WMOF going home to Rome

Rome will host the 10th World Meeting of Families in three years’ time, Cardinal Kevin Farrell has announced.

Drawing to a close the final Mass of the 2018 World Meeting of Families, the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life said to Pope Francis, “Holy Father, it is with great joy that I now announce to the whole world your decision to hold the next World Meeting of Families in 2021 in Rome.”

The first WMOF was held in the Eternal City in 1994, presided over by St John Paul, with Rome also hosting the third WMOF during the Great Jubilee of 2000.

In his closing comments in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Cardinal Farrell noted how over the course of WMOF2018, thousands of families with children had come to either Knock or Dublin to share the joy of the Gospel of the Family.

The cardinal noted how the last few days in Ireland have helped show howAmoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’ landmark post-synodal teaching document on marriage and the family can be put into practice, with the family becoming a real declaration of love and tenderness.

Describing the couples present as “a tangible sign of the presence of Jesus”, he said: “Jesus loves them, and by virtue of the sacrament, calls them to be active in pastoral care in the Church.”

Such couples, he said, will now be “even more aware of their nuptial and family vocation within the Church as they return home to their respective communities and parishes”.

He thanked the Church in Ireland and the country’s civil authorities for their welcome and assistance during WMOF2018, and prayed that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit present in the gathered families be renewed and perceived, ending by promising the Pope the assurance of prayers from those present, that God would enlighten and support him in guiding the “family of families” that is the Church.