the research and the educational and training programs in Catholic universities.

The Holy Father observes that through collaborating with academic institutions and pastoral ministry initiatives, both parties can more effectively promote a culture of family and life. The goal is to ensure that individuals in today's world and future generations can better understand the essentiality, beauty, and value of marriage and family life, and generating and nurturing human life.

The Holy Father also quoted from his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which states, “The Bible is full of families, births, love stories and family crises. This is true from its very first page, with the appearance of Adam and Eve’s family with all its burden of violence but also its enduring strength to its very last page. Jesus’ description of the two houses, one built on rock and the other on sand, symbolizes a number of family situations shaped by the exercise of their members’ freedom, for, as the poet says, " every home is a lampstand.”

In the Christian vision of the Trinity, God is contemplated as Father, Son, and Spirit of love. The triune God is a communion of love and the family is its living reflection. Saint John Paul II shed light on this when he said, “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude, but a family, for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love. That love in the divine family is the Holy Spirit.

The first of the four objectives of the project includes opening up communication and fostering closer working relationships between family-focused university research centers. The second is to improve the synergy between Christian communities and Catholic universities. The third is to support family values and everyday life in society, as this will assist constructive public policy to develop. The fourth is to advance ideas jointly to better serve the family in the spiritual, pastoral, cultural, legal, political, economic, and social realms.