I was at the bookstore recently with my kids. The little ones were checking out the Legos while the older girls were lounging like hippies on beanbag chairs reading books we hadn’t bought. I noticed a mother was sitting nearby in the crowded cafe with her daughter, who seemed about thirteen or fourteen years old. Read more
This year’s Australian Catholic Bishops Social Justice Statement focuses on the family. It is put into useful perspective by the publication the Bishops’ Pastoral Research Office September E-News Bulletin headlining the 2011 Census statistic that only 50 per cent of Catholics aged 15 and over are married. The often talked about nexus between marriage, the family, and the Catholic Read more
The family is the first and fundamental school of social living: as a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires the love of a husband and a wife for each other is the model and the norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in Read more
Most young people in Britain think that morality means looking after your family or putting others first, a BBC poll suggests. Almost 600 16 to 24-year-olds were asked to choose the most important moral issue from eight options, with 59% opting for caring for family. Some 4% said having religious faith or beliefs was the Read more
Parents should take care not to block their son’s calling to the priesthood, new Vatican guidelines on promoting vocations say. “Even though a sense of respect for the figure of the priest is cultivated in Christian families, it is still noticeable, especially in the West, that they have a certain difficulty in accepting that their Read more
The New Zealand Parliament has rejected legislation to allow Easter trading for the 11th time. 10 bills have been put up by National members and one by Labour. The present bill was sponsored by National MP for Waitaki Jacqui Dean and proposed allowing shops to open over Easter in Waitaki and Wanaka. It was voted Read more
Two studies released Sunday may act like brakes on popular social-science assertions that gay parents are the same as — or maybe better than — married, mother-father parents. “The empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go,” Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said in his study in Social Read more
During a three day visit to Milan to support the activity of the World Meeting of Families, Pope Benedict spoke several times, addressing young catholics, holding a question and answer session with young people, and preaching 1 million faithful at Sunday Mass. Traditional family values are the key to navigating modern society Pope Benedict told Read more
A study published recently shows that many children in Australia think that their parents work too hard. The Australian Institute of Family Studies points to a growing lack of balance between work and home. Parents’ concerns about work, and about bringing work-related stress into their families, were similar to their children’s concerns. Professor Alan Hayes, Read more
Children as young as five “with deep-set problems” are among more than 2000 Waikato students stood down from school last year for offences including sexual abuse, assault and drug use. Waikato Principals’ Association chair and Marian Catholic School principal John Coulam said primary school students were not immune from being stood down for serious offences. Read more