A little bit of Rome coming to Tasmania in June 2022
By Ben Smith, Director of the Life, Marriage and Family Office
The 10th World Meeting of Families to be held in Rome from 22 to 26 June 2022, will be celebrated in a novel manner due to COVID-19 restrictions limiting the maximum attendance to 2000 people.
Pope Francis has called on dioceses around the world to be part of a multicentred event, saying that “the Diocese of Rome is working to ensure that all families in the world, especially those who will not be able to reach Rome, can equally participate in the meeting and live this extraordinary experience of faith.”
To facilitate access to the event for Australians, a national committee has recently been established to develop sample programs and resources for parishes and dioceses to hold local celebrations of the World Meeting of Families. As the Tasmanian representative on this committee, I have gained a good insight into what could be possible and I have initiated the first steps of planning Tasmanian events that will bring a little bit of this Roman event to venues across this state.
The theme for the event is “Family love: a vocation and a path to holiness.” A preparatory catechesis program has already been developed around this theme composed of seven themes centred around how holiness can be lived in the context of ordinary family life.
An official hymn for the event, We Believe in Love, has been written by Italian composer Fr Marco Frisina, and features nine languages. The official image, featuring the Wedding at Cana was painted by the Slovenian Jesuit Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik.
While I have been involved in running events tapping into the World Meeting of Families in 2015 and 2018, I believe that the structure and material available for next year’s event are much more accessible for the average Catholic family. The catechesis material is well balanced in that they present some of the rich aspects of the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family in ordinary language. The material also addresses concrete situations in family life, so it is highly relevant to helping families work on their challenges and build on their strengths.
I have seen families be transformed by their attendance at the World Meeting of Families so I am thrilled to be able to work with parishes, schools, ecclesial movements and individual families on bringing this event to Tasmania, to assist a much bigger group of families access the rich blessings and fruits of this event.