Paladina, Italy – As part of an ongoing program to empower families, UPF-Italy organized an evening event with the support of the city of Paladina on the theme “Individual Maturity and Marital Cohesion." Around 50 participants took part in the program, held at the Multipurpose Civic Hall of the Municipality of Paladina on October 13, 2023.
This event followed a meeting held last June on "The Individual and Social Value of the Family." The aim of these programs is to assist couples, who are engaged in the important life project of building a family, with a positive mindset and effective strategies to enable their success.
After greetings and thanks from Paladina Mayor Gianmaria Brignoli, UPF-Italy President Carlo Zonato introduced the program. He explained UPF's vision of the family as the place where an individual attains maturity of heart and character, and the capacity to sustain a cohesive relationship with a life partner. Such mature couples can then build families that foster a culture of peace in the broader social sphere.
Giuseppe Russo, of the Family Education Department of UPF-Italy, lamented the regression of moral and family values in our time, despite great scientific and technological progress. An increase in divorce and a decrease in marriage are the outcome. Even more serious and shocking is the sexualization of children at a young age, which leads to premature sexual experience without adequate emotional maturity. This creates serious risks for the physical and psychological health of young people, he pointed out. Also, over time, lax sexual attitudes lead to social problems such as infidelity in marriage, family breakdown and divorce.
Mr. Russo highlighted the fundamental need for balanced education and training, not only to manage the physical, external or material world around us, but above all to master the mental, internal and conscientious states that lead to good life outcomes. The development and maturation of a balanced character leads to a sense of responsibility towards oneself and others. This, he said, leads to fuller happiness and increases one’s harmonious relational capacity, an ability to love in a true and genuine way and to build bonds that endure over time. Hence it is the foundation of unity and cohesion between the couple, who are the backbone of the family.
Mr. Russo explained how a person’s capacity to love expands through four types of experience: the dimensions of childhood love, brotherly love, marital love and parental love. The family, in this sense, represents the entire realm of love in human life; it is more important than all systems and ideologies. It represents the most precious and fundamental basis for the love and life of all men and women.
Participants were moved and inspired by the program, which encouraged self-development as well as mutual love and respect between couples, and reminded them that building a happy and successful family is the most worthwhile project they can engage in throughout their lives.
