Of course, the parish supports families. Ask the singles out there in the pew, and they will tell you that's all the parish supports. But ask the various parish groupings exactly how the parish supports families and you'll get the same rationale with opposing emotions. School parents and educational staff point to the school and the amount of resources devoted to religious education. The pastoral staff cites the number of marriages, Baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations, sick calls, and burials, as well as the number of children enrolled in religious education.
Pride is their prevailing emotion.
While the remaining parish groups point to the same allocation of resources, resignation and even bitterness predominate. Everything goes to the children. That's the first problem, the one that splits both the nation and the church politically. Our church has traditionally defined families as those supporting the parish financially and therefore entitled to the sacraments and as those validly married couples with school-aged children. In other words, pastoral training on families dwelled on sacramental and educational ministries, and that was about it.