The Church must look "attentively and compassionately" at the situations families find themselves in today, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech said this morning during a conference on the family.
"The Church must be a place of mercy... where all feel loved and welcome... mercy does not make the Church vulnerable, but credible.... true mercy is what families are thirsting to encounter in our Lord Jesus Christ," he said.
He was speaking during a conference, entitled Between Two Synods: Journeying Together, organised at Verdala Palace by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Malta in collaboration with the local branch of the European Society of Catholic Theologians.
During his address Mgr Grech, who is also the president of the Maltese Episcopal Conference, said that while falling into compromise according to popular trend was to be avoided, this was different from being faithful to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
"Some fear that the Church's foundations on marriage and family will be shaken... what we ought to fear is our resistance to the Holy Spirit that guides the Church... we need to move ahead with courage and creativity," he said.
President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said that today's family could not be easily defined. Research showed that 25 per cent of mothers were single parents with most aged between 20 and 30 and that 873 couples divorced.
How was the Church responding to this?
While she agreed that the Church should maintain its links with its apostolic tradition, such as values, it could not remain indifferent to the way people live their lives.
The majority of Maltese still wanted to maintain their Catholic way of life but the country was also facing different cultures and faiths.
Couples sometimes faced difficult decisions as they struggled to combine the traditional ways with current demands and constraints. These people needed to find understanding from the Church that needed to look at family life today in all its complexities.
In the past, she said, children born out of wed-lock were not baptised.This had changed today but, she questioned: how did the Church view same-sex couples who wanted to continue living their faith? How did it view adoption by same-sex couples? Divorced people who wanted to rebuild their life in the Church?
There was an urgency to show the correct responses to these people since "by looking the other way we will be causing suffering," she said.
"I believe that, both the government and Church need to respond with more action... society must understand and not condemn, this does not mean changing Christ and the Church but it does mean that we all need to open our mind and heart to the reality of people's suffering... I have been thought that our Christ was open to everyone and turned no one away," she said.
The conference is still ongoing.