The United Nations this year marks the 30th anniversary of its Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 25th anniversary of the 1994 International Year of the Family. The International Day of Families is observed on the May 15th every year. The Day was declared by the UN General Assembly in 1993 with resolution and reflects on the importance ‘the international community attaches to families.’ The International Day is celebrated to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting families.
A conference was held on May 15th as the UN’s International Day of Families. It was addressed by His Eminence Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Holy See’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva. With respect to the promotion of ‘the family as the fundamental and basic unit of all societies’ stated it’s defense needs to be sustained for the common good of our world community. “The family, after all, is, in many ways, the first school of how to be human and at the same time the family is the centre and the heart of what Paul VI called ‘the civilization of love’,” His Eminence Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic stated during an inter religious conference on families organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC).
His Eminence Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic also pointed out that “The harsh difficulties such as economic crisis and poverty make it difficult for families to maintain inter generational bonds as in the past. The family remains always the cell of society, and the primary place of education,” noted that the family’s ‘fundamental role for a peaceful civilization finds itself increasingly challenged.’
His Eminence Archbishop Jurkovic said, it is in the family that a person learns endurance, the joy of work, fraternal love, and generosity in forgiving others and, above all, the offering of one’s life at the service of the others. Therefore, the desire to marry and form a family needs to be strengthened in order that its fundamental role for society may be rediscovered.
