REPORT OF THE
NATIONAL PRESIDENT COUPLE OF THE
CHRISTIAN FAMILY MOVEMENT OF SPAIN
IN THE MEETING OF THE ICCFM IN FÁTIMA JUNE 2007
When I invoked you, Lord, you listened to me.
(Psalm 137)
Beloved friends, representatives of different continents
and countries:
In the first place and as National President Couple of
the CFM of Spain, we bring an affectionate greeting from the families and
priests who form the CHRISTIAN FAMILY MOVEMENT in Spain.
The family in Spain is
presently subjected to numerous attacks and criticisms that are making its
development difficult. Laws have been
approved that attack the basic nature of the family, and, in a special way, the
model that is born of the plan of God.
Facing these, the MFC, as much institutionally as personally
by some of its members, is becoming present in the press, radio and television,
to demonstrate its disagreement with those political measures, and is participating
in concrete actions in defense of the family.
At the same time it is
trying to raise awareness and to update the formation of its members so that
the change in our attitudes makes us return to the enthusiasm of our beginnings,
when those who are already turning gray today tried to understand and to bring
our lives to the Plan of God for the marriage and the family.
The current situation of the
CFM in Spain can be summarized in the following points:
1. We form part of almost three thousand families and almost a
thousand are in Promotion groups.
2. Some seven hundred priests join the couples in the Teams and
another two hundred are in Promotion.
3. The average age of its members continues to be high, close to the
fifty-five years, but the incorporation of young couples that was reduced for
some years is beginning to grow. In
addition, they are beginning to accept diocesan as well as national responsibilities.
4. The number of single youths who belong to the MFC is
not very many, although in some Dioceses it is beginning to grow.
5. In almost all the Dioceses four Services are
established: Promotion, Encounter, Youth and Solidarity and Family Orientation.
6. Service of Encounters:
Since its foundation the CFM of Spain accepted the responsibility to
spread and to give the Encounters designed by Fr. Gabriel Calvo. They give
between 50 and 60 Marriage Encounters per year with an average participation of
8 to 10 couples in each. Likewise they celebrate
some 15 Sons and Daughters Encounters and many more Engaged Encounters.
7. The Service of Promotion is in an interesting process of updating
its methods of major work to transmit the family and evangelical message by
means of formation courses for its promoters, having recently celebrated twenty-five
courses in the last three years.
8. Service of Solidarity and Family Orientation. Its function is channeling charitable aid
toward the needs of the most disadvantaged brothers, according to the message
of Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est. It is a service of great aid to
find new dimensions and fields of action for the collaborators of this
Service. Without excluding other types
of actions, they are used to carrying out the aid in two ways: on one hand by
means of economic help through charity organizations; and on another, by the
presence and collaboration of members of the CFM in civil and ecclesiastical organizations
to aid the needy.
9. The Service of Youth takes care that the young people
can order their life from the family point of view with actions of diverse types:
group meetings, coexistence, etc.
10. In the National or Diocesan organization,
there are Commissions in charge of some particular matter. In the majority of the Dioceses a Commission
of Prayer exists that organizes frequent activities for common prayer and for
the celebration of the Eucharist. In the
national scope there is a Commission of Spirituality and Formation that is in
charge of devising materials for the work of the teams and of the promotion
groups. It has also constituted the Commission
of Mass Media that is in charge of coordinating and to promoting the presence
of the CFM in the press, in the radio and on television.
11. Since the last World Assembly, the CFM of Spain has
published the following works:
12. The new challenges of the CFM in Spain are encountering
new ways of evangelization through our family charisma; the incorporation of
young couples and sons and daughters; concern for the families of immigrants,
the families of prisoners, the
single-parent families, etc.
These are difficult moments
but also full of hope for the future of the CFM of Spain because the incorporation
younger couples to responsibilities are giving a new air and some new
perspectives to the work in favor of families.
Enrique J. Alonso Hernández y
Teresa Guardia Carrillo
National President Couple of CFM Spain
.