Notes on the Century of the Family – Opportunities for Children and the Elderly: Part 2: Comprehensive Family Competence
Published 31-07-2026
Keywords
- comprehensive education,
- Christian education,
- family,
- birth rate,
- competence,
- hope,
- charisma,
- childhood,
- old age,
- UN and EU strategies,
- maps of hope,
- poverty,
- global pacts,
- dignity
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Part I of the study initiated the discussion on the state of family education in the “Century of the Family”, identified for the 21st century, following the “Century of the Child”. The components of the newly interpreted Comprehensive Family Competence (CFC) can contribute to the improvement of family functions. A major challenge of the anomic European culture is, on one hand, the declining birth rate and, on the other, the increasing proportion of the elderly. In child-rearing, CFC focuses on developing family-founding roles, while for the elderly, it targets anti-ageing skills and intergenerational support.
CFC competencies, spanning childhood, youth, and old age, are identified through a global approach in the comprehensive documents of international organizations (UN, EU) and the Catholic Church (Holy See and Hungarian), with due regard to the scholarly literature. We analyse statements from the UN and its specialized agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, FAO, ILO), EU institutions (EC, EP, Council of Europe), as well as declarations by Popes Paul VI, Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV, alongside the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (MKPK) and other church leaders.
We present a formula for calculating CFC based on international and ecclesiastical components, in which the value ratio of family and social education components varies by age, multiplied by the value of the reinforcing ecclesiastical educational competence (and charisma). The formula is further expanded by an educational science multiplier, incorporating components derived from both research and practical pedagogy. The study cites 66 literary items and 13 online databases, also outlining the objectives of the forthcoming Part III, including the integration of CFC into domestic competency research by comparing the perspectives of József Nagy, Benő Csapó, Imre Knausz, Valéria Csépe, Judit Lannert, and others.