Vital family support

The new director of the Cana Movement, Fr Joseph Mizzi, was reported (The Sunday Times, March 4) to have told the movement's annual general meeting that unless Cana's financial situation improved, it would not be able to offer its current services.

I consider this a very serious statement and sincerely trust that the organisation's management will leave no stone unturned to avoid taking such drastic measures. Fr Mizzi's interview and the comments offered by three members of Cana's counselling team in your Weddings Supplement (March 11) strengthened my conviction that depriving engaged couples and the Maltese family of the movement's various educational, therapeutic and support services would be a grave mistake.

Like any other voluntary organisation, the Cana Movement has had to weather more than one financial storm during its 50-year lifespan, and yet no single service was ever sacrificed to take the movement out of its crisis.

Rather than winding up its range of services, Cana should make every effort to further consolidate and develop its family pastoral work. On the other hand, the Church is in duty bound to extend whatever financial and other support is needed to help alleviate the movement's current financial woes.

Few would argue that Catholic marriage and the Maltese family in the third millennium need Cana and its indispensable services more than ever before.