Scottish Catholic Observer

The Holy Father appealed to the many parents present to safeguard their children from ideological attacks—‘ ideological colonisations that poison the soul’—against the institution of the family and all that is sacred, attacks which ‘are so hurtful and destroy society, the Nation, families.’

The Pope remembered speaking to a man who said he often had to re-catechise his children in the evening after they came home from school.

“This is why we are in need of a spiritual and moral rebirth,” he said, before discussing the beauty and diversity of male and female characteristics, saying the ‘complementarity and reciprocity’ within families are very important for the healthy growth of children who ‘must not be afraid of differences and must witness the joy of conjugal love in order to grow and develop with confidence and security.’

Speaking to separated couples, the Pope told them not to speak ill of each other, saying that’s how children learn how to be hypocritical and take advantage of others.

He told separated fathers to tell their children that their mother is a good woman and separated mothers to tell their children that their father is a good man. “Keep problems to themselves, but do not bring them to the children,” he added.

The Pope was echoing words he had made earlier this year, when he told separated couples not to use children as hostages. “Children should not be forced to bear the burden of this separation,” he said. “It’s very important, it’s very hard, but you can do it.”

Pilgrims from across Rome Diocese had came to hear the Holy Father, with Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini and a large number of the 350 parish priests of Rome also in attendance.

The Pope told a story he heard as a child of a man who put a coffee table aside for his father, who had suffered a stroke, to eat alone in the kitchen, as he was ashamed of him. One day, the man came across his own 6-year-old son in the woods with a  hammer and nails and asked him what he was doing. I am making a table because when you are old you can eat alone like grandfather, the boy said.

Do not be ashamed of the grandfather, the Pope said, do not be ashamed of the elderly. They give us wisdom and prudence.

—This story ran in full in the June 19 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.