Schoenstatt Family Institute

Renewal of Marriage and Family

Our community

To be a new image of the Family of Nazareth

The Schoenstatt Family Institute is understood as a community of married couples of consecrated life with a juridical attachment. We live the evangelical counsels in the most perfect way possible, embodying the ideal of the Holy Family of Nazareth according to the current time.

20+

COUNTRIES

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, USA

1942

FOUNDING

The community was founded by Father Kentenich on July 16 in the Dachau concentration camp, with the consecration of the first member, Dr. Friedrich Kühr

Inspiration

Becoming a family role model

Through his contact with Evangelical pastors in the concentration camp at Dachau 1942, Father Kentenich realized clearly what an influence the pastors’ families had on their Church communities. They often served as a model, upholding the whole Church community as its soul.

Our founder saw this encounter as a message from God. He arrived at the conviction that the Catholic Church also needed such families. His answer to God’s call was the foundation of our community, with the aim that in the course of time it could become the core of the whole Family Movement, upholding it and giving it a soul.

He envisaged a community that would take as its task, the call to secure the ideal of Catholic marriage and family life and be a model of how to live this ideal in a timely way.

Innovation

The evangelical counsels applied to families

The Institute of Families is guided in this objective by the evangelical counsels. The lifestyle of marriage and family is naturally different from the celibate lifestyle of the religious. The goal, however, is the same: to live one’s vocation with determination, following Christ completely.

Life’s vocation

The community defines itself as...

In this sense, “the Schoenstatt Family Institute, faithful to its Founder, is understood as a community of married couples of consecrated life with a juridical attachment. Through the grace of the sacrament and through the strength of the Covenant of Love with Mary, we live the evangelical counsels in the most perfect way possible, embodying the ideal of the Holy Family of Nazareth according to the current time” (Being and Mission – Definition of the General Chapter 2018).

On mission

The renewal of the world passes through the family

“Its mission is to collaborate in the construction of a new social order, through the Christian renewal of marriage and family. It assumes the responsibility of guarantor and inspiring nucleus of the entire Movement, together with the other Schoenstatt Institutes” (Being and Mission – Definition of the General Chapter 2018)

Worldwide

Worldwide expansion

The Schoenstatt Institute of Families currently has approximately 320 couples and is present in 21 countries:
Europe

Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal

The Americas

USA, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, México, Ecuador, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brasil

Contact

Our contacts in the world​​

Need more information?

Our contacts in the world​​

Schoenstatt Family Institute

Haus der Familie (House of Families), Höhrer Strasse 115, Zip code 56179, Vallendar, Germany

Telephone

+49 261 640 060

www.if-schoenstatt.org

Email

contact@if-schoenstatt.org