By David Sedeño
The Texas Catholic
On Aug. 17, 2016, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Kevin J. Farrell to lead a new Vatican office for Laity, Family and Life.
The appointment is a continuation of the Holy Father’s effort to bring more efficiency and transparency to the Vatican Curia and to highlight the importance of the family and the laity to the life of the church for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
The appointment also means an end to diocesan ministry for Bishop Farrell, and a nearly 10-year tenure as the chief shepherd of Dallas. Bishop Farrell began his new assignment at the Vatican on Sept. 1 and will move permanently to Rome in early October.
The new dicastery merged the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family. The new office also will oversee the Pontifical Academy for Life.
The new dicastery will focus on matters of the laity and for the pastoral care of the family in accordance with Pope Francis’ recent apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitis, or the Joy of Love, and the support of human life. It will include a staff of at least one other bishop and three lay people who will serve as department heads.
In announcing the new office earlier this year, the Vatican said that the section for the lay faithful “will inspire and encourage the promotion of the vocation and mission of the lay faithful in the Church and in the world, as individuals, married or unmarried, or as members of associations, movements and communities.”
The Vatican said the new office will also “promote studies to contribute to the doctrinal examination of themes and issues regarding the lay faithful. It will encourage the active and responsible presence of the laity in the advisory organs of governance present in the Church at universal and particular levels; it will evaluate the initiatives of Episcopal Conferences that make requests to the Holy See, in accordance with the needs of the particular Churches, for the institution of new ministries and ecclesiastical offices,” among other duties.
The section for the family will “promote family pastoral ministry, protect its dignity and well-being based on the sacrament of marriage, and will promote its rights and responsibility in the Church and in civil society, so that the family institution may be increasingly able to perform its functions in both ecclesial and social contexts.” The Vatican also said that this section will monitor the “activity of the Catholic institutes, associations, movements and organizations, both national and international, which aim to serve the good of the family.”
This unit also will offer guidelines for courses preparing couples for marriage and for pastoral programs to support families in the education of young people in faith and in ecclesial and civil life, with special attention to the poor and the marginalized. It will encourage openness of families to adoption and fostering of children and care for the elderly.
The life section of the new office will support and coordinate activities to encourage responsible procreation and the protection of human life from conception to natural end.
It will promote and encourage organizations and associations helping women and families to welcome and protect the gift of life, especially in the case of difficult pregnancies, and “to prevent recourse to abortion.” It will also support programs and initiatives intended to help women who have terminated a pregnancy. “On the basis of Catholic moral doctrine and the teaching of the Church,” the Vatican said, “it will study and promote formation on the main issues of biomedicine and of the law regarding human life and the ideologies developing in relation to human life and gender identity.”
Upon Bishop Farrell’s departure, Auxiliary Bishop Gregory Kelly will lead the diocese until Pope Francis appoints a successor in the coming months.
