“The family, in our time, needs more than ever to be supported, promoted, and encouraged,” said Pope Leo XIV in a speech addressed to nuns received in audience at the Vatican on August 23, 2025.
He called for support for families through prayer, example, but also “necessary social action.”
At the end of the morning, the Pontiff received four delegations of nuns in Rome for their general chapters: the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the Apostles of the Holy Family, the Daughters of Nazareth, and the Sisters of Charity of St. Mary.
In his brief address, he emphasized their common desire to transmit “the values of the Holy Family of Nazareth.”
As in Nazareth
Leo XIV recalled a speech given by St. Paul VI in Nazareth during his trip to the Holy Land in 1964, in which the Italian pontiff affirmed that the Holy Family shows “the importance of the family, its communion of love, its simple and austere beauty, its sacred and inviolable character, its gentle pedagogy and its natural and irreplaceable function in society.”
"The family, in our time, needs more than ever to be supported, promoted, and encouraged,“ the pope said, inviting everyone to participate through prayer, example, and ”necessary social action.“
Finally, he encouraged religious orders to continue their commitment to families, but also to be families themselves, cultivating ”the spirit of the house of Nazareth."
