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“Without Family, There Is No Future”: Protecting Children and Reaching Them Before Criminal Groups Do
Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi calls for stronger support for families. Two analyses published by the Observatory of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference broaden the discussion: What support is available to those who want to have children, and what do children need to grow up safely in their communities?
Ana Paula Morales (Poli)
11/3/20266 min read
Listening at home helps children and teenagers develop the confidence to discuss their concerns and ask for help. Illustrative image. Photo: National Cancer Institute / Unsplash.
MEXICO CITY — When a teenager misses several days of school, a phone call from a teacher may offer the first opportunity to find out what is happening. If that same teenager receives a suspicious job offer online, the hardest part may be deciding whom to tell. At that moment, what matters is knowing there is someone who will listen calmly and take their concerns seriously.
That kind of trust is built long before a crisis, through everyday conversations, even those that begin with a simple “How was your day?” and require time before a genuine answer emerges.
“Without family, there is no future,” Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, wrote in his weekly reflection distributed to news organizations and shared with Press Crux. Addressing declining birth rates, he warned that this is “not only a moral reality, but also a social and economic one.” Its consequences, he noted, extend to the labor market and the sustainability of pension systems.
His call to care for families raises a broader question for society: What support is available to those who want to start a family and those who are already raising children?
Arizmendi referred to Pope Leo XIV’s October 21, 2026, catechesis, in which the Holy Father recalled that marriage is founded on the mutual self-giving of husband and wife. The fruitfulness of that love is expressed through the transmission of life and the education of children. The cardinal encouraged young people to start families “according to their Christian conscience and their circumstances.”
For parents, that vocation is renewed through countless small gestures: making time to listen, sharing the exhaustion of raising children, and finding the courage to begin another conversation after an argument. See Pope Leo XIV’s catechesis.
The Family: The First School of Humanity and the Domestic Church
Before children understand what solidarity means, they may already have witnessed it at home. They see it when someone saves a meal for a sick neighbor or when siblings make room at the table for a visitor. They learn something about justice when an adult admits to having scolded them without listening and asks for forgiveness. These experiences can accompany them into the classroom or onto the playground, where they must decide whether to include a classmate who is regularly left out.
In his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, St. John Paul II described the family as the “first and vital cell of society.” That expression takes on concrete meaning in the relationships through which we learn that others depend on us and that we, too, can depend on them. The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes calls the family a “school of deeper humanity” and urges public authorities to protect and support it.
What families can offer their children also depends on the conditions in which they live and the support available to them.
For Christians, the home is also a domestic church. The dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium teaches that parents are the first heralds of the faith to their children, through their words and example. Consider a grandmother who teaches her grandchildren to pray for someone who is suffering and visits that person the following day, or a father who says grace before a meal and remembers those who have nothing to eat.
A child may forget the exact words of a prayer but remember years later that, at home, someone taught them to bring the names of suffering people before God and ask how they might help.
Pope Francis brought that responsibility into everyday life in Amoris Laetitia. The lack of adequate housing can lead couples to postpone starting a family. Long working hours and commutes may leave parents with only a few minutes together at the end of the day. Consider the mother who arrives home after her children have fallen asleep or the grandparents who help raise their grandchildren while the parents work.
A family-friendly public policy can also be measured by something as concrete as the time it gives families to spend together.
In her contribution to Observatory No. 174 of the Mexican Bishops’ Conference, María Cristina Rodríguez García, of CISAV, examines the debate over declining fertility in Mexico City and raises a question that adds another dimension to Cardinal Arizmendi’s appeal: “Is the desire to have children weakening, or is confidence in the ability to raise them adequately diminishing?”
The discussions she analyzes reveal economic insecurity, uncertainty about the future and changes in relationships between couples. Her question becomes especially relevant for people who do want children but wonder whether they will be able to afford housing, find childcare while they work or have enough time to watch their children grow.
Reaching Children Before Criminal Groups Do
In Mexico, an editorial titled “Reaching Them Before Criminal Groups Do,” published by Desde la Fe on October 25, illustrates why supporting families is also essential to children's safety. Drawing on a publication from the Citizen Security Program at Universidad Iberoamericana, it warns that criminal organizations can recruit minors through fraudulent job offers, threats or relationships built on trust. They also exploit young people's desire to belong and be recognized.
The danger extends even to children who attend school and have involved parents.
Recruitment is one of several threats facing minors. José Miguel Ángeles de León, writing for the same Observatory, examines another form of harm through the armed attacks that have affected children and teenagers in Guanajuato. Violence also transforms the lives of those who lose loved ones, witness an assault or begin to fear the journey to school.
When parents decide their children can no longer play outside their home, the restriction may protect them from immediate danger, but it also deprives them of opportunities to form friendships, interact with others and develop independence.
Faced with these risks, a question posed by Pope Francis deserves particular attention: “Do we seek to understand ‘where’ our children really are in their journey?” In Amoris Laetitia, the Holy Father urges parents to understand what their children see on screens, whom they spend time with and which ambitions they are beginning to make their own. He also cautions against an obsessive approach to parenting.
That closeness can grow through simple questions about what children enjoy in an online game, what worries them about a friend or how they imagine their future. When something frightens them, they need to know that we are willing to listen, even when they have not yet found the words to explain it.
Prevention also requires an effective response when a family seeks help. Desde la Fe points to responsibilities shared by schools, authorities, communities and digital platforms. Young people who have already been recruited need protection and assistance to escape criminal networks and rebuild their plans for the future.
For families affected by violence, restoring trust may begin with something as practical as allowing a child to return safely to school and find someone there who knows how to listen. The CISAV analysis calls for accessible psychological care, uninterrupted education, protection for threatened families and the recovery of community spaces. Parishes can offer listening, spiritual accompaniment and safe activities in coordination with specialized services.
Public authorities, meanwhile, are responsible for ensuring protection, investigating crimes and pursuing justice.
In his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis recalls that the family is the first place where fraternity is learned and offers a practical understanding of service: caring for the vulnerable members of our families, society and communities. That responsibility extends beyond parents.
It can be embodied by a neighbor who supports a single mother, a catechist who notices a child being excluded or a teacher who continues checking on a student after the family has shared a difficulty.
“Let us care for our families,” Cardinal Arizmendi writes. Perhaps today that means spending a little longer around the dinner table, returning to an unfinished conversation or calling the family of a child we have not seen in several days. And if a son, daughter, grandchild or student tells us, “I have something to tell you,” we can begin by making room beside us and giving them the time they need to speak.
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