Fr. Shenan J. Boquet: The Domestic Church: How Catholic Families Can Renew the World

“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” ~St. Teresa of Calcutta

“I would remind married couples that marriage is not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful, and fruitful. This love makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.” ~Pope Leo XIV

In a world fractured by individualism, instability, and cultural confusion, it is the family that possesses the power to heal. At least, that’s what the Catholic Church has continually taught, particularly in recent decades as attacks on the family have increased, and as so many families have broken apart, causing untold suffering and confusion.

Pope St. John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio, wrote: “The future of humanity passes by way of the family” (no. 86). Elsewhere in the same document he calls the family the “first and vital cell of society” (no. 42).

These are no mere slogans. They state self-evident (or what should be self-evident) facts. Without strong, faithful families, there can be no stable society, no lasting culture, and no enduring civilization.

For children, the home is the first classroom where they are taught not by lectures but by example. The daily witness of parents shapes their sense of right and wrong, their understanding of God, and their vision of what it means to live a good life. ….

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