Church offers counseling

Saying that the strength of the country lies in the state of the family, the Cebu Archdiocese said it is offering intervention programs that seek to help couples strengthen marriage and family life.

Fr. Eligio Suico, president of the Marriage, Family and Life–Cebu Archdiocesan Foundation, Inc. (MFL-CAFI), said the Pre-Cana, the seminar required of couples before they can get married in Catholic rites, may not be enough to prepare them for married life, thus, the need to offer formation and intervention programs to couples.

Among the programs the MFL-CAFI offers is the “Post-Nuptial 1,” an intervention program for couples in the first five years of their marriage, where they discusses financial handling and management, dealing with in-laws and extended family, raising children, and national family planning and birth spacing as a way of life, and not just birth control.

The “Post Nuptial 2” program is for couples who have been married for more than 10 years. It includes activities such as marriage encounters, family encounters, and seminars. Other programs are those for the families of overseas Filipino workers, family counsel or family crisis for interventions on addiction and divorce; and family retreats that promote family devotions.

“The strength of the country lies in the state of the family. A weak family is equivalent to a weak nation,” MFL-CAFI Treasurer Maximo Fulache said in explaining the importance of a strong family life.

Suico said they also assist couples who are about to get married so they do not have a reason to annul their marriage.

“Although we do acknowledge an invalid union and want them to know that their purpose in life is to be happy according to how God wants them to be,” he said.

MFL-CAFI was created to assist the Commission of Family and Life – Cebu (CFL-Cebu) in implementing intervention programs focused on the improvement of marriage and family life by emphasizing the prominence of Christian family values as well as the sanctity of marriage.

It supervises the CFL-Cebu in implementing policies and programs by evaluating the importance of marriage, the family and life in nation-building, as well as the strengthening of faith according to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

“We believe that this will help us become a people true to our tradition, culture, and belief,” Archbishop Jose Palma said of the foundation’s mission. /