Catholic leaders discuss family, fraternity at Ecuador conference

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — The world is wounded, Catholic leaders in Ecuador said Thursday. But focusing on supporting families could be a path to healing.

Catholic leaders from more than 50 countries discussed this and other topics in Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, at this year’s International Eucharistic Congress, which runs through Sept. 15.

Thursday’s program focused on family and fraternity. Both themes were addressed by Pope Francis in a recorded message broadcast at the opening ceremony last Sunday. “This is an essential condition for a new and more just world,” the pope said. who has just opened the last stage from his tour across four countries.

“Today it is not possible to stay on our happy island and isolate ourselves,” said Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the Vatican’s vicar general. “We must walk together.”

Rosalía Arteaga, a former Ecuadorian vice president present at the congress, told The Associated Press that the family is a “cornerstone” of brotherhood, “not from a patriarchal point of view,” but because good relationships between parents and children help preserve the values ​​of society.

In Ecuador, where 80% of the 17 million inhabitants say they are Catholic, same-sex marriage was legalized in 2019. was decriminalized in rape cases in 2022although activists consider it insufficient and discriminatory, and continue to push for expanded sexual and reproductive rights.

In his speech Thursday, Archbishop Graziano Borgonovo, appointed by the pope as undersecretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization, said that families, as social institutions, are currently in “crisis” because of same-sex marriages and “other forms of coexistence.”

“The family is the original nucleus,” Borgonovo said.

A Jesuit priest, Iván Lucero, said the Catholic Church could look for new ways to support same-sex marriages and non-traditional families.

“The pope has a greater understanding and closeness to these couples, whose numbers are increasing,” Lucero said. “But at the same time, we must ensure that the traditional family is not lost or called into question.”

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