The Rib of Adam, The Rock of Peter: Family and Church as the Building Blocks of Society, 2025 Leonine Forum National Conference, January 3, 2025

2 days ago3 min read

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
2025 Leonine Forum National Conference: “A Time To Build”
JW Marriott, Orlando, Florida
January 3, 2025

To listen to an audio recording of this morning’s conference, please click below:

The Outline of the talk was:

Introduction on the theme of the conference, “A Time to Build.” Following the Tekton of Nazareth
Introduction on the title given to me: “The Rib of Adam, the Rock of Peter”
Leo XIII and the Three Necessary Societies of Family, the Church, and Civil Society. The Response of the Church to the French Revolution.
Responding to two Revolutions of the last 60 years: the cultural revolution in the West and the techno-economic revolution worldwide
Building and Strengthening the Family and the Church: the interdependence of both societies.
How do we strengthen the family?
- Buttress the families we have
- Help young people enter marriage well prepared
- Confront the things undermining marriage and the family, both the perennial problems as well as the new things
- Create a culture of marital vocations, including in the Leonine Forum.
- The help of the Eucharist in building, uniting, and orienting the family through the Word of God and through making one’s approach to marriage Eucharistic.
How do we strengthen the Church?
- Helping appreciate the Church as a building block
- Overcoming the scandals of sex abuse, of the response of the Church to COVID and other obstacles
- Getting involved at the level of the mustard seed and helping the Church grow
- Strengthening the Church’s kerygma/martyria (passing on of the faith by word and action)
- Strengthening the Church’s leitourgia (helping people to worship and prioritize God)
- Strengthening the Church’s koinoia (helping people find real community in an age of isolation and individualism)
- Strengthening the Church’s diakonia (caring for others as Good Samaritans)
- We know the impact of the early Church (Acts of the Apostles), but also know the way our parishes used to serve as salt, light and leaven as the most impactful institutions in neighborhoods. Clergy and lay people both need to renew such commitments
Conclusion on the Jubilee of Hope
- Hope means living with God in the world. He has made us in his image with a social or interpersonal nature. The work in front of us during this Time to Build is full of hope because God with us will be doing the heaviest lifting.