Pope Francis: All countries should promote family-friendly policies

Pope Francis on Friday urged all countries to promote family-friendly policies.

In an address to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences on April 29, the pope insisted that it was possible to create “a family-friendly society” despite major cultural and economic obstacles.

“Family-friendly social, economic, and cultural policies need to be promoted in all countries,” he said.

“These include, for example, policies that make it possible to harmonize family and work; fiscal policies that recognize family burdens and support the educational functions of families by adopting appropriate instruments of fiscal equity; policies that welcome life; and social, psychological, and health services centered on support for couple and parental relationships.”

He added: “A ‘family-friendly’ society is possible. Because society is born and evolves with the family. Not everything is attributable to a contract, nor can everything be imposed by command.”

A 2019 UNICEF study of 41 developed countries placed Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, and Portugal highest for family-friendly policies, with the United States among the lowest-ranked nations.

Members of the pontifical academy — including the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi — were at the Vatican to attend an April 27-29 plenary meeting focused on “The family as relational good.”

The meeting was their first in-person plenary session since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.