Poverty and the Filipino family

Along with other contentious contemporary issues tackled in the landmark three-week XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World in October 2015, the topic of poverty and how it impacts families were high on the agenda.

In an earlier gathering, the III Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, on the theme Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization, poverty was recognized as an urgent concern: “In such cases of extreme and increasing poverty, the family has to struggle for subsistence, a struggle to which the family has to devote most of its energy. Some observations call for the Church to raise a strong prophetic voice concerning poverty which puts a strain on family life. A Church which is ‘poor and for the poor’ must not fail to make her voice heard in this area” (#73).

In this issue of the Intersect Quick Facts, we present indicators of poverty affecting millions of Filipino families and the urgent challenges that beg for deeper reflection and immediate action by everyone.