Our nation is failing many of our children. Our world is a hostile and dangerous place for millions of children. As pastors in a community deeply committed to serving children and their families, and as teachers of a faith that celebrates the gift of children, we seek to call attention to this crisis and to fashion a response that builds on the values of our faith, the experience of our community, and the love and compassion of our people.
We seek to shape a society - and a world - with a clear priority for families and children in need and to contribute to the development of policies that help families protect their children's lives and overcome the moral, social and economic forces that threaten their future.
We focus on the situation of our children for several reasons:. Our purpose is to share the facts of a society failing its children and a world neglecting children - and to explore the moral dimensions, human consequences and religious meaning of these failures. We invite the Catholic community and the broader society to respond to this urgent moral challenge and to suggest some basic values and directions for our families, nation and world in meeting it. We urge a reordering of priorities - personal, ecclesial and societal to focus more on the needs and potential of our children.
This message is a call for conversion and action - a spiritual and social reawakening to the moral and human costs of neglecting our children and families. In these reflections we build on our past efforts, especially our statements on family, human life and social justice.
We focus on children not as unconnected individuals, but as members of families. Every family has a mission "to guard, reveal and communicate love," and children are at the center of that mission. We address the needs of children from a family perspective.
