Commemorative event on Maria Beltrame. Family and motherhood in Italy. Current challenges

On Wednesday 24 January, the Palazzo Borromeo, the seat of the Italian Embassy to the Holy See, hosted the event Family and motherhood in Italy. Current challenges. After greetings from H.E. Mr. Francesco Di Nitto, Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See, Fabio Bolzetta, journalist and President of the WECA, moderator of the speeches, recalled that 2024 marks three decades of the International Year of the Family proclaimed by the United Nations in 1994, an initiative which St. John Paul II welcomed by declaring the celebration of the Year as part of the new evangelisation. 

Bolzeta then gave the floor to H.E. Ms. Eugenia Maria Roccella, Minister of Family, Birth and Equal Opportunities, who stressed that the demographic winter in which Italy finds itself, in the face of which it is necessary to facilitate both the birth rate and the conditions for women to work without giving up motherhood, as is currently being promoted..

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Institute John Paul II, highlighted the ageing of the Italian population, with 14 million elderly people, and the fact that the country has an ageing population. stressed the importance of the family in ensuring that the most vulnerable, the elderly and children, can receive the care that their condition requires.

Father Marco Vianelli OFM, Director of the National Office of Family Pastoral Care, mentioned some contemporary challenges, such as the sanctity of the couple and the need for a new alliance between motherhood and fatherhood, recalling the fullness of union - warp and woof - of Beltrame Quattrocchi's marriage.

Professor Lorella Congiunti, professor of Metaphysics at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, considered that, in the contemporary panorama, the lack of desire to have children can be the fruit of sterile personalities and lack of relationships; on the other hand, motherhood, including spiritual motherhood, finds its place in knowing how to give oneself to others and to the world..

Mr. Vincenzo Bassi, president of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations of Europe (FAFCE), underlined that the lack of births is not just a factor of economic policies, as children have historically been born in other times of crisis.. It is important to invest in the family, with creativity, changing mentalities, investing in the family.

Finally, Prof. Cristina Reyes, Academic Vice-Chancellor of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, on behalf of the committee of academic entities promoting the International Inter-University Congress Women in the Church: Artificers of humanityexpressed his gratitude to Ambassador Di Nitto and all his collaborators for welcoming and supporting the initiative on themes related to the figure of Blessed Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, the first to be raised to the altars together with her husband Luigi in 2000 by John Paul II. 

Maria Beltrame and nine other women will be the protagonists of the conference to be held on 7 and 8 March at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, an event that aims to show the characteristics of being a woman in the Church through various testimonies of holiness and commitment in the world. Maria Beltrame, together with Dafrose from Rwanda, will be at the centre of the conference on the fruitfulness of the gift, which will present the value of the Christian family and, within it, of being a wife, life partner and mother. In a broader sense, it will highlight that characteristic of women which is the fruitfulness of spiritual motherhood.

Text: Silvia Mas

Photo: Silvia Mas