ALL Christian churches and their communities must become more actively involved in helping to sustain marriage and the family, the president of the organisation for the homeless, Focus Point, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, has said.
The churches would also have to find ways to support people in new relationships following marital breakdown without compromising their views on marriage, Sister Stanislaus said in a keynote address at the opening yesterday of a diploma course on the family organised by the Family Life Centre in Boyle, Co Roscommon.
People whose marriages have broken down felt guilt towards themselves, their families and God, she said.
"Churches too, which see their vision of marriage fracturing in more and more people's lives, find it difficult to cope and to offer help that is credible", she said.
"Ignoring the problem or being judgmental can be a way out for embarrassed church people. But the churches should be the places where reality is faced, where pain and failure can be expressed and where forgiveness and healing can be found.
"Whatever our doctrinal or personal views on marriage and divorce, those shattered by the realities of marital breakdown deserve the best from the Christian community at a time when they need all the understanding they can get.
"And if they do not get it there is a risk of permanent alienation from the churches and the Christian faith. The churches are going to have to find ways to be a strength and a support to people in new relationships without compromising their views of marriage," she said.
All churches viewed marriage as an exclusive and life long commitment and most people in Ireland wanted to live their lives according to this vision, she said. But while this vision was a legitimate one, Sister Stanislaus cautioned that "merely expounding it is not going to work as a bulwark against marriage breakdown and the fragmentation of family life.
"In fact, the most significant implication of changes in family patterns is that legal or moral restraints alone are unlikely to keep a family intact where the emotional needs of its members are not being met.
All Christian churches and their communities need to become more actively involved in helping to sustain marriage and the family," she said.
Sister Stanislaus also said churches could and should play a pivotal role in taking a stance against poverty, unemployment and homelessness.
This could be done in three ways: by drawing attention to the effect of poverty and unemployment on families; by establishing services to alleviate the distress caused by poverty, and by pressing for changes in policy.