Catholic Archbishop of the  Lagos, Most Rev. Alfred Adewale Martins, has exp-ressed concern over decaying societal values, attributing the current state to persistent decline in marriage and family values, reports William Jimoh.

The cleric who said this during a press conference in Lagos heralding the Archdioc-esan year of the family 2014, noted that in a bid to fix the reputation of Nigeria it is imperative to first fix marriage and family which, by exten-sion, will proffer solutions to various challenges currently facing the country and the world at large.

According to the archbishop, “as a local church we are con-cerned about the decadence in our society which can be traced to the weakening marriage and family values. So we are saying, return the families to Christ, heal the individual families and the nation will experience near-instant healing and restora-tion.

“It is in order to achieve this that we have declar-ed 2014 as the Arch-diocesan Year of the Family. In celebrating this year, we have chosen the theme, “The Family as a domestic church” not just to fulfill all-righteousness but on the contrary, there are set goals to be pursued and attained during the pro-gramme.

“The theme covers a wide range of topical issues affecting marria-ge, family and the so-ciety, such as respect for human life, childless-ness, adoption, contra-ceptives and natural family planning.
“Others include the place of the Word of God and the Eucharist in the life of a Christian, res-ponsible fatherhood and motherhood, sexuality education and chastity, formation of children in authentic values, single parenthood, separation, divorce and widowhood, human suffering and the family and charity among other things.

“To ensure that non-Catholics and Catholics outside Lagos benefit from this celebration, efforts are being put in place to involve the social communication media”, he added.

Continuing, Archbis-hop Martins said: “An interesting aspect of the programme during the year is that no one is left out. In the course of the year, the archbishop will meet with married peo-ple, singles, the youths and children at different times, but the discussion at such meet-ings will always revolve around the family,” he said.
The programme com-mences officially with an inaugural Mass on Thursday at Holy Cross Cathedral and is exp-ected to end on Satur-day, November 29, this year.