Apostolic Exhortation
FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO
(On the Family)
of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II
to the Episcopate, to the Clergy and to the Faithful
of the Whole Catholic Church Regarding the Role
of the Christian Family in the Modern World
December 15, 1981
INTRODUCTION
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1. The Church at the Service of the Family.
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The family in the modern world, as much as and perhaps more
than any other institution, has been beset by the many profound
and rapid changes that have affected society and culture. Many
families are living this situation in fidelity to those values
that constitute the foundation of the institution of the family.
Others have become uncertain and bewildered over their role or
even doubtful and almost unaware of the ultimate meaning and
truth of conjugal and family life. Finally, there are others
who are hindered by various situations of injustice in the realization
of their fundamental rights.
Knowing that marriage and the family constitute one of the
most precious of human values, the church wishes to speak and
offer her help to those who are already aware of the value of
marriage and the family and seek to live it faithfully, to those
who are uncertain and anxious and searching for the truth, and
to those who are unjustly impeded from living freely their family
lives. Supporting the first, illumination the second and assisting
the others, the church offers her services to every person who
wonders about the destiny of marriage and the family [1].
In a particular way the church addresses the young, who are
beginning their journey toward marriage and family life, for
the purpose of presenting them with new horizons, helping them
to discover the beauty and grandeur of the vocation to love and
the service of life.
2. The Synod of 1980 in Continuity with Preceding Synods
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A Sign of this profound interest of the church in the family
was the last Synod of Bishops, held in Rome from Sept. 26 to
Oct. 25, 1980. This was a natural continuation of the two preceding
synods [2]: The Christian family, in fact, is the first community
called to announce the Gospel to the human person during growth
and to bring him or her, through a progressive education and
catechesis, to full human and Christian maturity.
Furthermore, the recent synod is logically connected in some
way as well with that on the ministerial priesthood and on justice
in the modern world. In fact, as an educating community, the
family must help man to discern his own vocation and to accept
responsibility in the search for greater justice, educating him
from the beginning in interpersonal relationships, rich in justice
and in love.
At the close of their assembly, the synod fathers presented
me with a long list of proposals in which they had gathered the
fruits of their reflections, which had matured over intense days
of work, and they asked me unanimously to be a spokesman before
humanity of the church's lively care for the family and to give
suitable indications for renewed pastoral effort in this fundamental
sector of the life of man and of the church.
As I fulfill that mission with this exhortation, thus actuating
in a particular matter the apostolic ministry with which I am
entrusted, I wish to thank all the members of the synod for the
very valuable contribution of teaching and experience that they
made, especially through the *propositiones*, the text of which
I am entrusting to the Pontifical Council for the Family with
instructions to study it so as to bring out every aspect of its
rich content.
3. The Precious Value of Marriage and of the Family.
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Illuminated by the faith that gives her an understanding of
all the truth concerning the great value of marriage and the
family and their deepest meaning, the church once again feels
the pressing need to proclaim the Gospel, that is the "good
news," to all people without exception, in particular to
those who are called to marriage and are preparing for it, to
all married couples and parents in the world.
The church is deeply convinced that only by the acceptance
of the Gospel are the hopes that man legitimately places in marriage
and in the family capable of being fulfilled.
Willed by God in the very act of creation [3], marriage and
the family are interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ [4]
and have need of his graces in order to be healed from the wounds
of sin [5] and restored to their "beginning" [6], that
is, to full understanding and the full realization of God's plan.
At a moment of history in which the family is the object of
numerous forces that seek to destroy it or in some way to deform
it, and aware that the well-being of society and her own
good are intimately tied to the good of the family [7], the church
perceives in a more urgent and compelling way her mission of
proclaiming to all people the plan of God for marriage and the
family, ensuring their full vitality and human and Christian
development, and thus contributing to the renewal of society
and of the people of God.
PART ONE
BRIGHT SPOTS AND SHADOWS FOR THE FAMILY TODAY
4. The Need to Understand the Situation.
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Since God's plan for marriage and the family touches men and
women in the concreteness of their daily existence in specific
social and cultural situations, the church ought to apply herself
to understanding the situations within which marriage and the
family are lived today, in order to fulfill her task of serving
[8].
This understanding is therefore an inescapable requirement
of the work of evangelization. It is, in fact, to the families
of our times that the church must bring the unchangeable and
ever new gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it is the families involved
in the present conditions of the world that are called to accept
and to live the plan of God that pertains to them. Moreover,
the call and demands of the spirit resound in the very events
of history, and so the church can also be guided to a more profound
understanding of the inexhaustible mystery of marriage and the
family by the circumstances, the questions and the anxieties
and hopes of the young people, married couples and parents of
today [9].
To this ought to be added a further reflection of particular
importance at the present time. Not infrequently ideas and solutions
which are very appealing, but which obscure in varying degrees
the truth and the dignity of the human person, are offered to
men and women of today in their sincere and deep search for a
response to the important daily problems that affect their married
and family life. These views are often supported by the powerful
and pervasive organization of the means of social communication,
which subtly endangers freedom and the means of objective judgement.
Many are already aware of this danger to the human person
and are working for the truth. The church, with her evangelical
discernment, joins with them, offering her own service to the
truth, to freedom and to the dignity of every man and every woman.
8. Evangelical Discernment.
---------------------------
The discernment effected by the church becomes the offering
of an orientation in order that the entire truth and the full
dignity of marriage and the family may be preserved and realized.
This discernment is accomplished through the sense of faith
[10], which is a gift that the Spirit gives to all the faithful
[11], and is therefore the work of the whole church according
to the diversity of the various gifts and charisms that, together
with and according to the responsibility proper to each one,
work together for a more profound understanding and activation
of the word of God. The church, therefore, does not accomplish
this discernment only through the pastors, who teach in the name
and with the power of Christ, but also through the laity: Christ
"made them his witnesses and gave them understanding of
the faith and the grace of speech (Acts 2:17-18; Rv. 19:10),
so that the power of the Gospel might shine forth in their daily
social and family life" [12]. The laity, moreover, by reason
of their particular vocation have the specific role of interpreting
the history of the world in the light of Christ, inasmuch as
they are called to illuminate and organize temporal realities
according to the plan of God, creator and redeemer.
The "supernatural sense of faith" [13], however,
does not consist solely or necessarily in the consensus of the
faithful. Following Christ, the church seeks the truth, which
is not always the same as the majority opinion. She listens to
conscience and not to power, and in this way she defends the
poor and downtrodden. The church values sociological and statistical
research when it proves helpful in understanding the historical
context in which pastoral action has to be developed and when
it leads to a better understanding of the truth. Such research
alone, however, is not to be considered in itself an expression
of the sense of faith.
Because it is the task of the apostolic ministry to ensure
that the church remains in the truth of Christ and to lead her
ever more deeply into that truth, the pastors must promote the
sense of faith in all the faithful, examine and authoratively
judge the genuineness of its expressions and educate the faithful
in an ever more mature evangelical discernment [14].
Christian spouses and parents can and should offer their unique
and irreplaceable contribution to the elaboration of an authentic
evangelical discernment in the various situations and cultures
in which men and women live their marriage and their family life.
They are qualified for this role by their charism or special
gift, the gift of the sacrament of matrimony [15].
6. The Situation of the Family in the World Today.
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The situation in which the family finds itself presents positive
and negative aspects: The first is a sign of the salvation of
Christ operating in the world; the second, a sign of the refusal
that man gives to the love of God.
On the one hand, in fact, there is a more lively awareness
of personal freedom and greater attention to the quality of interpersonal
relationships in marriage, in promoting the dignity of women,
to responsible procreation, to the education of children. There
is also an awareness of the need for the development of interfamily
relationships, for reciprocal spiritual and material assistance,
the rediscovery of the ecclesial mission proper to the family
and its responsibility for the building of a more just society.
On the other hand, however, signs are not lacking of a disturbing
degradation of some fundamental values: a mistaken theoretical
and practical concept of the independence of the spouses in relation
to each other; serious misconceptions regarding the relationship
of authority between parents and children; the concrete difficulties
that the family itself experiences in the transmission of values;
the growing number of divorces; the scourge of abortion; the
ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the appearance
of a truly contraceptive mentality.
At the root of these negative phenomena there frequently lies
a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom, conceived
not as a capacity for realizing the truth of God's plan for marriage
and the family, but as an autonomous power of self-affirmation,
often against others, for one's own selfish well-being.
Worthy of our attention also is the fact in the countries
of the so-called Third World, families often lack both
the means necessary for survival, such as food, work, housing
and medicine, and the most elementary freedoms. In the richer
countries, on the contrary, excessive prosperity and the consumer
mentality, paradoxically joined to a certain anguish and uncertainty
about the future, deprive married couples of the generosity and
courage needed for raising up new human life: Thus life is often
perceived not as a blessing but as a danger from which to defend
oneself.
The historical situation in which the family lives therefore
appears as an interplay of light and darkness.
This shows that history is not simply a fixed progression
toward what is better, but rather an event of freedom, and even
a struggle between freedoms that are in mutual conflict, that
is, according to the wellknown expression of St. Augustine, a
conflict between two loves: the love of God to the point of disregarding
self, and the love of self to the point of disregarding God [16].
It follows that only an education for love rooted in faith
can lead to the capacity of interpreting "the signs of the
times," which are the historical expression of this twofold
love.
7. The Influence of Circumstances on the Consciences of the
Faithful.
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Living in such a world, under the pressures coming above all
from the mass media, the faithful do not always remain immune
from the obscuring of certain fundamental values, nor set themselves
up as the critical conscience of the family culture and as active
agents in the building of an authentic family humanism.
Among the more troubling signs of this phenomenon, the synod
fathers stressed the following in particular: the spread of divorce
and of recourse to a new union, even on the part of the faithful;
the acceptance of purely civil marriage in contradiction of the
vocation of the baptized to "be married in the Lord";
the celebration of the marriage sacrament without living faith,
but for other motives; the rejection of moral norms that guide
and promote human and Christian exercise of sexuality in marriage.
8. Our Age Needs Wisdom.
------------------------
The whole church is obliged to a deep reflection and commitment,
so that the new culture now emerging may be evangelized in depth,
true values acknowledged, the rights of men and women defended
and justice promoted in the very structures of society. In this
way the "new humanism" will not distract people from
their relationship with God, but will lead them to it more fully.
Science and its technical applications offer new and immense
possibilities in the construction of such a humanism. Still,
as a consequence of political choices that decide the direction
of research and its applications, science is often used against
its original purpose, which is the advancement of the human person.
It becomes necessary, therefore, on the part of all to recover
an awareness of the primacy of moral values, which are the values
of the human person as such. The great task that has to be faced
today for the renewal of society is that of recapturing the ultimate
meaning of life and its fundamental values. Only an awareness
of the primacy of these values enables man to use the immense
possibilities given him by science in such a way as to bring
about the true advancement of the human person in his or her
whole truth, in his or her freedom and dignity. Science is called
to ally itself with wisdom.
The following words of the Second Vatican Council can therefore
be applied to the problems of the family: "Our era needs
such wisdom more than bygone ages if the discoveries made by
man are to be further humanized. For the future of the world
stands in peril unless wiser people are forthcoming" [17].
The education of the moral conscience, which makes every human
being capable of judging and of discerning the proper ways to
achieve self-realization according to his or her original
truth, thus becomes a pressing requirement that cannot be renounced.
Modern culture must be led to a more profoundly restored covenant
with divine wisdom. Every man is given a share of such wisdom
through the creating action of God. And it is only in faithfulness
to this covenant that the families of today will be in a position
to influence positively the building of a more just and fraternal
world.
9. Gradualness and Conversion.
------------------------------
To the injustice originating from sinwhich has profoundly
penetrated the structures of today's worldand often hindering
the family's full realization of itself and of its fundamental
rights, we must all set ourselves in opposition through a conversion
of mind and heart, following Christ crucified by denying our
own selfishness: Such a conversion cannot fail to have a beneficial
and renewing influence even on the structures of society.
What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which,
while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an
adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely
in steps which leads us gradually with the progressive integration
of the gifts of God and the demands of his definitive and absolute
love in the entire personal and social life of man. Therefore
an educational growth process is necessary in order that individual
believers, families and peoples, even civilization itself, by
beginning from what they have already received of the mystery
of Christ, may patiently be led forward, arriving at a richer
understanding and a fuller integration of this mystery in their
lives.
10. Inculturation.
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In conformity with her constant tradition, the church receives
from the various cultures everything that is able to express
better the unsearchable riches of Christ [18]. Only with the
help of all the cultures will it be possible for these riches
to be manifested ever more clearly and for the church to progress
toward a daily, more complete and profound awareness of the truth,
which has already been given to her in its entirety by the Lord.
Holding fast to the two principles of the compatibility with
the Gospel of the various cultures to be taken up and of communion
with the universal church, there must be further study, particularly
by the episcopal conferences and the appropriate departments
of the Roman Curia, and greater pastoral diligence so that this
"inculturation" of the Christian faith may come about
ever more extensively in the context of marriage and the family
as well as in other fields.
It is by means of "inculturation" that one proceeds
toward the full restoration of the covenant with the wisdom of
God, which is Christ himself. The whole church will be enriched
also by the cultures which, though lacking technology, abound
in human wisdom and are enlivened by profound moral values.
So that the goal of this journey might be clear and consequently
the way plainly indicated, the synod was right to begin by considering
in depth the original design of God for marriage and the family:
It "went back to the beginning," in deference to the
teaching of Christ [19].
PART TWO
THE PLAN OF GOD FOR MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
11. Man, the Image of the God Who Is Love.
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God created man in his own image and likeness [20]; calling
him to existence through love, he called him at the same time
for love.
God is love [21] and in himself he lives a mystery of personal
loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image and
continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity
of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility,
of love and communion [22]. Love is therefore the fundamental
and innate vocation of every human being.
As an incarnate spirit, that is, a soul which expresses itself
in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called
to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body,
and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love.
Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing
the vocation of the human person, in its entirety, to love: marriage
and virginity or celibacy. Either one is in its proper form an
actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being "created
in the image of God."
Consequently sexuality, by means of which man and woman give
themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and
exclusive to spouses, is by no means something purely biological,
but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such.
It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral
pert of the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves
totally to one another until death. The total physical self-giving
would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total personal
self-giving, in which the whole person, including the
temporal dimension, is present: If the person were to withhold
something or reserve the possibility of deciding otherwise in
the future, by this very fact he or she would not be giving totally.
This totality which is required by conjugal love also corresponds
to the demands of responsible fertility. This fertility is directed
to the generation of a human being, and so by its nature it surpasses
the purely biological order and involves a whole series of personal
values. For the harmonious growth of these values a persevering
and unified contribution by both parents is necessary.
The only "place" in which this self-giving
in its whole truth is made possible is marriage, the covenant
of conjugal love freely and consciously chosen, whereby man and
woman accept the intimate community of life and love willed by
God himself [23], which only in this light manifests its true
meaning. The institution of marriage is not an undue interference
by society or authority, nor the extrinsic imposition of a form.
Rather, it is an interior requirement of the covenant of conjugal
love which is publicly affirmed as unique and exclusive in order
to live in complete fidelity to the plan of God, the creator.
A person's freedom, far from being restricted by this fidelity,
is secured against every form of subjectivism or relativism and
is made a sharer in creative wisdom.
12. Marriage and Communion Between God and People.
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The communion of love between God and people, a fundamental
part of the revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds
a meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established
between a man and a woman.
For this reason the central word of revelation, "God
loves his people," is likewise proclaimed through the living
and concrete word whereby a man and a woman express their conjugal
love. Their bond of love becomes the image and the symbol of
the covenant which unites god and his people [24]. And the same
sin which can harm the conjugal covenant becomes an image of
the infidelity of the people to their God: Idolatry is prostitution
[25], infidelity is adultery, disobedience to the law is abandonment
of the spousal love of the Lord. But the infidelity of israel
does not destroy the eternal fidelity of the Lord, and therefore
the ever faithful love of God is put forward as the model of
the relations of the faithful love which should exist between
spouses [26].
13. Jesus Christ, Bridegroom of the Church,
and the Sacrament of Matrimony.
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The communion between God and his people finds its definitive
fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the bridegroom who loves and gives
himself as the savior of humanity, uniting it to himself as his
body.
He reveals the original truth of marriage, the truth of the
"beginning" [27], and, freeing man from his hardness
of heart, he makes man capable of realizing this truth in its
entirety.
This revelation reaches its definitive fullness in the gift
of love which the word of God makes to humanity in assuming a
human nature, and in the sacrifice which Jesus Christ makes of
himself on the cross for his bride, the church. In this sacrifice
there is entirely revealed that plan which God has imprinted
on the humanity of man and woman since their creation [28], the
marriage of baptized persons thus becomes a real symbol of that
new and eternal covenant sanctioned in the blood of Christ. The
Spirit which the Lord pours forth gives a new heart, and renders
man and woman capable of loving one another as Christ has loved
us. Conjugal love reaches that fullness to which it is interiorly
ordained, conjugal charity, which is the proper and specific
way in which the spouses participate in and are called to live
the very charity of Christ, who gave himself on the cross.
In a deservedly famous page, Tertullian has well expressed
the greatness of this conjugal life in Christ and its beauty:
"How can I ever express the happiness of the marriage that
is joined together by the church, strengthened by an offering,
sealed by a blessing, announced by angels and ratified by the
Father? !!! How wonderful the bond between two believers, with
a single hope, a single desire, a single observance, a single
service! They are both brethren and both fellow servants; there
is no separation between them in spirit or flesh. In fact they
are truly two in one flesh, and where the flesh is one, one is
the spirit" [29].
Receiving and mediating faithfully on the word of God, the
church has solemnly taught and continued to teach that the marriage
of the baptized is one of the seven sacraments of the new covenant
[30].
Indeed by means of baptism, man and woman are definitively
placed within the new and eternal covenant, in the spousal covenant
of Christ with the church. And it is because of this indestructible
insertion that the intimate community of conjugal life and love,
founded by the creator [31], is elevated and assumed into the
spousal charity of Christ, sustained and enriched by his redeeming
power.
By virtue of the sacraments of their marriage, spouses are
bound to one another in the most profoundly indissoluble manner.
Their belonging to each other is the real representation, by
means of the sacramental sign, of the very relationship of Christ
with the church.
Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the church
of what happened on the cross; they are for one another and for
the children witnesses to the salvation in which the sacrament
makes them sharers. Of this salvation event marriage, like every
sacrament, is a memorial, actuation and prophecy:
"As a memorial, the sacrament gives them the grace and
duty of commemorating the great works of God and of bearing witness
to them before their children. As actuation, it gives them the
grace and duty of putting into practice in the present, toward
each other and their children, the demands of a love which forgives
and redeems. As prophecy, it gives them the grace and duty of
living and bearing witness to the hope of the future encounter
with Christ" [32].
Like each one of the seven sacraments, so also marriage is
a real symbol of the event of salvation, but in its own way.
"The spouses participate in it as spouses, together,
as a couple, so that the first and immediate effect of marriage
(res et sacramentum) is not supernatural grace itself, but the
Christian conjugal bond, a typically Christian communion of two
persons because it represents the mystery of Christ's incarnation
and the mystery of his covenant. The content of participation
in Christ's life is also specific: Conjugal love involves a totality,
in which all the elements of the person enterappeal of
the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration
of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity,
the unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one
heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in
definitive mutual giving; and is open to fertility (cf. Humanae
Vitae, 9). In a word, it is a question of the normal characteristics
of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which
not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the
extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian
values" [33].
14. Children, the Precious Gift of Marriage.
--------------------------------------------
According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of
the wider community of the family, since the very institution
of marriage and conjugal love is ordained to the procreation
and education of children, in whom it finds its crowning [34].
In its most profound reality, love is essentially a gift;
and conjugal love, while leading the spouses to the reciprocal
"knowledge" which makes them "one flesh",
[35] does not end with the couple, because it makes them capable
of the greatest possible gift, the gift by which they become
cooperators with God for giving life to a new human person. Thus
the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give not
just themselves but also the reality of children, who are a living
reflection of their love, a permanent sign of conjugal unity
and a living and inseparable synthesis of their being a father
and a mother.
When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift
of a new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become
for the children the visible sign of the very love of God, "from
whom every family in heaven and on earth is named" [36].
It must not be forgotten however, that even when procreation
is not possible, conjugal life does not for this reason lose
its value. Physical sterility in fact, can be for the spouses
the occasion for other important services to the life of the
human person, for example, adoption, various forms of educational
work, and assistance to other families and to poor or handicapped
children.
15. The Family, a Communion of Persons.
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In matrimony and in the family a complex of interpersonal
relationships is set upmarried life, fatherhood and motherhood,
filiation and fraternitythrough which each human person
is introduced into the "human family" and into the
"family of God," which is the church.
Christian marriage and the Christian family build up the church:
for in the family the human person is not only brought into
being and progressively introduced by means of education into
the human community, but by means of rebirth of baptism and education
in the faith the child is also introduced into God's family,
which is the church.
The human family, disunited by sin, is reconstituted in its
unity by the redemptive power of death and resurrection of Christ
[37]. Christian marriage, by participating in the salvific efficacy
of this event, constitutes the natural setting in which the human
person is introduced into the great family of the church.
The commandment to grown and multiply, given to man and woman
in the beginning, in this way reaches its whole truth and full
realization.
The church thus finds in the family, born from the sacrament,
the cradle and the setting in which she can enter the human generations
and where these in turn can enter the church.
16. Marriage and Virginity or Celibacy.
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Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God not
only does not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes
it and confirms it. Marriage and virginity or celibacy are two
ways of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant
of God with his people. When marriage is not esteemed, neither
can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality
is not regarded as a great value given by the creator, the renunciation
of it for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning.
Rightly indeed does St. John Chrysostom say:
"Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory
of virginity. Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable
and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil
would not be particularly good. It is something better than what
is admitted to be good that is the most excellent good"
[38].
In virginity or celibacy, the human being is awaiting, also
in a bodily way, the eschatological marriage of Christ with the
church, giving himself or herself completely to the church in
the hope that Christ may give himself to the church in the full
truth of eternal life. The celibate person thus anticipates in
his or her flesh the new world of the future resurrection [39].
By virtue of this witness, virginity or celibacy keeps alive
in the church a consciousness of the mystery of marriage and
defends it from any reduction and impoverishment.
Virginity or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a
unique way [40], "so as to make it burn with greater love
for God and all humanity" [41], bears witness that the kingdom
of God and his justice is that pearl of great price which is
preferred to every other value no matter how great, and hence
must be sought as the only definitive value. It is for this reason
that the church throughout her history has always defended the
superiority of this charism to that of marriage, by reason of
the wholly singular link which it has with the kingdom of God
[42].
In spite of having renounced physical fecundity, the celibate
person becomes spiritually fruitful, the father and mother of
many, cooperating in the realization of the family according
to God's plan.
Christian couples therefore have the right to expect from
celibate persons a good example and a witness of fidelity to
their vocation until death. Just as fidelity at times becomes
difficult for married people and requires sacrifice, mortification
and self-denial, the same can happen to celibate persons,
and their fidelity, even in the trials that may occur, should
strengthen the fidelity of married couples [43].
These reflections on virginity or celibacy can enlighten and
help those who, for reasons independent of their own will, have
been unable to marry and have then accepted their situation in
a spirit of service.
PART THREE
THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY
17. Family, Become What You Are.
--------------------------------
The family finds in the plan of God the creator and redeemer
not only its identity, what it is, but also its mission, what
it can and should do. The role that God calls the family to perform
in history derives from what the family is: its role represents
the dynamic and existential development of what it is. Each family
finds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored and that
specifies both its dignity and its responsibility: Family become
what you are.
Accordingly, the family must go back to the "beginning"
of God's creative act if it is to attain self-knowledge
and self-realization in accordance with the inner truth
not only of what it is, but also of what it does in history.
And since in God's plan it has been established as an "intimate
community of live and love" [44], the family has the mission
to become more and more what it is, that is to say, a community
of life and love in an effort that will find fulfillment, as
will everything created and redeemed, in the kingdom of God.
Looking at it in such a way as to reach its very roots, we must
say that the essence and role of the family are in the final
analysis specified by love. Hence the family has the mission
to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a living reflection
of and a real sharing in God's love for humanity and the love
of Christ the Lord for the church, his bride.
Every particular task of the family is an expression and concrete
actuation of that fundamental mission. We must therefore go deeper
into the unique riches of the family's mission and probe its
contents, which are both manifold and unified.
Thus, with love as its point of departure and making constant
reference to it, the recent synod emphasized four general tasks
for the family:
I. Forming a community of persons;
II. Serving life;
III. Participating in the development of society;
IV. Sharing in the life and mission of the church.
I. FORMING A COMMUNITY OF PERSONS.
----------------------------------
18. Love as the principle and power of communion.
-------------------------------------------------
The family, which is founded and given life by love, is a
community of persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children,
of relatives. Its first task is to live with fidelity the reality
of communion in a constant effort to develop an authentic community
of persons.
The inner principle of that task, its permanent power and
its final goal, is love: Without love the family is not a community
of persons, and in the same way, without love the family cannot
live, grow and perfect itself as a community of persons. What
I wrote in the Encyclical REDEMPTOR HOMINIS applies primarily
and especially within the family as such: "Man cannot live
without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for
himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him,
if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and
make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it"
[45].
The love between husband and wife and, in a derivatory and
broader way, the love between members of the same familybetween
parents and children, brothers and sisters and relatives and
members of the householdis given life and sustenance by
the unceasing inner dynamism leading the family to ever deeper
and more intense communion, which is the foundation and soul
of the community of marriage and the family.
19. The indivisible unity of conjugal communion.
------------------------------------------------
The first communion is the one which is established and which
develops between husband and wife: By virtue of the covenant
of married life, the man and woman "are no longer two but
one flesh" [46] and they are called to grow continually
in their communion through day-to-day fidelity
to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving.
This conjugal communion sinks its roots in the natural complementarity
that exists between man and woman and is nurtured through the
personal willingness of the spouses to share their entire life
project, what they have and what they are: For this reason such
communion is the fruit and the sign of a profoundly human need.
But in the Lord Christ God takes up this human need, confirms
it, purifies it and elevates it, leading it to perfection through
the sacrament of matrimony: the Holy Spirit who is poured out
in the sacramental celebration offers Christian couples the gift
of a new communion of love that is the living and real image
of that unique unity which makes of the church the indivisible
mystical body of the Lord Jesus.
The gift of the spirit is a commandment of life for Christian
spouses and at the same time a stimulating impulse so that every
day they may progress toward an ever richer union with each other
on all levelsof the body, of the character, of the heart,
of the intelligence and will, of the soul [47] -- revealing
in this way to the church and to the world the new communion
of love, given by the grace of Christ.
Such a communion is radically contradicted by polygamy: This,
in fact, directly negates the plan of God which was revealed
from the beginning, because it is contrary to the equal personal
dignity of men and women, who in matrimony give themselves with
a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive. As the
Second Vatican Council writes: "Firmly established by the
Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate from the equal personal
dignity of husband and wife, a dignity acknowledged by mutual
and total love" [48].
20. An indissoluble communion.
------------------------------
Conjugal communion is characterized not only by its unity,
but also by its indissolubility: "As a mutual gift of two
persons, this intimate union, as well as the good of the children,
imposes total fidelity on the spouses and argues for an unbreakable
oneness between them" [49].
It is a fundamental duty of the church to reaffirm strongly,
as the synod fathers did, the doctrine of the indissolubility
of marriage. To all those who in our times consider it too difficult
or indeed impossible to be bound to one person for the whole
of life, and to those caught up in a culture that rejects indissolubility
of marriage and openly mocks the commitment of spouses to fidelity,
it is necessary to reconfirm the good news of the definitive
nature of that conjugal love that has in Christ its foundation
and strength [50].
Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving
of the couple and being required by the good of the children,
the indissolubility of marriage finds its ultimate truth in the
plan that God has manifested in his revelation: He wills and
communicates the indissolubility of marriage as a fruit, a sign
and a requirement of the absolutely faithful love that God has
for man and that the Lord Jesus has for the church.
Christ renews the first plan that the creator inscribed in
the hearts of man and woman, and in the celebration of the sacrament
of matrimony offers "a new heart": thus the couples
are not only able to overcome "hardness of heart" [51],
but also, and above all, they are able to share the full and
definitive love of Christ, the new and eternal covenant made
flesh. Just as the Lord Jesus is the "faithful witness"
[52], the "yes" of the promises of God [53] and thus
the supreme realization of the unconditional faithfulness with
which God loves his people, so Christian couples are called to
participate truly in the irrevocable indissolubility that binds
Christ to the church, his bride, loved by him to the end [54].
The gift of the sacrament is at the same time a vocation and
commandment for Christian spouses, that they may remain faithful
to each other forever, beyond every trial and difficulty, in
generous obedience to the holy will of the Lord: "What therefore
God has joined together, let not man put asunder" [55].
To bear witness to the inestimable value of the indissolubility
and fidelity of marriage is one of the most precious and most
urgent tasks of Christian couples in our time. So, with all my
brothers who participated in the Synod of Bishops, I praise and
encourage those numerous couples who, though encountering no
small difficulty, preserve and develop the value of indissolubility:
Thus in a humble and courageous manner they perform the role
committed to them of being in the world a "sign"a
small and precious sign, sometimes also subjected to temptation,
but always renewed of the unfailing fidelity with which
God and Jesus Christ love each and every human being. But it
is also proper to recognize the value of the witness of those
spouses who, even when abandoned by their partner, with the strength
of faith give an authentic witness to fidelity, of which the
world today has a great need. For this reason they must be encouraged
and helped by the pastors and the faithful of the church.
21. The broader communion of the family.
----------------------------------------
Conjugal communion constitutes the foundation on which is
built the broader communion of family, of parents and children,
of brothers and sisters with each other, of relatives and other
members of the household.
This communion is rooted in the natural bonds of flesh and
blood and grows to its specifically human perfection with the
establishment and maturing of the still deeper and richer bonds
of the spirit: The love that animates the interpersonal relationships
of the different members of the family constitutes the interior
strength that shapes and animates the family communion and community.
The Christian family is also called to experience a new and
original communion which confirms and perfects natural and human
communion. In fact the grace of Jesus Christ, "the firstborn
among many brethren" [56], is by its nature and interior
dynamism "a grace of brotherhood," as St. Thomas Aquinas
calls it [57]. The Holy Spirit, who is poured forth in the celebration
of the sacraments, is the living source and inexhaustible sustenance
of the supernatural communion that gathers believers and links
them with Christ and with each other in the unity of the church
of God. The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation
and realization of ecclesial communion, and for this reason too
it can and should be called "the domestic church" [58].
All members of the family, each according to his or her own
gift, have the grace and responsibility of guiding day by day
the communion of persons, making the family "a school of
deeper humanity" [59]: This happens where there is care
and love for the little ones, the sick, the aged, where there
is mutual service every day; when there is a sharing of goods,
of joys and of sorrows.
A fundamental opportunity for building such a communion is
constituted by the educational exchange between parents and children
[60], in which each gives and receives. By means of love, respect
and obedience toward their parents, children offer their specific
and irreplaceable contribution to the construction of an authentically
human and Christian family [61]. They will be aided in this if
parents exercise their unrenounceable authority as a true and
proper "ministry", that is, as a service to the human
and Christian well-being of their children and in particular
as a service aimed at helping them acquire a truly responsible
freedom, and if parents maintain a living awareness of the "gift"
they continually receive from their children.
Family communion can only be preserved and perfected through
a great spirit of sacrifice. It requires, in fact, a ready and
generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance,
to pardon, to reconciliation. There is no family that does not
know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently
attack and at times mortally wound its own communion: Hence there
arise the many and varied forms of division in family life. But,
at the same time, every family is called by the God of peace
to have the joyous and renewing experience of "reconciliation",
that is, communion re-established, unity restored. In
particular, participation in the sacrament of reconciliation
and in the banquet of the one body of Christ offers to the Christian
family the grace and the responsibility of overcoming every division
and of moving toward the fullness of communion willed by God,
responding in this way to the ardent desire of the Lord: "that
they may be one" [62].
22. The rights and role of women.
---------------------------------
In that it is, and ought to become, a communion and community
of persons, the family finds in love the source and the constant
impetus for welcoming, respecting and promoting each one of its
members in his or her lofty dignity as a person, that is, as
a living image of God. As the synod fathers rightly stated, the
moral criterion for the authenticity of conjugal and family relationships
consists in fostering the dignity and vocation of the individual
persons, who achieve their fullness by sincere self-giving
[63].
In this perspective the synod devoted special attention to
women, to their rights and role within the family and society.
In the same perspective are also to be considered men as husbands
and fathers, and likewise children and the elderly.
Above all it is important to underline the equal dignity and
responsibility of women with men. This equality is realized in
a unique manner in that reciprocal self-giving by each
one to the other and by both to the children which is proper
to marriage and the family. What human reason intuitively perceives
and acknowledges is fully revealed by the word of God: The history
of salvation, in fact, is a continuous and luminous testimony
to the dignity of women.
In creating the human race "male and female" [64],
God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity, endowing them
the inalienable rights and responsibilities proper to the human
person. God then manifests the dignity of women in the highest
form possible, by assuming human flesh from the Virgin Mary,
whom the church honors as the mother of God, calling her the
new Eve and presenting her as the model of redeemed woman. The
sensitive respect of Jesus toward the women that he called to
his following and his friendship, his appearing on Easter morning
to a woman before the other disciples, the mission entrusted
to women to carry the good news of the resurrection to the apostlesthese
are all signs that confirm the special esteem of the Lord Jesus
for women. The apostle Paul will say: "IN Christ Jesus you
are all children of God through faith ... There is neither slave
nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus" [65].
23. Women and society.
----------------------
Without intending to deal with all the various aspects of
the vast and complex theme of the relationships between women
and society and limiting these remarks to a few essential points,
one cannot but observe that in the specific area of family life
a widespread social and cultural tradition has considered women's
role to be exclusively that of wife and mother, without adequate
access to public functions, which have generally been reserved
for men.
There is no doubt that the equal dignity and responsibility
of men and women fully justifies women's access to public functions.
On the other hand the true advancement of women requires that
clear recognition be given to the value of their maternal and
family role, by comparison with all other public roles and all
other professions. Furthermore, these roles and professions should
be harmoniously combined if we wish the evolution of society
and culture to be truly and fully human.
This will come about more easily if, in accordance with the
wishes expressed by the synod, a renewed "theology of work"
can shed light upon and study in depth the meaning of work in
the Christian life and determine the fundamental bond between
work and the family, and therefore the original and irreplaceable
meaning of work in the home be recognized and respected by all
in its irreplaceable value.
This is of particular importance in education: For possible
discrimination between the different types of work and professions
is eliminated at its very root once it is clear that all people
in every area are working with equal rights and equal responsibilities.
The image of God in man and in woman will thus be seen with added
luster.
While it must be recognized that women have the same right
as men to perform various public functions, society must be structured
in such a way that wives and mothers are not in practice compelled
to work outside the home, and that their families can live and
prosper in a dignified way even when they themselves devote their
full time to their own family.
Furthermore, the mentality which honors women more for their
work outside the home than for their work within the family must
be overcome. This requires that men should truly esteem and love
women with total respect for their personal dignity, and that
society should create and develop conditions favoring work in
the home.
With due respect to the different vocations of men and women,
the church must in her own life promote as far as possible the
equality of rights and dignity: and this for the good of all,
the family, the church, and society.
But clearly all of this does not mean for women a renunciation
of their femininity or an imitation of the male role, but the
fullness of true feminine humanity which should be expressed
in their activity, whether in the family or outside it, without
disregarding the differences of customs and cultures in this
sphere.
24. Offenses against women's dignity.
-------------------------------------
Unfortunately the Christian message about the dignity of women
is contradicted by that persistent mentality which considers
the human being not as a person but as a thing, as an object
of trade, at the service of selfish interest and mere pleasure:
The first victims of this mentality are women.
This mentality produces very bitter fruits, such as contempt
for man and for women, slavery, oppression of the weak, pornography,
prostitutionespecially in an organized formand all
those various forms of discrimination that exist in the fields
of education, employment wages, etc.
Besides, many forms of degrading discrimination still persist
today in a great part of our society that affect and seriously
harm particular categories of women, as for example childless
wives, widows, separated or divorced women, and unmarried mothers.
The synod fathers deplored these and other forms of discrimination
as strongly as possible. I therefore ask that vigorous and incisive
pastoral action be taken by all to overcome them definitively
so that the image of God that shines in all human beings without
exception may be fully respected.
25. Men as husbands and fathers.
--------------------------------
Within the conjugal and family communion-community,
the man is called upon to live his gift and role as husband and
father.
In his wife he sees the fulfillment of God's intention: "It
is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper
fir for him" [67], and he makes his own of the cry of Adam,
the first husband: "This at last is bone of my bones and
flesh of my flesh" [68].
Authentic conjugal love presupposes and requires that man
have a profound respect for the equal dignity of his wife: "You
are not her master," writes St. Ambrose, "but her husband;
she was not given to you to be your slave, but your wife. ...
Reciprocate her attentiveness to you and be grateful to have
her for her love" [69]. With his wife a man should live
"a very special form of personal friendship" [70].
As for the Christian, he is called upon to develop a new attitude
of love, manifesting toward his wife a charity that is both gentle
and strong life that which Christ has for the church.
Love for his wife as mother of their children and love for
the children themselves are for the man the natural way of understanding
and fulfilling his own fatherhood. Above all where social and
cultural conditions so easily encourage a father to be less concerned
with his family or at any rate less involved in the work of education,
efforts must be made to restore socially the conviction that
the place and task of the father in and for the family is of
unique and irreplaceable importance [72]. As experience teaches,
the absence of a father causes psychological and moral imbalance
and notable difficulties in family relationships, as does, in
contrary circumstances, the oppressive presence of a father,
especially where there still prevails the phenomenon of "machismo,"
or a wrong superiority of male prerogatives which humiliates
women and inhibits the development of healthy family relationships.
In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood
of God [73], a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and
united development of all the members of the family: He will
perform this task by exercising generous responsibility for the
life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solitious
commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife [74],
by work which is never a cause of division in the family but
promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness
he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces
the children into the living experience of Christ and the church.
26. The rights of children.
---------------------------
In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention
must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem
for their personal dignity and a great respect and generous concern
for their rights. This is true of every child, but it becomes
all the more urgent the smaller the child is and the more it
is in need of everything, when it is sick, suffering or handicapped.
By fostering and exercising a tender and strong concern for
every child that comes into this world, the church fulfills a
fundamental mission: for she is called upon to reveal and put
forward anew in history the example and the commandment of Christ
the Lord, who placed the child at the heart of the kingdom of
God: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them,
for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" [75].
I repeat once again what I said to the General Assembly
of the United Nations Oct. 2, 1979:
"I wish to express the joy that we all find in children,
the springtime of life, the anticipation of the future history
of each of our present earthly homelands. No country on earth,
no political system can think of its own future otherwise than
through the image of these new generations that will receive
from their parents the manifold heritage of values, duties and
aspirations of the nation to which they belong and of the whole
human family. Concern for the child, even before birth, from
the first moment of conception and then throughout the years
of infancy and youth, is the primary and fundamental test of
the relationship of one human being to another. And so, what
better which can I express for every nation and the whole of
mankind, and for all the children of the world than a better
future in which respect for human rights will become a complete
reality throughout the third millennium which is drawing near"
[76].
Acceptance, love esteem, many-sided and united material,
emotional, educational and spiritual concern for every child
that comes into this world should always constitute a distinctive,
essential characteristic of all Christians, in particular of
the Christian family: Thus children while they are able to grow
"in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man"
[77], offer their won precious contribution to building up the
family community and even to the sanctification of their parents
[78].
27. The elderly in the family.
------------------------------
There are cultures which manifest a unique veneration and
great love for the elderly: Far from being outcasts from the
family or merely tolerated as a useless burden, they continue
to be present and to take an active and responsible part in family
life, though having to respect the autonomy of the new family,
above all they carry out the important mission of being a witness
to the past and a source of wisdom for the young and for the
future.
Other cultures, however, especially in the wake of disordered
industrial and urban development, have both in the past and in
the present set the elderly aside in unacceptable ways. This
causes acute suffering to them and spiritually impoverishes many
families.
The pastoral activity of the church must help everyone to
discover and to make good use of the role of the elderly within
the civil and ecclesial community, in particular within the family.
In fact, "the life of the aging helps to clarify a scale
of human values; it shows the continuity of generations and marvelously
demonstrates the interdependence of God's people. The elderly
often have the charism to bridge generation gaps before they
are made. How many children have found understanding and love
in the eyes and words and caresses of the aging! And how many
old people have willingly subscribed to the inspired word that
the 'crown of the aged is their children's children' (Prv. 17:6)!"
[79].
II. SERVING LIFE.
-----------------
A. The Transmission of Life.
----------------------------
28. Cooperators in the love of God the Creator.
-----------------------------------------------
With the creation of man and woman in his own image and likeness,
God crowns and brings to perfection the work of his hands: He
calls them to a special sharing in his love and his power as
creator and Gather through their free and responsible cooperation
in transmitting the gift of human life: "God blessed them,
and God said to them, 'be fruitful and multiply, and fill the
earth and subdue it.'" [80].
Thus the fundamental task of the family is to serve life,
to actualize in history the original blessing of the creatorthat
of transmitting by procreation the divine image from person to
person [81].
Fecundity is the fruit and the sign of conjugal love, the
living testimony of the full reciprocal self-giving of
the spouses: "While not making the other purposes of matrimony
of less account, the true practice of conjugal love, and the
whole meaning of the family life which results from it, have
this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to cooperate
with the love of the creator and the savior, who through them
will enlarge and enrich his own family day by day" [82].
However, the fruitfulness of conjugal love is not restricted
solely to the procreation of children, even understood in its
specifically human dimension: It is enlarged and enriched by
all those fruits of moral, spiritual and supernatural life which
the father and mother are called to hand on to their children,
and through the children to the church and to the world.
29. The church's teaching and norm, always old yet always
new.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Precisely because the love of husband and wife is a unique
participation in the mystery of life and of the love of God himself,
the church knows that she has received the special mission of
guarding and protecting the lofty dignity of marriage and the
most serious responsibility of the transmission of human life.
Thus, in continuity with the living tradition of the ecclesial
community throughout history, the recent Second Vatican Council
and the magisterium of my predecessor Paul VI, expressed above
all in the encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, have handed on to our times
a truly prophetic proclamation, which reaffirms and reproposes
with clarity the church's teaching and norm, always old yet always
new, regarding marriage and regarding the transmission of human
life.
For this reason the synod fathers made the following declaration
at their last assembly:
"This sacred synod, gathered together with the successor
of Peter in the unity of faith, firmly holds what has been set
forth in the Second Vatican Council (Cf. GAUDIUM ET SPES, 50)
and afterward in the encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, particularly that
love between husband and wife must be fully human, exclusive
and open to new life (HUMANAE VITAE, 11: cf. 9, 12)" [83].
30. The church stands for life.
-------------------------------
The teaching of the church in our day is placed in a social
and cultural context which renders it more difficult to understand
and yet more urgent and irreplaceable for promoting the true
good of men and women.
Scientific and technological progress, which contemporary
man is continually expanding in his dominion over nature, not
only offers the hope of creating a new and better humanity, but
also causes ever greater anxiety regarding the future. Some ask
themselves if it is a good thing to be alive or if it would be
better never to have been born; they doubt therefore if it is
right to bring others into life when perhaps they will curse
their existence in a cruel world with unforeseeable terrors.
Others consider themselves to be the only ones for whom the advantages
of technology are intended and they exclude others by imposing
on them contraceptives or even worse means. Still others imprisoned
in a consumer mentality and whose sole concern is to bring about
a continual growth of material goods, finish by ceasing to understand,
and thus by refusing, the spiritual riches of a new human life.
The ultimate reason for these mentalities is the absence in people's
hearts of God, whose love alone is stronger than all the world's
fears and can conquer them.
Thus an anti-life mentality is born, as can be seen
in many current issues: One thinks, for example of a certain
panic deriving from the studies of ecologists and futurologists
on population growth, which sometimes exaggerate the danger of
demographic increase to the quality of life.
But the church firmly believes that human life, even if weak
and suffering, is always a splendid gift of God's goodness. Against
the pessimism and selfishness which cast a shadow over the world,
the church stands for life: In each human life she sees the splendor
of that "yes", that "amen", who is Christ
himself [84]. To the "no" which assails and afflicts
the world, she replies with this living "yes", thus
defending the human person and the world from all who plot against
and harm life.
The church is called upon to manifest anew to everyone, with
clear and stronger conviction, her will to promote human life
by every means and to defend it against all attacks in whatever
condition or state of development it is found.
Thus the church condemns as a grave offense against human
dignity and justice all those activities of governments or other
public authorities which attempt to limit in any way the freedom
of couples in deciding about children. Consequently any violence
applied by such authorities in favor of contraception or, still
worse, of sterilization and procured abortion must be altogether
condemned and forcefully rejected. Likewise to be denounced as
gravely unjust are cases where in international relations economic
help given for the advancement of peoples is made conditional
on programs of contraception, sterilization and procured abortion
[85].
31. That God's design may be ever more completely fulfilled.
------------------------------------------------------------
The church is certainly aware of the many complex problems
which couples in many countries face today in their task of transmitting
life in a responsible way. She also recognizes the serious problem
of population growth in the form it has taken in many parts of
the world and its moral implications.
However, she holds that consideration in depth of all the
aspects of these problems offers a new and stronger confirmation
of the importance of the authentic teaching on birth regulation
reproposed in the Second Vatican Council and in the encyclical
HUMANAE VITAE.
For this reason, together with the synod fathers I feel it
is my duty to extend a pressing invitation to theologians, asking
them to unite their efforts in order to collaborate with the
hierarchial magisterium and to commit themselves to the task
of illustrating ever more clearly the biblical foundations, the
ethical grounds and the personalistic reasons behind this doctrine.
Thus it will be possible, in the context of an organic exposition,
to render the teaching of the church on this fundamental question
truly accessible to all people of good will, fostering a daily
more enlightened and profound understanding of it. In this way
God's plan will be ever more completely fulfilled for the salvation
of humanity and for the glory of the Creator.
A united effort by theologians in this regard, inspired by
a convinced adherence to the magisterium, which is the one authentic
guide for the people of God, is particularly urgent for reasons
that include the close link between Catholic teaching on this
matter and the view of the human person that the church proposes:
Doubt or error in the field of marriage or the family involves
obscuring to a serious extent the integral truth about the human
person in a cultural situation that is already so often confused
and contradictory. In fulfillment of their specific role theologians
are called upon to provide enlightenment and a deeper understanding,
and their contribution is of incomparable value and represents
a unique and highly meritorious service to the family and humanity.
32. In an integral vision of the human person and of his
or her vocation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the context of a culture which seriously distorts or entirely
misinterprets the true meaning of human sexuality because it
separates it from its reference to the person, the church more
urgently feels how irreplaceable is her mission of presenting
sexuality as a value and task of the whole person, created male
and female in the image of God.
In this perspective the Second Vatican Council clearly affirmed
that "when there is a question of harmonizing conjugal love
with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspect of
any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or
on an evaluation of motives. It must be determined by objective
standards. These, based on the nature of the human person and
his or her acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving
and human procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal
cannot be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is
sincerely practiced" [86].
It is precisely by moving from "an integral vision of
man and of his vocation, not only his natural and earthly, but
also his supernatural and eternal vocation" [87], that Paul
VI affirmed that the teaching of the church "is founded
upon the inseparable connection willed by God and unable to be
broken by man on his own initiative between the two meanings
of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative
meaning" [88]. And he concluded by re-emphasizing
that there must be excluded as intrinsically immoral "every
action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or
in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences,
proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation
impossible" [89].
When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate
these two meanings that God the creator has inscribed in the
being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion,
they act as "arbiters" of the divine plan and they
"manipulate" and degrade human sexuality and with it
themselves and their married partner by altering its value of
"total" self-giving. Thus the innate language
that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband
and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively
contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally
to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be
open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth
of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal
totality.
When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility,
the couple respect inseparable connection between the unitive
and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting
as "ministers" of God's plan and they "benefit
from" their sexuality according to the original dynamism
of "total" self-giving, without manipulation
or alteration [90].
In light of the experience of many couples and of the data
provided by the different human sciences, theological reflection
is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference,
both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse
to the rhythm of the cycle: It is a difference which is much
wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves
in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human
person and of human sexuality. The choice of the natural rhythms
involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is, the woman,
and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility
and self-control. To accept the cycle and to enter into
dialogue means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character
of conjugal communion and to live personal love with its requirement
of fidelity. In this context the couple comes to experience how
conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness
and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality
in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected
and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension and is never
"used" as an "object" that, by breaking the
personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God's creation itself
at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person.
33. The church as teacher and mother for couples in difficulty.
---------------------------------------------------------------
In the field of conjugal morality the church is teacher and
mother and acts as such.
As teacher, she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm
that must guide the responsible transmission of life. The church
is in no way the author or arbiter of this norm. In obedience
to the truth which is Christ, whose image is reflected in the
nature and dignity of the human person, the church interprets
the moral norm and proposes it to all people of good will without
concealing its demands of radicalness and perfection.
As mother, the church is close to the married couples who
find themselves in difficulty over this important point of the
moral life: She knows well their situation, which is often very
arduous and at times truly tormented by difficulties of every
kind, not only individual difficulties but social ones as well;
she knows that many couples encounter difficulties not only in
the concrete fulfillment of the moral norm but even in understanding
its inherent values.
But it is one and the same church that is both teacher and
mother. And so the church never ceases to exhort and encourage
all to resolve whatever conjugal difficulties may arise without
ever falsifying or compromising the truth: She is convinced that
there can be no true contradiction between divine law on transmitting
life and that on fostering authentic married love [91]. Accordingly,
the concrete pedagogy of the church must always remain linked
with her doctrine and never be separated from it. With the same
conviction as my predecessor, I therefore repeat: "To diminish
in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent
form of charity for souls" [92].
On the other hand, authentic ecclesial pedagogy displays its
realism and wisdom only by making a tenacious and courageous
effort to create and uphold all human conditionspsychological,
moral and spiritualindispensable for understanding and
living the moral value and norm.
There is no doubt that these conditions must include persistence
and patience, humility and strength of mind, filial trust in
God and in his grace, and frequent recourse to prayer and to
the sacraments of the eucharist and of reconciliation [93]. Thus
strengthened, Christian husbands and wives will be able to keep
alive their awareness of the unique influence that the grace
of the sacrament of marriage has on every aspect of married life
including, therefore, their sexuality: The gift of the Spirit,
accepted and responded to by the husband and wife, helps them
to live their human sexuality in accordance with God's plan and
as a sign of the unitive and fruitful love of Christ for his
church.
But the necessary conditions also include knowledge of the
bodily aspect and the body's rhythms of fertility. Accordingly,
every effort must be made to render such knowledge accessible
to all married people and also to young adults before marriage
through clear, timely and serious instruction and education given
by married couples, doctors and experts. Knowledge must then
lead to education in self-control: Hence the absolute
necessity for the virtue of chastity and for permanent education
in it. In the Christian view, chastity by no means signifies
rejection of human sexuality or the lack of esteem for it: Rather
it signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love from
the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance
it toward its full realization.
With deeply wise and loving intuition, Paul VI, was only voicing
the experience of many married couples when he wrote in his encyclical:
To dominate instinct by means of one's reason and free will undoubtably
requires ascetical practices, so that the affective manifestations
of conjugal life may observe the correct order, in particular
with regard to the observance of periodic continence. Yet this
discipline which is proper to the purity of married couples,
far from harming conjugal love, rather confers it to a higher
human value. It demands continual effort, yet thanks to its beneficent
influence husband and wife fully develop their personalities,
being enriched with spiritual values. Such discipline bestows
upon family life fruits of serenity and peace,. and facilitates
the solution of other problems; it favors attention for one's
partner, helps both parties to drive out selfishness, the enemy
of true love, and deepens their sense of responsibility. By its
means, parents acquire the capacity of having a deeper and more
efficacious influence on the education of their offspring"
[94].
34. The moral progress of married people.
-----------------------------------------
It is always very important to have a right notion of the
moral order, its values and its norms; and the importance is
all the greater when the difficulties in the way or respecting
them become more numerous and serious.
Since the moral order reveals and sets forth the plan of God
the creator, for this very reason it cannot be something that
harms man, something impersonal. On the contrary, by responding
to the deepest demands of the human being created by God, it
places itself at the service of that person's full humanity with
the delicate and binding love whereby God himself inspires, sustains
and guides every creature toward its happiness.
But man, who has been called to live God's wise and loving
design in a responsible manner, is an historical being who day
by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and
so he knows, loves and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth.
Married people too are called upon to progress unceasingly
in their moral life with the support of a sincere and active
desire to gain ever better knowledge of the values enshrined
in and fostered by the law of God. They must also be supported
by an upright and generous willingness to embody these values
in their concrete decisions. They cannot, however, look on the
law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: They must
consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties
with constancy. "And so what is know as 'the law of gradualness'
or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with
'gradualness of the law,' as if there were different degrees
or forms of precept in God's law for different individuals and
situations. In God's plan, all husbands and wives are called
in marriage to holiness, and this lofty vocation is fulfilled
to the extent that the human person is able to respond to God's
command with serene confidence in God's grace and in his or her
own will" [95]. On the same lines, it is part of the church's
pedagogy that husbands and wives would first recognize clearly
the teaching of HUMANAE VITAE as indicating the norm for the
exercise of their sexuality, and that they should endeavor to
establish the conditions necessary for observing that norm. As
the synod noted, this pedagogy embraces the whole of married
life. Accordingly, the function of transmitting life must be
integrated into the overall mission of Christian life as a whole
which, without the cross, cannot reach the resurrection. In such
a context it is understandable that sacrifice cannot be removed
from family life, but must in fact be wholeheartedly accepted
if the love between husband and wife is to be deepened and become
a source of intimate joy.
This shared progress demands reflection, instruction and suitable
education on the part of the priests, religious and lay people
engaged in family pastoral work: they will all be able to assist
married people in their human and spiritual progress, a progress
that demands awareness of sin, a sincere commitment to observe
the moral law and the ministry of reconciliation. It must also
be kept in mind that conjugal intimacy involves the wills of
two persons, who are thereby called to harmonize their mentality
and behavior, requiring much patience, understanding and time.
Uniquely important in this field is unity of moral and pastoral
judgement by priestsa unity that must be carefully sought
and ensured in order that the faithful may not have to suffer
anxiety of conscience [96].
It will be easier for married people to make progress if,
with respect for the church's teaching and with trust in the
grace of Christ, and with the help and support of the pastors
of souls and the entire ecclesial community, they are able to
discover and experience the liberating and inspiring value of
authentic love that is offered by the Gospel and set before us
by the Lord's commandment.
35. Instilling conviction and offering practical help.
------------------------------------------------------
With regard to the question of lawful birth regulation, the
ecclesial community at the present time must take on the task
of instilling conviction and offering practical help to those
who wish to live out their parenthood in a truly responsible
way.
In this matter, while the church notes with satisfaction the
results achieved by scientific research aimed at more precise
knowledge of the rhythms of women's fertility, and while it encourages
a more decisive and wide-ranging extension of that research,
it cannot fail to call with renewed vigor on the responsibility
of alldoctors, experts, marriage counselors, teachers and
married coupleswho can actually help married people to
live their love with respect for the structure and finalities
of the conjugal act which expresses that love. This implies a
broader, more decisive and more systematic effort to make the
natural methods of regulating fertility known, respected and
applied [97].
A very valuable witness can and should be given by those husbands
and wives who, through their joint exercise of periodic continence,
have reached a more mature personal responsibility with regard
to love and life. As Paul VI wrote: "To them the Lord entrusts
the task of making visible to people the holiness and sweetness
of the law which unites the mutual love of husband and wife with
their cooperation with the love of God the author of human life"
[98].
B. Education.
-------------
36. The right and duty of parents regarding education.
------------------------------------------------------
The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation
of married couples to participate in God's creative activity:
By begetting in love and for love a new person who has within
himself or herself the vocation for growth and development, parents
by that very fact take the task of helping that person effectively
to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican Council recalled,
"Since parents have conferred life on their children, they
have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence,
parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators
of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that
scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. For
it devolves on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated
with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded
personal and social development will be fostered among the children.
Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues
which every society needs" [99].
The right and duty of parents to give education is essential,
since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it
is original and primary with regard to the educational role of
others on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship
between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable
and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others
or usurped by others.
In addition to those characteristics, it cannot be forgotten
that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational
role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in
the task of education as it completes and perfects its service
of life. As well as being a source, the parents' love is also
the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and
guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with
the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness
and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of
love.
37. Educating in the essential values of human life.
----------------------------------------------------
Even amid difficulties of the work of education, difficulties
which are often greater today, parents must trustingly and courageously
train their children in the essential values of human life. Children
must grow up with a correct attitude of freedom with regard to
material goods, by adopting a simple and austere lifestyle and
being fully convinced that "man is more precious for what
he is than for what he has" [100].
In a society shaken and split by tensions and conflicts caused
by the violent clash of various kinds of individualism and selfishness,
children must be enriched not only with a sense of true justice,
which alone leads to respect for the personal dignity of each
individual, but also and more powerfully by a sense of true love,
understood as sincere solicitude and disinterested service with
regard to others, especially the poorest and those in most need.
The family is the first and fundamental school of social living:
As a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law
that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that
inspires the love of husband and wife for each other is the model
and norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in
the relationships between brothers and sisters of the different
generations living together in the family. And the communion
and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times
of joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective
pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of
the children in the wider horizon of society.
Education in love as self-giving is also the indispensable
premise for parents called to give their children a clear and
delicate sex education. Faced with a culture that largely reduced
human sexuality to the level of something commonplace, since
it interprets and lives it in a reductive and impoverished way
by linking it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure,
the educational service of parents must aim firmly at a training
in the area of sex that is truly and fully personal: for sexuality
is an enrichment of the whole personbody, emotions and
souland it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the
person to the gift of self in love.
Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents,
must always be carried out under their attentive guidance whether
at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them.
In this regard, the church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity,
which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex
education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the
parents.
In this context education for chastity is absolutely essential,
for it is a virtue that develops a person's authentic maturity
and makes him or her capable of respecting and fostering the
"nuptial meaning" of the body. Indeed Christian parents,
discerning the signs of God's call, will devote special attention
and care to education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme
from of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning
of human sexuality.
In view of the close links between the sexual dimension of
the person and his or her ethical values, education must bring
the children to a knowledge of and respect for the moral norms
as the necessary and highly valuable guarantee for responsible
personal growth in human sexuality.
For this reason the church is firmly opposed to an often widespread
form of imparting sex information dissociated from moral principles.
That would merely be an introduction to the experience of pleasure
and a stimulus leading to the loss of serenitywhile still
in the years of innocenceby opening the way to vice.
38. The mission to educate and the sacrament of marriage.
---------------------------------------------------------
For Christian parents the mission to educate, a mission rooted
as we have said in their participation in God's creating activity,
has a new specific source in the sacrament of marriage, which
consecrates them for the strictly Christian education of their
children: that is to say, it calls upon them to share in the
very authority and love of God the Father and Christ the shepherd,
and in the motherly love of the church, and it enriches them
with wisdom, counsel, fortitude and all the other fits of the
Holy Spirit in order to help the children in their growth as
human beings and as Christians.
The sacrament of marriage gives to the educational role the
dignity and vocation of being really and truly a "ministry"
of the church at the service of the building up of her members.
So great and splendid is the educational ministry of Christian
parents that St. Thomas has no hesitation in comparing it with
the ministry of priests: "Some only propagate and guard
spiritual life by a spiritual ministry: This is the role of the
sacrament of orders, others do this for both corporal and spiritual
life, and this is brought about by the sacrament of marriage,
by which a man and a woman join in order to beget offspring and
bring them up to worship God" [101].
A vivid and attentive awareness of the mission that they have
received with the sacrament of marriage will help Christian parents
to place themselves at the service of the children's education
with great serenity and trustfulness, and also with a sense of
responsibility before God, who calls them and gives them the
mission of building up the church in their children. Thus in
the case of baptized people, the family, called together by word
and sacrament as the church of the home, is both teacher and
mother, the same as the worldwide church.
39. First experience of the church.
-----------------------------------
The mission to educate demands that Christian parents should
present to their children all the topics that are necessary for
the gradual maturing of their personality from a Christian and
ecclesial point of view. They will therefore follow the educational
lines mentioned above, taking care to show their children the
depths of significance to which the faith and love of Jesus Christ
can lead. Furthermore, their awareness that the Lord is entrusting
to them the growth of a child of God, a brother or sister of
Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of the church,
will support Christian parents in their task of strengthening
the gift of divine grace in their children's souls.
The Second Vatican Council describes the content of Christian
education as follows: "Such an education does not merely
strive to foster maturity ... in the human person. Rather, its
principal aims are these: that as baptized persons are gradually
introduced into a knowledge of the mystery of salvation, they
may daily grow more conscious of the gift of faith which they
have received; that they may learn to adore God the Father in
spirit and in truth (cf. Jn. 4:23), especially through liturgical
worship; that they may be trained to conduct their personal life
in true righteousness and holiness, according to their new nature
(Eph. 4:22-24), and thus grow to maturity, to the stature
of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13), and devote themselves
to the upbuilding of the mystical body. Moreover, aware of their
calling, they should grow accustomed to giving witness to the
hope that is in them (cf. 1Pt. 3:15), and to promoting the Christian
transformation of the world" {102}.
The synod too, taking up and developing the indications of
the council, presented the educational mission of the Christian
family as a true ministry through which the Gospel is transmitted
and radiated, so that family life itself becomes an itinerary
of faith and in some way a Christian initiation and a school
of following Christ. Within a family that is aware of this gift,
as Paul VI wrote, "all members evangelize and are evangelized"
[103].
By virtue of their ministry of educating, parents are through
the witness of their lives the first heralds of the Gospel for
their children. Furthermore, by praying with their children,
by reading the word of God with them and by introducing them
deeply through Christian initiation into the body of Christboth
the eucharistic and the ecclesial bodythey become fully
parents, in that they are begetters not only of bodily life but
also of the life that through the Spirit's renewal flows from
the cross and resurrection of Christ.
In order that Christian parents may worthily carry out their
ministry of education, the synod fathers expressed the hope that
a suitable catechism for families would be prepared, one that
would be clear, brief and easily assimilated by all. The episcopal
conferences were warmly invited to contribute to producing this
catechism.
40. Relations with other educating agents.
------------------------------------------
The family is the primary but not the only and exclusive educating
community. Man's community aspect itselfboth civil and
ecclesialdemands and leads to a broader and more articulated
activity resulting from well-ordered collaboration between
the various agents of education. All these agents are necessary,
even though each can and should play its part in accordance with
the special competence and contribution proper to itself [104].
The educational role of the Christian family therefore has
a very important place in the organic pastoral work. This involves
a new form of cooperation between parents and Christian communities
and between the various educational groups and pastors. In this
sense, the renewal of the Catholic school must give special attention
both to the parents of the pupils and to the formation of a perfect
educating community.
The right of parents to choose an education in conformity
with their religious faith must be absolutely guaranteed.
The state and the church have the obligation to give families
all possible aid to enable them to perform their educational
role properly. Therefore both the church and the state must create
and foster the institutions and activities that families justly
demand, and the aid must be in proportion to the families' needs.
However, those in society who are in charge of schools must never
forget that the parents have been appointed by God himself as
the first and principal educators of their children and that
their right is completely inalienable.
But corresponding to their right, parents have a serious duty
to commit themselves totally to a cordial and active relationship
with the teachers and school authorities.
If ideologies opposed to the Christian faith are taught in
the schools, the family must join other families, if possible
through family associations, and with all its strength and with
wisdom help the young not to depart from the faith. In this case
the family needs special assistance from pastors of souls, who
must never forget that parents have the inviolable right to entrust
their children to the ecclesial community.
41. Manifold service to life.
-----------------------------
Fruitful married life expresses itself in serving life in
many ways. Of these ways, begetting and educating children are
the most immediate, specific and irreplaceable. In fact, every
act of true love toward a human being bears witness to and perfects
the spiritual fecundity of the family, since it is an act of
obedience to the deep inner dynamism of love as self-giving
to others.
For everyone this perspective is full of value and commitment,
and it can be an inspiration in particular for couples who experience
physical sterility.
Christian families, recognizing with faith all human beings
as children of the same heavenly Father, will respond generously
to the children of other families, giving them support and love
not as outsiders but as members of the one family of God's children.
Christian parents will thus be able to spread their love beyond
the bonds of flesh and blood, nourishing the links that are rooted
in the spirit and that develop through concrete service to the
children of other families, who are often without even the barest
necessities.
Christian families will be able to show greater readiness
to adopt and foster children who have lost their parents or have
been abandoned by the. Rediscovering the warmth of affection
of a family, these children will be able to experience God's
loving and provident fatherhood witnessed to by Christian parents,
and they will thus be able to grow up with serenity and confidence
in life. At the same time the whole family will be enriched with
the spiritual values of a wider fraternity.
Family fecundity must have an unceasing "creativity",
a marvelous fruit of the Spirit of God, who opens the eyes of
the heart to discover the new needs and sufferings of our society
and gives courage for accepting them and responding to them.
A vast field of activity lies open to families: Today even more
preoccupying than child abandonment is the phenomenon of social
and cultural exclusion, which seriously affects the elderly,
the sick, the disabled, drug addicts, ex-prisoners, etc.
This broadens enormously the horizons of the parenthood of
Christian families: These and many other urgent needs of our
time are a challenge to their spiritually fruitful love. With
families and through them, the Lord Jesus continues to "have
compassion" on the multitudes.
III. PARTICIPATING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY.
-------------------------------------------------
42. The Family as the first and vital cell of society.
------------------------------------------------------
"Since the Creator of all things has established the
conjugal partnership as the beginning and basis of human society,"
the family is "the first and vital cell of society"
[105].
The family has vital and organic links with society since
it is its foundation and nourishes it continually through its
role of service to life: It is from the family that citizens
come to birth and it is within the family that they find the
first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle
of the existence and development of society itself.
Thus, far from being closed in on itself, the family is by
nature and vocation open to other families and to society and
undertakes its social role.
43. Family life as an experience of communion and sharing.
----------------------------------------------------------
The very experience of communion and sharing that should characterize
the family's daily life represents its first and fundamental
contribution to society.
The relationships between the members of the family community
are inspired and guided by the law of "free giving."
By respecting and fostering personal dignity in each and every
one as the only basis for value, this free giving takes the form
of heartfelt acceptance, encounter and dialogue, disinterested
availability, generous service and deep solidarity.
Thus the fostering of authentic and mature communion between
persons within the family is the first and irreplaceable school
of social life, an example and stimulus for the broader community
of relationships marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love.
The family is thus, as the synod fathers recalled, the place
of origin and the most effective means for humanizing and personalizing
society: It makes an original contribution in depth in building
up the world, by making possible a life that is, properly speaking,
human, in particular by guarding and transmitting virtues and
"values." As the Second Vatican Council states, in
the family "the various generations come together and help
one another to grow wiser and to harmonize personal rights, with
the other requirements of social living" [106].
Consequently, faced with a society that is running the risk
of becoming more and more depersonalized and standardized and
therefore inhuman and dehumanizing, with the negative results
of many forms of escapismsuch as alcoholism, drugs and
even terrorismthe family possesses and continues still
to release formidable energies capable of taking man out of his
autonomity, keeping him conscious of his personal dignity, enriching
him with deep humanity and actively placing him, in his uniqueness
and unrepeatability, within the fabric of society.
44. The social and political role.
----------------------------------
The social role of the family certainly cannot stop short
at procreation and education even if this constitutes its primary
and irreplaceable form of expression.
Families therefore, either singly or in association, can and
should devote themselves to manifold social service activities,
especially in favor of the poor or at any rate for the benefit
of all people and situations that cannot be reached by the public
authorities' welfare organization.
The social contribution of the family has an original character
of its own, one that should be given greater recognition and
more decisive encouragement, especially as the children grow
up, and actually involving all its members as much as possible
[107].
In particular, note must be taken of the ever greater importance
in our society of hospitality in all its forms, from opening
the door of one's home, and still more of one's heart, to the
pleas of one's brothers and sisters, to concrete efforts to ensure
that every family has its own home as the natural environment
that preserves it and makes it grow. In a special way the Christian
family is called upon to listen to the apostle's recommendation.
"Practice hospitality" [108] and therefore, imitating
Christ's example and sharing in his love, welcome the brother
or sister in need: "Whoever gives to one of these little
ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly,
I say to you, he shall not lose his reward" [109].
The social role of families is called upon to find expression
also in the form of political intervention: Families should be
the first to take steps to see that the laws and institutions
of the state not only do not offend, but support and positively
defend the rights and duties of the family. Along these lines
families should grow in awareness of being "protagonists"
of what is know as "family politics" and assume responsibility
for transforming society; otherwise families will be the first
victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with
indifference. The Second Vatican Council's appeal to go beyond
an individualistic ethic therefore holds good for the family
as such [110].
45. Society at the service of the family.
-----------------------------------------
Just as the intimate connection between the family and society
demands that the family be open to and participate in society
its development, so also it requires that society should never
fail in its fundamental task of respecting and fostering the
family.
The family and society have complementary functions in defending
and fostering the good of each and every human being. But society
-- more specifically the statemust recognize that
"the family is a society in its own original right"
[111], and so society is under a grave obligation in its relations
with the family to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity. The
public authorities should take care not to take from families
the functions that they can just as well perform on their own
or in free associations; instead it must positively favor and
encourage as far as possible responsible initiative by families.
In the conviction that the good of the family is an indispensable
and essential value of the civil community, the public authorities
must do everything possible to ensure that families have all
those aidseconomic, social, educational, political and
cultural assistancethat they need in order to face all
their responsibilities in a human way.
46. The charter of family rights.
---------------------------------
The ideal of mutual support and development between the family
and society is often very seriously in conflict with the reality
of their separation and even in opposition.
In fact, as was repeatedly denounced by the synod, the situation
experienced by many families in various countries is highly problematical
if not entirely negative: Institutions and laws unjustly ignore
the inviolable rights of the family and of the human person;
and society, far from putting itself at the service of the family
attacks it violently in its values and fundamental requirements.
Thus the family, which in God's plan is the basic cell of society
and subject of rights and duties before the state or any other
community, finds itself the victim of society, of the delays
and slowness with which it acts, and even of its blatant injustice.
For this reason the church openly and strongly defends the
rights of the family against the intolerable usurptions of society
and the state. In particular the synod fathers mentioned the
following rights of the family:
- The right to exist and progress as a family, that is to say,
the right of every human being, even if he or she is poor, to
found a family and to have adequate means to support it;
- The right to exercise its responsibility regarding the transmission
of life and to educate children;
- The right to the stability of the bond and of the institution
of marriage;
- The right to believe in and profess one's faith and to propagate
it;
- The right to bring up children in accordance with the family's
own traditions and religious and cultural values, with the necessary
instruments, means and institutions;
- The right, especially of the poor and the sick, to obtain
physical, social, political and economic security;
- The right to housing suitable for living family life in a
proper way;
- The right to expression and representation, either directly
or through associations, before the economic, social and cultural
public authorities and lower authorities;
- The right to form associations with other families and institutions
in order to fulfill the family's role suitably and expeditiously;
- The right to protect minors by adequate institutions and
legislation from harmful drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc;
- The right to wholesome recreation of a kind that also fosters
family values;
- The right of the elderly to a worthy life and a worthy death;
- The right to emigrate as a family in search of a better life
[112].
Acceding to the synod's explicit request, the Holy See will
give prompt attention to studying these suggestions in depth
and to the preparation of a charter of rights of the family to
be presented to the quarters and authorities concerned.
47. The Christian family's grace and responsibility.
----------------------------------------------------
The social role that belongs to every family pertains by a
new and original right to the Christian family, which is based
on the sacrament of marriage. By taking up the human reality
of the love between husband and wife in all its implications,
the sacrament gives to Christian couples and parents a power
and a commitment to live their vocation as lay people and therefore
to "seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs
and by ordering them according to the plan of God" [113].
The social and political role is included in the kingly mission
of service in which Christian couples share by virtue of the
sacrament of marriage, and they receive both a command which
they cannot ignore and a grace which sustains and stimulates
them.
The Christian family is thus called to offer everyone a witness
of generous and disinterested dedication to social matters through
a "preferential option" for the poor and disadvantaged.
Therefore, advancing in its following of the Lord by special
love for all the poor, it must have special concern for the hungry,
the poor, the old, the sick, drug victims and those who have
no family.
48. For a new international order.
----------------------------------
In view of the worldwide dimension of various social questions
nowadays, the family has seen its role with regard to the development
of society extended in a completely new way: It now also involves
cooperating for a new international order, since it is only in
worldwide solidarity that the enormous and dramatic issues of
world justice, the freedom of peoples and the peace of humanity
can be dealt with and solved.
The spiritual communion between Christian families, rooted
in a common faith and hope and give life by love constitutes
an inner energy that generates, spreads and develops justice,
reconciliation, fraternity and peace among human beings. Insofar
as it is a "small scale church," the Christian family
is called upon, like the "large-scale church,"
to be a sign of unity for the world and in this way to exercise
its prophetic role by bearing witness to the kingdom and peace
of Christ, toward which the whole world is journeying.
Christian families can do this through their educational
activity
- that is to say, by presenting to their children a model of
life based on the values of truth, freedom, justice and loveboth
through active and responsible involvement in the authentically
human growth of society and its institutions, and supporting
in various ways the associations specifically devoted to international
issues.
IV. SHARING IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH.
--------------------------------------------------
49. The family within the mystery of the church.
------------------------------------------------
Among the fundamental tasks of the Christian family is its
ecclesial task: The family is placed at the service of the building
up of the kingdom of God in history by participating in the life
and mission of the church.
In order to understand better the foundations, the contents
and the characteristics of this participation, we must examine
the many profound bonds linking the church and the Christian
family and establishing the family as a "church in miniature"
(ecclesia domstica) [114], in such a way that in its own way
the family is a living image and historical representation of
the mystery of the church.
It is, above all, the church as mother that gives birth to,
educates and builds up the Christian family by putting into effect
in its regard the saving mission which she has received from
her Lord. By proclaiming the word of God the church reveals to
the Christian family its true identity, what it is and should
be according to the Lord's plan: by celebrating the sacraments
the church enriches and strengthens the Christian family with
the grace of Christ for its sanctification to the glory of the
Father: by the continuous proclamation of the new commandment
of love the church encourages and guides the Christian family
to the service of love so that it may imitate and relive the
same self-giving and sacrificial love that the Lord Jesus
has for the entire human race.
In turn, the Christian family is grafted into the mystery
of the church to such a degree as to become a sharer, in its
own way, in the saving mission proper to the church: By virtue
of the sacrament Christian married couples and parents "in
their state and way of life have their own special gift among
the people of God" [115]. For this reason they not only
receive the love of Christ and become a saved community, but
they are also called upon to communicate Christ's love to their
brethren thus becoming a saving community. In this way, while
the Christian family is a fruit and sign of the supernatural
fecundity of the church, it stands also as a symbol, witness
and participant of the church's motherhood [117].
50. A specific and original ecclesial role.
-------------------------------------------
The Christian family is called upon to take part actively
and responsibly in the mission of the church in a way that is
original and specific by placing itself in what it is and what
it does as an "intimate community of life and love"
at the service of the church and of society.
Since the Christian family is a community in which the relationships
are renewed by Christ through faith and the sacraments, the family's
sharing in the church's mission should follow a community pattern:
The spouses together as a couple, the parents and children as
a family, must live their service to the church and to the world.
They must be "of one heart and soul" [1176] in faith,
through the shared apostolic zeal that animates them and through
their shared commitment to works of service in the ecclesial
and civil communities.
The Christian family also builds up the kingdom of God in
history through the everyday realities that concern and distinguish
its state of life. It is thus in the love between husband and
wife and between the members of the familya love lived
out in all its extraordinary richness of values and demands:
totality, oneness, fidelity and fruitfulness [118] --
that the Christian family's participation in the prophetic, priestly
and kingly mission of Jesus Christ and of his church finds expression
and realization. Therefore, love and life constitute the nucleus
of the saving mission of the Christian family in the church and
for the church.
The Second Vatican Council recalls this fact when it writes:
"Families will share their spiritual riches generously
with other families too. Thus the Christian family, which springs
from marriage as a reflection of the loving covenant uniting
Christ with the church, and as a participation in that covenant
will manifest to all people the savior's living presence in the
world, and the genuine nature of the church. This the family
will do by the mutual love of the spouses, by their generous
fruitfulness, their solidarity and faithfulness, and by the loving
way in which all the members of the family work together"
[119].
Having laid the foundation of the participation of the christian
family in the church's mission, it is now time to illustrate
its
substance in reference to Jesus Christ as prophet, priest
and king
- three aspects of a single realityby presenting the
Christian family as 1) a believing and evangelizing community,
2) a community in dialogue with God, and 3) a community at the
service of man.
A. A CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A BELIEVING AND EVANGELIZING
COMMUNITY.
----------------------------------------------------------------
51. Faith as the discovery and admiring awareness of God's
plan for the family.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a sharer in the life and mission of the church, which listens
to the word of God with reverence and proclaims it confidently
[120], the Christian family fulfills its prophetic role by welcoming
and announcing the word of God: It thus becomes more and more
each day a believing and evangelizing community.
Christian spouses and parents are required to offer "the
obedience of faith" [121]. They are called upon to welcome
the word of the Lord, which reveals to them the marvelous newsthe
good newsof their conjugal and family life sanctified and
made a source of sanctity by Christ himself. Only in faith can
they discover and admire with joyful gratitude the dignity to
which God has deigned to raise marriage and the family, making
them a sign and meeting place of the loving covenant between
God and man, between Jesus Christ and his bride, the church.
The very preparation for Christian marriage is itself a journey
of faith. It is a special opportunity for the engaged to rediscover
and deepen the faith received in baptism and nourished by their
Christian upbringing. In this way they come to recognize and
freely accept their vocation to follow Christ and to serve the
kingdom of God in the married state.
The celebration of the sacrament of marriage is the basic
moment of the faith of the couple. This sacrament, in essence,
is the proclamation in the church of the good news, concerning
married love. It is the word of God that "reveals"
and "fulfills" the wise and loving plan of God for
the married couple, giving them a mysterious and real share in
the very love with which God himself loves humanity. Since the
sacramental celebration of marriage is itself a proclamation
of the word of God, it must also be a "profession of faith"
within and with the church, as a community of believers, on the
part of all those who in different ways participate in its celebration.
This profession of faith demands that it be prolonged in the
life of the married couple and of the family. God, who called
the couple to marriage, continues to call them in marriage [122].
In and through the events, problems, difficulties and circumstances
of everyday life, God comes to them, revealing and presenting
the concrete "demands" of their sharing in the love
of Christ for his church in the particular family, social and
ecclesial situation in which they find themselves.
The discovery of and obedience to the plan of God on the part
of the conjugal and family community must take place in "togetherness,"
through the human experience of love between husband and wife,
between parents and children, lived in the spirit of Christ.
Thus the little domestic church, like the greater church,
needs to be constantly and intensely evangelized: hence its duty
regarding permanent education in the faith.
52. The Christian family's ministry of evangelization.
------------------------------------------------------
To the extent in which the Christian family accepts the Gospel
and matures in faith, it becomes an evangelizing community. Let
us listen again to Paul VI: "The family, like the church,
ought to be a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from
which the Gospel radiates. In a family which is conscious of
this mission, all the members evangelize and are evangelized.
The parents not only communicate the Gospel to their children,
but from their children they can themselves receive the same
Gospel as deeply lived by them. And such a family becomes the
evangelizer of many other families and of the neighborhood of
which it forms a part" [123].
As the synod repeated, taking up the appeal which I launched
at Puebla, the future of evangelization depends in great part
on the church of the home [124]. This apostolic mission of the
family is rooted in baptism and receives from the grace of the
sacrament of marriage new strength to transmit the faith, to
sanctify and transform our present society according to God's
plan.
Particularly today the Christian family has a special vocation
to witness to the paschal covenant of Christ by constantly radiating
the joy and love and the certainty of hope for which it must
give account: "The Christian family loudly proclaims both
the present virtues of the kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed
life to come" [125].
The absolute need for family catechists emerges with particular
force in certain situations that the church unfortunately experiences
in some places: "In places where anti-religious legislation
endeavors even to prevent education in the faith, and in places
where widespread unbelief or invasive secularism makes real religious
growth practically impossible, 'the church of the home' remains
the one place where children and young people can receive an
authentic catechesis" [126].
53. Ecclesial service.
----------------------
The ministry of evangelization carried out by Christian parents
is original and irreplaceable. It assumes the characteristics
typical of family life itself, which should be interwoven with
love, simplicity, practicality and daily witness [127].
The family must educate the children for life in such a way
that each one may fully perform his or her role according to
the vocation received from God. Indeed the family that is open
to transcendent values, that serves its brothers and sisters
with joy, that fulfills its duties with generous fidelity and
is aware of its daily sharing in the mystery of the glorious
cross of Christ, becomes the primary and most excellent seedbed
of vocations to a life of consecration to the kingdom of God.
The parents' ministry of evangelization and catechesis ought
to play a part in their children's lives also during adolescence
and youth, when the children, as often happens, challenge or
even reject the Christian faith received in earlier years. Just
as in the church the work of evangelization can never be separated
from the sufferings of the apostle, so in the Christian family
parents must face with courage and great interior serenity the
difficulties that their ministry of evangelization sometimes
encounters in their own children.
It should not be forgotten that the service rendered by Christian
spouses and parents to the Gospel is essentially an ecclesial
service. It has its place within the context of the whole church
as an evangelized and evangelizing community. Insofar as the
ministry of evangelization and catechesis of the church of the
home is rooted in and derives from the one mission of the church
and is ordained to the upbuilding of the one body of Christ [126],
it must remain in intimate communion and collaborate responsibly
with all the other evangelizing and catechetical activities present
and at work in the ecclesial community at the diocesan and parochial
levels.
54. To preach the Gospel to the whole creation.
-----------------------------------------------
Evangelization, urged on within by irrepressible missionary
zeal, is characterized by a universality without boundaries.
It is the response to Christ's explicit and unequivocal command:
"Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole
creation" [129].
The Christian family's faith and evangelizing mission also
possesses this Catholic missionary inspiration. The sacrament
of marriage takes up and reproposes the task of defending and
spreading the faith, a task that has its roots in baptism and
confirmation [130], and makes Christian married couples and parents
witnesses of Christ "to the end of the earth" [131],
missionaries, in the true and proper sense, of love and life.
A form of missionary activity can be exercised even within
the family. This happens when some member of the family does
not have the faith or does not practice it with consistency.
In such a case the other members must give him or her a living
witness of their own faith in order to encourage and support
him or her along the path toward full acceptance of Christ the
savior [132].
Animated in its own inner life by missionary zeal, the church
of the home is also called to be a luminous sign of the presence
of Christ and of his love for those who are "far away,"
for families who do not yet believe and for those Christian families
who no longer live in accordance with the faith that they once
received. The Christian family is called to enlighten "by
its example and its witness those who seek the truth" [133].
Just as at the dawn of Christianity Aquila and Priscilla were
presented as a missionary couple [134], so today the church shows
forth her perennial newness and fruitfulness by the presence
of Christian couples and families who dedicate at least a part
of their lives to working in missionary territories, proclaiming
the Gospel and doing service to their fellow man in the love
of Jesus Christ.
Christian families offer a special contribution to the missionary
cause of the church by fostering missionary vocations among their
sons and daughters and, more generally, "by training their
children from childhood to recognize God's love for all people"
[136].
B. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY IN DIALOGUE WITH
GOD.
------------------------------------------------------------
55. The church's sanctuary in the home.
---------------------------------------
The proclamation of the Gospel and its acceptance in faith
reach their fullness in the celebration of the sacraments. The
church which is a believing and evangelizing community is also
a priestly people invested with the dignity and sharing in the
power of Christ the high priest of the new and eternal covenant
[137].
The Christian family too is part of this priestly people which
is the church. By means of the sacrament of marriage, in which
it is rooted and from which it draws its nourishment, the Christian
family is continuously vivified by the Lord Jesus and called
and engaged by him in a dialogue with God through the sacraments,
through the offerings of one's life and through prayer.
This is the priestly role which the Christian family can and
ought to exercise in intimate communion with the whole church
through the daily realities of married and family life. In this
way the Christian family is called to be sanctified and to sanctify
the ecclesial community and the world.
56. Marriage as a sacrament of mutual sanctification and
an act of of worship.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original
means of sanctification for Christian married couples and families.
It takes up again and makes specific the sanctifying grace of
baptism. By virtue of the mystery of the death and resurrection
of Christ, of which the spouses are made part in a new way by
marriage, conjugal love is purified and made holy: "This
love the Lord has judged worthy of special gifts, healing, perfecting
and exalting of grace and of charity" [138].
The gift of Jesus Christ is not exhausted in the actual celebration
of the sacrament of marriage, but rather accompanies the married
couple throughout their lives. This fact is explicitly recalled
by the Second Vatican Council when it says that Jesus Christ
"abides with them so that just as he loved the church and
handed himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each
other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal
... For this reason, Christian spouses have a special sacrament
by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration
in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament,
as spouses fulfill their conjugal and family obligations they
are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, who fills their whole
lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance
toward their own perfection as well as toward their mutual sanctification,
and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God" [139].
Christian spouses and parents are included in the universal
call to sanctity. For them this call is specified by the sacrament
they have celebrated and is carried out concretely in the realities
proper to their conjugal and family life [140]. This gives rise
to the grace and requirement of an authentic and profound conjugal
and family spirituality that draws its inspiration from the themes
of creation, covenant, cross, resurrection and sign, which were
stressed more than once by the synod.
Christian marriage, like the other sacraments, "whose
purpose is to sanctify people, to build up the body of Christ,
and finally, to give worship to God" [141], is in itself
a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus Christ and in the
church. By celebrating it, Christian spouses profess their gratitude
to God for the sublime gift bestowed on them of being able to
live in their married and family lives the very love of God for
people and that of the Lord Jesus for the church, his bride.
Just as husbands and wives receive from the sacrament the
gift and responsibility of translating into daily living the
sanctification bestowed on them, so the same sacrament confers
on them the grace and moral obligation of transforming their
whole lives into a "spiritual sacrifice" [142]. What
the council says of the laity applies also to Christian spouses
and parents, especially with regard to the earthly and temporal
realities that characterize their lives: "As worshippers
leading holy lives in every place, the laity consecrate the world
itself to God" [143].
57. Marriage and the eucharist.
-------------------------------
The Christian family's sanctifying role is grounded in baptism
and has its highest expression in the eucharist, to which Christian
marriage is intimately connected. The Second Vatican Council
drew attention to the unique relationship between the eucharist
and marriage by requesting that "marriage normally be celebrated
within the Mass" [144]. To understand better and live more
intensely the graces and responsibilities of Christian marriage
and family life, it is altogether necessary to rediscover and
strengthen this relationship.
The eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage. The
eucharistic sacrifice in fact represents Christ's covenant of
love with the church, sealed with his blood on the cross [145].
In this sacrifice of the new and eternal covenant, Christian
spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant
flows, is interiorly structured and continuously renewed. As
a representation of Christ's sacrifice of love for the church,
the eucharist is a fountain of charity. In the eucharistic "communion"
and its "mission": By partaking in the eucharistic
bread, the different members of the Christian family become one
body which reveals and shares in the wider unity of the church.
Their sharing becomes a never-ending source of missionary
and apostolic dynamism for the Christian family.
58. The sacrament of conversion and reconciliation.
---------------------------------------------------
An essential and permanent part of the Christian family's
sanctifying role consists in accepting the call to conversion
that the Gospel addresses to all Christians, who do not always
remain faithful to the "newness" of the baptism that
constitutes them "saints." The Christian family too
is sometimes unfaithful to the law of baptismal grace and holiness
proclaimed anew in the sacrament of marriage.
Repentance and mutual pardon within the bosom of the Christian
family, so much a part of daily life, receive their specific
sacramental expression in Christian penance. In the encyclical
HUMANAE VITAE, Paul VI wrote to married couples: "And if
sin should still keep its hold over them, let them not be discouraged,
but rather have recourse with humble perseverance to the mercy
of God, which is abundantly poured forth in the sacrament of
penance" [146].
The celebration of this sacrament acquires special significance
for family life. While they discover in faith that sin contradicts
not only the covenant with God, but also the covenant between
husband and wife and the communion of the family, the married
couple and the other members of the family are led to an encounter
with God, who is "rich in mercy" [147], who bestows
on them his love which is more powerful than sin [148], and who
reconstructs and brings to perfection the marriage covenant and
the family communion.
59. Family Prayer.
------------------
The church prays for the Christian family and educates the
family to live in generous accord with the priestly gift and
role received from Christ the high priest. In effect, the baptismal
priesthood of the faithful exercised in the sacrament of marriage
constitutes the basis of a priestly vocation and mission for
the spouses and family by which their daily lives are transformed
into "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ" [149]. This transformation is achieved not only
by celebrating the eucharist and the other sacraments and through
offering themselves to the glory of God, but also through a life
of prayer, through prayerful dialogue with the Father, through
Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities. It is
prayer offered in common, husband and wife together, parents
and children together. Communion in prayer is both a consequence
of and a requirement for the communion bestowed by the sacraments
of baptism and matrimony. The words with which the Lord Jesus
promises his presence can be applied to the members of the Christian
family in a special way: "Again I say to you, if two of
you agree on earth about anything they ask it will be done for
them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered
in my name, there am I in the midst of them" [150].
Family prayer has for its very own object family life itself,
which in all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from
God and lived as a filial response to his call. Joys and sorrows,
hopes and disappointments, births and birthday celebrations,
wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations
and homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions,
the death of those who are dear, etcall of these mark God's
loving intervention in the family's history. They should be seen
as suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting
abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father
in heaven. The dignity and responsibility of the Christian family
as the domestic church can be achieved only with God's unceasing
aid, which will surely be granted if it is humbly and trustingly
petitioned in prayer.
60. Educators in Prayer.
------------------------
By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents
have the specific responsibility of educating their children
in prayer, introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery
of God and to personal dialogue with him: "It is particularly
in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and the office
of the sacrament of matrimony, that from the earliest years children
should be taught, according to the faith received in baptism,
to have a knowledge of God, to worship him and to love their
neighbor" [151].
The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental
and irreplaceable in educating their children to pray. Only by
praying together with their children can a father and mother
exercising their royal priesthoodpenetrate the innermost
depths of their children's hearts and leave an impression that
the future events in their lives will not be able to efface.
Let us again listen to the appeal made by Paul Vi to parents:
"Mothers, do you teach your children the Christian prayers?
Do you prepare them, in conjunction with the priests, for the
sacraments that they receive when they are young: confession,
communion and confirmation? Do you encourage them when they are
sick to think of Christ suffering, to invoke the aid of the Blessed
Virgin and the saints? Do you say the family rosary together?
And you, fathers, do you pray with your children, with the whole
domestic community, at least sometimes? Your example of honesty
in thought and action, joined to some common prayer, is a lesson
for life, an act of worship of singular value. In this way you
bring peace to your homes: Pax huic domui. Remember, it is thus
that you build up the church" [152].
61. Liturgical prayer and private prayer.
-----------------------------------------
There exists a deep and vital bond between the prayer of the
church and the prayer of the individual faithful as has been
clearly reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council [153]. An important
purpose of the prayer of the domestic church is to serve as the
natural introduction for the children to the liturgical prayer
of the whole church, both in the sense of preparing for it and
of extending it into personal, family and social life. Hence
the need for gradual participation by all the members of the
Christian family in the celebration of the eucharist, especially
on Sundays and feast days, and of the other sacraments, particularly
the sacraments of Christian initiation of the children. The directives
of the council opened up a new possibility for the Christian
family when it listed the family among those groups to whom it
recommends the recitation of the Divine Office in common [154].
Likewise, the Christian family will strive to celebrate at home
and in a way suited to the members the times and feasts of the
liturgical year.
As preparation for the worship celebrated in church and as
its prolongation in the home, the Christian family makes use
of private prayer, which presents a great variety of forms. While
this variety testifies to the extraordinary richness with which
the spirit vivifies Christian prayer, it serves also to meet
the various needs and life situations of those who turn to the
Lord in prayer. Apart from morning and evening prayers, certain
forms of prayer are to be expressly encouraged, following the
indications of the synod fathers, such as reading and meditating
on the word of God, preparation for the reception of the sacraments,
devotion and consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, various
forms of veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grace before
and after meals and observance of popular devotions.
While respecting the freedom of the children of God, the church
has always proposed certain practices of piety to the faithful
with particular solicitude and insistence. Among these should
be mentioned the recitation of the rosary: "We now desire,
as a continuation of the thought of our predecessors, to recommend
strongly the recitation of the family rosary ... There is no
doubt that ... the rosary should be considered as one of the
best and most efficacious prayers in common that the Christian
family is invited to recite. We like to think and sincerely hope
that when the family gathering becomes a time of prayer the rosary
is a frequent and favored manner of praying" [155]. In this
way authentic devotion to Mary, which finds expression in sincere
love and generous imitation of the Blessed Virgin's interior
spiritual attitude, constitutes a special instrument for nourishing
loving communion in the family and for developing conjugal and
family spirituality. For she who is the mother of Christ and
of the church is in a special way the mother of Christian families,
of domestic churches.
62. Prayer and life.
--------------------
It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential
part of Christian life, understood in its fullness and centrality.
Indeed, prayer is an important part of our very humanity: It
is "the first expression of man's inner truth, the first
condition for authentic freedom of spirit" [156].
Far from being a form of escapism from everyday commitments,
prayer constitutes the strongest incentive for the Christian
family to assume and comply fully with all its responsibilities
as the primary and fundamental cell of human society. Thus the
Christian family's actual participation in the church's life
and mission is the direct proportion to the fidelity and intensity
of the prayer with which it is united with the fruitful vine
that is Christ the Lord [157].
The fruitfulness of the Christian family in its specific service
to human advancement, which of itself cannot but lead to the
transformation of the world, derives from its living union with
Christ, nourished by the liturgy, by self-oblation and
by prayer [158].
C.THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY AT THE SERVICE OF MAN.
------------------------------------------------------------
63. The new commandment of love.
-------------------------------
The church, a prophetic, priestly and kingly people, is endowed
with the mission of bringing all human beings to accept the word
of God in faith, to celebrate and profess it in the sacraments
and in prayer, and to give expression to it in the concrete realities
of life in accordance with the gift and new commandment of love.
The law of Christian life is to be found not in a written
code, but in the personal action of the Holy Spirit who inspires
and guides the Christian. It is the "law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus" [159]: "God's love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to
us" [160].
This is true for the Christian couple and family. Their guide
and rule of life is the Spirit of Jesus poured into their hearts
in the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony. In continuity
with baptism in water and the Spirit, marriage sets forth anew
the evangelical law of love, and with the gift of the Spirit
engraves it more profoundly on the hearts of Christian husbands
and wives. Their love, purified and saved, is a fruit of the
Spirit acting in the hearts of believers and constituting, at
the same time, the fundamental commandment of their moral life
to be lived in responsible freedom.
Thus the Christian family is inspired and guided by the new
law of the Spirit and, in intimate communion with the church,
the kingly people, it is called to exercise its "service"
of love toward God and toward its fellow human beings.
Just as Christ exercises his royal power by serving us [161],
so also the Christian finds the authentic meaning of his participation
in the kingship of his Lord in sharing his spirit and practice
of service to man. "Christ has communicated this power to
his disciples that they might be established in royal freedom
and that by self-denial and a holy life they might conquer
the reign of sin in themselves (cf. Rom. 6:12). Further, he has
shared this power so that by serving him in their fellow human
beings they might through humility and patience lead their brothers
and sisters to that King whom to serve is to reign. For the Lord
wishes to spread his kingdom by means of the laity also, a kingdom
of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom
of justice, love and peace. In this kingdom, creation itself
will be delivered out of its slavery to corruption and into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God (cf. Rom. 8:21)"
[162].
64. To discover the image of God in each brother and sister.
------------------------------------------------------------
Inspired and sustained by the new commandment of love, the
Christian family welcomes, respects and serves every human being,
considering each one in his or her dignity as a person and as
a child of God.
It should be so especially between husband and wife and within
the family, through a daily effort to promote a truly personal
community, initiated and fostered by an inner communion of love.
This way of life should then be extended to the wider circle
of the ecclesial community of which the Christian family is part.
Thanks to love within the family, the church can and ought
to take on a more homelike or family dimension, developing a
more human and fraternal style of relationships.
Love, too, goes beyond our brothers and sisters of the same
faith since "everybody is my brother or sister." In
each individual, especially in the poor, the weak and those who
suffer or are unjustly treated, love knows how to discover the
face of Christ, and discover a fellow human being to be loved
and served.
In order that the family may serve man in a truly evangelical
way, the instructions of the Second Vatican Council must be carefully
put into practice: "That the exercise of such charity may
rise above any deficiencies in fact and even in appearance, certain
fundamentals must be observed. Thus attention is to be paid to
the image of God in which our neighbor has been created, and
also to Christ the Lord to whom is really offered whatever is
given to a needy person" [163].
While building up the church in love, the Christian family
places itself at the service of the human person and the world,
really bringing about the "human advancement" whose
substance was given in summary form in the synod's message to
families: "Another task for the family is to from persons
in love and also to practice love in all its relationships, so
that it does not live closed in on itself, but remains open to
the community, moved by a sense of justice and concern for others,
as well as by a consciousness of its responsibility toward the
whole of society" [164].
PART FOUR
PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY
I. STAGES OF PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY.
-----------------------------------------
65. The church accompanies the Christian family on its journey
through life.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like every other living reality, the family too is called
upon to develop and grow. After the preparation of engagement
and the sacramental celebration of marriage, the couple begin
their daily journey toward the progressive actuation of the values
and duties of marriage itself.
In light of faith and by virtue of hope, the Christian family,
too, shares in communion with the church and in the experience
of the earthly pilgrimage toward full revelation and manifestation
of the kingdom of God.
Therefore, it must be emphasized once more that the pastoral
intervention of the church in support of the family is a matter
of urgency. Every effort should be made to strengthen and develop
pastoral care for the family, which should be treated as a real
matter of priority, in the certainty that future evangelization
depends largely on the domestic church [165].
The church's pastoral concern will not be limited only to
the Christian families closest at hand; it will extend its horizons
in harmony with the heart of Christ and will show itself to be
even more lively for families in general and for those families
in particular which are in difficult or irregular situations.
For all of them the church will have a word of truth, goodness,
understanding, hope and deep sympathy with their sometimes tragic
difficulties. To all of them she will offer her disinterested
help so that they can come closer to that model of a family which
the creator intended from "the beginning" and which
Christ has renewed with his redeeming grace.
The church's pastoral action must be progressive also in the
sense that it must follow the family, accompanying it step by
step in the different stages of its formation and development.
66. Preparation for marriage.
-----------------------------
More than ever necessary in our times is preparation of young
people for marriage and family life. In some countries it is
still the families themselves that, according to ancient customs,
ensure the passing on to young people of the values concerning
married and family life, and they do this through a gradual process
of education or initiation. But the changes that have taken place
within almost all modern societies demand that not only the family
but also society and the church should be involved in the effort
of properly preparing young people for their future responsibilities.
Many negative phenomena which are today noted with regret
in family life derive from the fact that in the new situations
young people not only lost sight of the correct hierarchy of
values but, since they have no longer certain criteria of behavior,
they do not know how to face and deal with the new difficulties.
But experience teaches that young people who have been well prepared
for family life generally succeed better than others.
This is even more applicable to Christian marriage, which
influences the holiness of large numbers of men and women. The
church must therefore promote better and more intensive programs
of marriage preparation in order to eliminate as far as possible
the difficulties that many married couples find themselves in,
and even more in order to favor positively the establishing and
maturing of successful marriages.
Marriage preparation has to be seen and put into practice
as a gradual and continuous process. It includes three main stages:
remote, proximate and immediate preparation.
Remote preparation begins in early childhood in that wise
family training which leads children to discover themselves as
beings endowed with a rich and complex psychology and with a
particular personality with its own strengths and weaknesses.
It is the period when esteem for all authentic human values is
instilled, both in interpersonal and in social relationships,
with all that this signifies for the formation of character,
for the control and right use of one's inclinations, for the
manner of regarding and meeting people of the opposite sex, and
so on. Also necessary, especially for Christians, is solid spiritual
and catechetical formation that will show that marriage is a
true vocation and mission, without excluding the possibility
of the total gift of self to God in the vocation to the priestly
or religious life.
Upon this basis there will subsequently and gradually be built
up the proximate preparation, whichfrom a suitable age
and with adequate catechesis, as in a catechumenal processinvolves
a more specific preparation for the sacraments, as it were, a
rediscovery of them. This renewed catechesis of young people
and others preparing for Christian marriage is absolutely necessary
in order that the sacrament may be celebrated and lived with
the right moral and spiritual dispositions. The religious formation
of young people should be integrated, at the right moment and
in accordance with the various concrete requirements, with a
preparation for life as a couple. This preparation will present
marriage as an interpersonal relationship of a man and a woman
that has to be continually developed, and will encourage those
concerned to study the nature of conjugal sexuality and responsible
parenthood, with the essential medical and biological knowledge
connected with it. It will also acquaint those concerned with
correct methods for the education of children and will assist
them in gaining the basic requisites for well-ordered
family life, such as stable work, sufficient financial resources,
sensible administration, notions of housekeeping.
Finally, one must not overlook preparation for the family
apostolate, for fraternal solidarity and collaboration with other
families, for active membership in groups, associations, movements
and undertakings set up for the human and Christian benefit of
the family.
The immediate preparation for the celebration of the sacrament
of matrimony should take place in the months and weeks immediately
preceding the wedding so as to give a new meaning, content, and
form to the so-called premarital inquiry required by canon
law. This preparation is not only necessary in every case, but
is also more urgently needed for engaged couples that still manifest
shortcomings or difficulties in Christian doctrine and practice.
Among the elements to be instilled in this journey of faith,
which is similar to the catechumate, there must also be a deeper
knowledge of the mystery of Christ and the church, of the meaning
of grace and of the responsibility of Christian marriage, as
well as preparation for taking an active and conscious part in
the rites of the marriage liturgy.
The Christian family and the whole of the ecclesial community
should feel involved in the different phases of the preparation
for marriage which have been described only in their broad outlines.
It is to be hoped that the episcopal conferences, just as they
are concerned with appropriate initiatives to help engaged couples
to be more aware of the seriousness of their choice and also
to help pastors of souls to make sure of the couples' proper
dispositions, so they will also take steps to see that there
is issued a directory for the pastoral care of the family. In
this they should lay down in the first place, the minimum content,
duration and method of the "preparation courses," balancing
the different aspectsdoctrinal, pedagogical, legal and
medicalconcerning marriage and structuring them in such
a way that those preparing for marriage will not only receive
an intellectual training, but will also feel a desire to enter
actively into the ecclesial community.
Although one must not underestimate the necessity and obligation
of the immediate preparation for marriagewhich would happen
if dispensations from it were easily givennevertheless
such preparation must always be set forth and put into practice
in such a way that omitting it is not an impediment to the celebration
of marriage.
67. The celebration.
--------------------
Christian marriage normally requires a liturgical celebration
expressing in social and community form the essentially ecclesial
and sacramental nature of the conjugal covenant between baptized
persons.
Inasmuch as it is a sacramental action of sanctification,
the celebration of marriageinserted into the liturgy, which
is the summit of the church's action and the source of her sanctifying
power [166] -- must be per se valid, worthy and fruitful.
This opens a wide field for pastoral solicitude, in order that
the needs deriving from the nature of the conjugal covenant,
elevated into a sacrament, may be fully met and also in order
that the church's discipline regarding free consent, impediments,
the canonical form and the actual rite of the celebration may
be faithfully observed. The celebration should be simple and
dignified, according to the norms of the competent authorities
of the church. It is also for themin accordance with concrete
circumstances of time and place and in conformity with the norms
issued by the Apostolic See [167] -- to include in the
liturgical celebration such elements proper to each culture which
serve to express more clearly the profound human and religious
significance of the marriage contract, provided that such elements
contain nothing that is not in harmony with Christian faith and
morality.
Inasmuch as it is a sign, the liturgical celebration should
be conducted in such a way as to constitute, also in its external
reality, a proclamation of the word of God and a profession of
faith on the part of the community of believers. Pastoral commitment
will be expressed here through the intelligent and careful preparation
of the liturgy of the word and through the education to faith
of those participating in the celebration and in the first place
the couple being married.
Inasmuch as it is a sacramental action of the church, the
liturgical celebration of marriage should involve the Christian
community, with the full, active and responsible participation
of all those present according to the place and task of each
individual: the bride and bridegroom, the priest, the witnesses,
the relatives, the friends, the other members of the faithful,
all of them members of an assembly that manifests and lives the
mystery of Christ and His church. For the celebration of Christian
marriage in the sphere of ancestral cultures or traditions, the
principles laid down above should be followed.
68. Celebration of marriage and evangelization of non-believing
baptized persons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Precisely because in the celebration of the sacrament very
special attention must be devoted to the moral and spiritual
dispositions of those being married, in particular to their faith,
we must here deal with a not infrequent difficulty in which the
pastors of the church can find themselves in the context of our
secularized society.
In fact, the faith of the person asking the church for marriage
can exist in different degrees, and it is the primary duty of
pastors to bring about a rediscovery of this faith and to nourish
it and bring it to maturity. But pastors must also understand
the reasons that led the church also to admit the celebration
of marriage those who are imperfectly disposed.
The sacrament of matrimony has this specific element that
distinguishes it from all the other sacraments: It is the sacrament
of something that was part of the very economy of creation; it
is the very conjugal covenant instituted by the Creator "in
the beginning.: Therefore the decision of a man and a woman to
marry in accordance with this divine plan, that is to say, the
decision to commit by their irrevocable conjugal consent their
whole lives in indissoluble love and unconditional fidelity,
really involves, even if not in a fully conscious way, an attitude
of profound obedience to the will of God, an attitude which cannot
exist without God's grace. They have thus already begun what
is in a true and proper sense a journey toward salvation, a journey
which the celebration of the sacrament and the immediate preparation
for it can complement and bring to completion, given the uprightness
of their intention.
On the other hand it is true that in some places engaged couples
ask to be married in church for motives which are social rather
than genuinely religious. This is not surprising. Marriage, in
fact, is not an event that concerns only the persons actually
getting married. By its very nature it is also a social matter,
committing the couple being married in the eyes of society. And
its celebration has always been an occasion of rejoicing that
brings together families and friends. It therefore goes without
saying that social as well as personal motives enter into the
request to be married in church.
Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that these engaged
couples by virtue of their baptism are already really sharers
in Christ's marriage covenant with the church, and that, by their
right intention, they have accepted God's plan regarding marriage
and therefore, at least implicitly, consent to what the church
intends to do when she celebrates marriage. Thus the fact that
motives of a social nature also enter into the request is not
enough to justify refusal on the part of pastors. Moreover, as
the Second Vatican Council teaches, the sacraments by words and
ritual elements nourish and strengthen faith [168]: that faith
toward which the married couple are already journeying by reason
of the uprightness of their intention, which Christ's grace certainly
does not fail to favor and support.
As for wishing to lay down further criteria for admission
to the ecclesial celebration of marriage, criteria that would
concern the level of faith of those to be married, this would
above all involve grave risks. In the first place, the risk of
making unfounded and discriminatory judgements; second, the risk
of causing doubts about the validity of marriages already celebrated,
with grave harm to Christian communities and new and unjustified
anxieties to the consciences of married couples; one would also
fall into the danger of calling into question the sacramental
nature of many marriages of brethren separated from full communion
with the Catholic Church, thus contradicting ecclesial tradition.
However, when in spite of all efforts couples show that they
reject explicitly and formally what the church intends to do
when the marriage of baptized persons is celebrated, the pastor
of souls cannot admit them to the celebration of marriage. In
spite of his reluctance to do so, he has the duty to take note
of the situation and to make it clear to those concerned that
in these circumstances it is not the church that is placing an
obstacle in the way of the celebration that they are asking for,
but themselves.
Once more there appears in all its urgency the need for evangelization
and catechesis before and after marriage, effected by the whole
Christian community, so that every man and woman that gets married
celebrates the sacrament of matrimony not only validly but also
fruitfully.
69. Pastoral care after marriage.
---------------------------------
The pastoral care of the regularly established family signifies,
in practice, the commitment of all the members of the local ecclesial
community to helping the couple to discover and live their new
vocation and mission. In order that the family may be ever more
a true community of love, it is necessary that all its members
should be helped and trained in their responsibilities as they
face the new problems that arise, in mutual service and in active
sharing in family life.
This holds true especially for young families, which, finding
themselves in a context of new values and responsibilities, are
more vulnerable, especially in the first years of marriage, to
possible difficulties such as those created by adaptation to
life together or by the birth of children. Young married couples
should learn to accept willingly and make good use of the discreet,
tactful and generous help offered by other couples that already
have more experience of married and family life. Thus within
the ecclesial communitythe great family made up of Christian
familiesthere will take place a mutual exchange of presence
and help among all the families, each one putting at the service
of the others its own experience of life, as well as the gifts
of faith and grace. Animated by a true apostolic spirit, this
assistance from family to family will constitute one of the simplest,
most effective and most accessible means for transmitting from
one to another those Christian values which are both the starting
point and goal of all pastoral care. Thus young families will
not limit themselves merely to receiving, but in their turn,
having been helped in this way, will become a source of enrichment
for other longer established families through their witness of
life and practical contribution.
In her pastoral care of young families the church must also
pay special attention to helping them to live married love responsibly
in relationship with its demands on communion and service to
live. She must likewise help them to harmonize the intimacy of
home life with the generous shared work of building up the church
and society. When children are born and the married couple becomes
a family in the full and specific sense, the church will still
remain close to the parents in order that they may accept their
children and love them as a fit received from the Lord of life
and joyfully accept the task of serving them in their human and
Christian growth.
II. STRUCTURES OF FAMILY PASTORAL CARE.
---------------------------------------
Pastoral activity is always the dynamic expression of the
reality of the church, committed to her mission of salvation.
Family pastoral care toowhich is a particular and specific
form of pastoral activityhas as its operative principle
and responsible agent the church herself, through her structures
and workers.
70. The ecclesial community and in particular the parish.
---------------------------------------------------------
The church, which is at the same time a saved and a saving
community, has to be considered here under two aspects: as universal
and particular. The second aspect is expressed and actuated in
the diocesan community, which is pastorally divided up into lesser
communities of which the parish is of special importance.
Communion with the universal church does not hinder, but rather
guarantees and promotes the substance and originality of the
various particular churches. These latter remain more immediate
and more effective subjects of operation for putting the pastoral
care of the family into practice. In this sense every local church
and, in more particular terms, every parochial community must
become more vividly aware of the grace and responsibility that
it receives from the Lord in order that it may promote the pastoral
care of the family. No plan for organized pastoral work at any
level must ever fail to take into consideration the pastoral
area of the family.
Also to be seen in the light of this responsibility is the
importance of the proper preparation of all those who will be
more specifically engaged in this kind of apostolate. Priests
and men and women religious from the time of their formation
should be oriented and trained progressively and thoroughly for
the various tasks. Among the various initiatives I am pleased
to emphasize the recent establishment in Rome, at the Pontifical
Lateran University, a higher institute for the study of the problems
of the family. Institutes of this kind have also been set up
in some dioceses. Bishops should see to it that as many priests
as possible attend specialized courses there before taking on
parish responsibilities. Elsewhere, formation courses are periodically
held at higher institutes of theological and pastoral studies.
Such initiatives should be encouraged, sustained, increased in
number, and of course are also open to lay people who intend
to use their professional skills (medial, legal, psychological,
social or educational) to help the family.
71. The family.
---------------
Nut it is especially necessary to recognize the unique place
that in this field belongs to the mission of married couples
and Christian families by virtue of the grace received in the
sacrament. This mission must be placed at the service of the
building up of the church, the establishing of the kingdom of
God in history. This is demanded as an act of docile obedience
to Christ the Lord. For it is he who, by virtue of the fact that
marriage of baptized persons has been raised to a sacrament,
confers upon Christian married couples a special mission as apostles,
sending them as workers into his vineyard and in a very special
way into this field of the family.
In this activity married couples act in communion and collaboration
with the other members of the church, who also work for the family,
contributing their own gifts and ministries. This apostolate
will be exercised in the first place within the families of those
concerned, through the witness of a life lived in conformity
with the divine law in all its aspects, through the Christian
formation of the children, through helping them to mature in
faith, through education to chastity, through preparation for
life, through vigilance in protecting them from the ideological
and moral dangers with which they are often threatened, through
their gradual and responsible inclusion in the ecclesial community
and the civil community, through help and advice in choosing
a vocation, through mutual help among family members for human
and Christian growth together, and so on. The apostolate of the
family will also become wider through works of spiritual and
material charity toward other families, especially those most
in need of help and support, toward the poor, the sick, the old,
the handicapped, orphans, widows, spouses that have been abandoned,
unmarried mothers and mothers-to-be in difficult
situations who are tempted to have recourse to abortion, and
so on.
72. Associations of families for families.
------------------------------------------
Still within the church, which is the subject responsible
for the pastoral care of the family, mention should be made of
the various groupings of members of the faithful in which the
mystery of Christ's church is in some measure manifested and
lived. One should therefore recognize and make good use ofeach
one in relationship to its own characteristics, purposes, effectiveness
and methodsthe different ecclesial communities, the various
groups and the numerous movements engaged in various ways, for
different reasons and at different levels, in the pastoral care
of the family.
For this reason the synod expressly recognized the useful
contribution made by such associations of spirituality, formation
and apostolate. It will be their task to foster among the faithful
a lively sense of solidarity, to favor a manner of living inspired
by the Gospel and by the faith of the church, to form consciences
according to Christian values and not according to the standards
of public opinion; to stimulate people to perform works of charity
for one another and for others with a spirit of openness which
will make Christian families into a true source of light and
a wholesome leaven for other families.
It is similarly desirable that, with a lively sense of the
common good, Christian families should become actively engaged
at every level in other non-ecclesial associations as
well. Some of these associations work for the preservation, transmission
and protection of the wholesome ethical and cultural values of
each people, the development of the human person, the medical,
juridical and social protection of mothers and young children,
the just advancement of women and the struggle against all that
is detrimental to their dignity, the increase of mutual solidarity,
knowledge of the problems connected with the responsible regulation
of fertility in accordance with natural methods that are in conformity
with human dignity and the teaching of the church.
Other associations work for the building of a more just and
human world; for the promotion of just laws favoring the right
social order with full respect for the dignity and every legitimate
freedom of the individual and the family on both the national
and the international level' for collaboration with the school
and with the other institutions that complete the education of
children, and so forth.
III. AGENTS OF THE PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY.
-----------------------------------------------
As well as the family, which is the object but above all the
subject of pastoral care of the family, one must also mention
the other agents in this particular sector.
73. Bishops and priests.
------------------------
The person principally responsible in the diocese for the
pastoral care of the family is the bishop. As father and pastor,
he must exercise particular solicitude in this clearly priority
sector of pastoral care. He must devote to it personal interest,
care, time, personnel and resources, but above all personal support
for the families and for all those who, in the various diocesan
structures, assist him in the pastoral care of the family.
It will be his particular care to make the diocese ever more
truly a "diocesan family," a model and source of hope
for many families that belong to it. The setting up of the Pontifical
Council for the family is to be seen in this light to be a sign
of the importance that I attribute to pastoral care for the family
in the world, and at the same time to be an effective instrument
for aiding and promoting it at every level.
The bishops avail themselves especially of the priests, whose
taskas the synod expressly emphasizedconstitutes
an essential part of the church's ministry regarding marriage
and the family. The same is true of deacons to whose care this
sector of pastoral work may be entrusted.
Their responsibility extends not only to moral and liturgical
matters, but to personal and social matters as well. They must
support the family in its difficulties and sufferings, caring
for its members and helping them to see their lives in the light
of the Gospel. It is not superfluous to note that from this mission,
if it is exercised with due discernment and with a truly apostolic
spirit, the minister of the church draws fresh encouragement
and spiritual energy for his own vocation, too, and for the exercise
of his ministry.
Priests and deacons, when they have received timely and serious
preparation for this apostolate, must unceasingly act toward
families as fathers, brothers, pastors and teachers, assisting
them with the means of grace and enlightening them with the light
of truth. Their teaching and advice must therefore always be
in harmony with the authentic magisterium of the church, in such
a way as to help the people of God to gain a correct sense of
the faith to be subsequently applied to practical life. Such
fidelity to the magisterium will also enable priests to make
every effort to be united in their judgements in order to avoid
troubling the consciences of the faithful.
In the church, the pastors and the laity share in the prophetic
mission of Christ: The laity do so by witnessing to the faith
by their words and by their Christian lives; the pastors do so
by distinguishing in that witness what is the expression of genuine
faith from what is less in harmony with the light of faith; the
family, as a Christian community, does so through its special
sharing and witness of faith.
Thus there begins a dialogue also between pastors and families.
Theologians and experts in family matters can be of great help
in this dialogue. By explaining exactly the content of the church's
magisterium and the content of the experience of family life.
In this way the teaching of the magisterium becomes better understood
and the way is opened to its progressive development.
But it is useful to recall that the proximate and obligatory
norm in the teaching of the faithalso concerning family
matters belongs to the hierarchical magisterium. Clearly
defined relationships between theologians, experts in family
matters and the magisterium are of no little assistance for the
correct understanding of the faith and for promotingwithin
the boundaries of the faithlegitimate pluralism.
74. Men and women religious.
----------------------------
The contribution that can be made to the apostolate of the
family by men and women religious and consecrated persons in
general finds its primacy, fundamental and original expression
precisely in their consecration to God. By reason of this consecration,
"for all Christ's faithful religious recall that wonderful
marriage made by God, which will be fully manifested in the future
age, and in which the church has Christ for her only spouse"
[169], and they are witnesses to that universal charity which,
through chastity embraced for the kingdom of heaven, makes them
ever more available to dedicate themselves generously to the
service of God and to the works of the apostolate.
Hence the possibility for men and women religious and members
of secular institutes and other institutes of perfection, either
individually or in groups, to develop their service to families,
with particular solicitude for children, especially if they are
abandoned, unwanted, orphaned, poor or handicapped. They can
also visit families and look after the sick; they can foster
relationships of respect and charity toward one-parent
families or families that are in difficulties or are separated;
they can offer their own work of teaching and counseling in the
preparation of young people for marriage and in helping couples
toward truly responsible parenthood; they can open their own
houses for simple and cordial hospitality so that families can
find there the sense of God's presence and gain a taste for prayer
and recollection and see the practical examples of lives lived
in charity and fraternal joy as members of the larger family
of God.
I would like to add a most pressing exhortation to the heads
of institutes of consecrated life to consideralways with
substantial respect for the proper and original charism of each
one -- the apostolate of the family as one of the priority
tasks rendered even more urgent by the present state of the world.
75. Lay specialists.
--------------------
Considerable help can be given to families by lay specialists
(doctors, lawyers, psychologists, social workers, consultants,
etc.) who either as individuals or as members of various associations
and undertakings offer their contribution of enlightenment, advice,
orientation and support. TO these people one can well apply the
exhortations that I had the occasion to address to the Confederation
of Family Advisory Bureaus of Christian Inspiration:
"Yours is a commitment that well deserves the title of
mission, so noble are the aims that it pursues, and so determining,
for the good of society and the Christian community itself, are
the results that derive from it ... All that you succeed in doing
to support the family is determined to have an effectiveness
that goes beyond its own sphere and reaches other people too,
and has an effect on society. The future of the world and of
the church passes through the family" [170].
76. Recipients and agents of social communications.
---------------------------------------------------
This very important category in modern life deserves a word
of its own. It is well know that the means of social communication
"affect and often profoundly, the minds of those who use
them, under the affective and intellectual aspect and also under
the moral and religious aspect," especially in the case
of young people [171]. They can thus exercise a beneficial influence
on the life and habits of the family and on the education of
children, but at the same time they also conceal "snares
and dangers that cannot be ignored" [172]. They could also
become a vehiclesometimes cleverly and systematically manipulated,
as unfortunately happens in various countries of the worldfor
divisive ideologies and distorted ways of looking at life, the
family, religion and morality, attitudes that lack respect for
man's true dignity and destiny.
This danger is all the more real inasmuch as "the modern
lifestyleespecially in the more industrialized nationsall
too often causes families to abandon their responsibility to
educate their children. Evasion of this duty is made easy for
them by the presence of television and certain publications in
the home, and in this way they keep their children's time and
energies occupied" [173]. Hence "the duty ... to protect
the young from the forms of aggression they are subjected to
by the mass media," and to ensure that the use of the media
in the family is carefully regulated. Families should also take
care to seek for their children often forms of entertainment
that are more wholesome, useful and physically, morally and spiritually
formative, "to develop and use to advantage the free time
of the young and direct their energies" [174].
Furthermore, because the means of social communication, like
the school and the environment, often have a notable influence
on the formation of children, parents as recipients must actively
ensure the moderate, critical, watchful and prudent use of the
media by discovering what effect they have on their children
and by controlling the use of media in such a way as to "train
the conscience of their children to express calm and objective
judgements, which will then guide them in the choice or rejection
of programs available" [175].
With equal commitment parents will endeavor to influence the
selection and preparation of the programs themselves by keeping
in contactthrough suitable initiativeswith those
in charge of the various phases of production and transmission.
In this way they will ensure that fundamental human values that
form part of the true good of society are not ignored or deliberately
attacked. Rather they will ensure the broadcasting of programs
that present in the right light family problems and their proper
solutions. In this regard my venerated predecessor Paul VI wrote:
"Producers must know and respect the needs of the family,
and this sometimes presupposes in them true courage, and always
a high sense of responsibility. In fact they are expected to
avoid anything that could harm the family in its existence, its
stability, its balance and its happiness. Every attack on the
fundamental value of the familymeaning eroticism or violence,
the defense of divorce or of anti-social attitudes among
young peopleis an attack on the true good of man"
[176].
I myself, on a similar occasion, pointed out that families
"to a considerable extent need to be able to count on the
good will, integrity and sense of responsibility of the media
professionals publishers, writers, producers, directors,
playwrights, newsmen, commentators and actors" [177]. It
is therefore also the duty of the church to continue to devote
every care to these categories, at the same time encouraging
and supporting Catholics who feel the call and have the necessary
talents to take up this sensitive type of work.
IV. PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY IN DIFFICULT CASES.
---------------------------------------------------
77. Particular circumstances.
-----------------------------
An even more generous, intelligent and prudent pastoral commitment,
modeled on the Good Shepherd, is called for in the case of families
which, often independently of their own wishes and through pressures
of various other kinds, find themselves faced by situations which
are objectively difficult.
In this regard it is necessary to call special attention to
certain particular groups which are more in need not only of
assistance but also of more incisive action upon public opinion
and especially upon cultural, economic and juridical structures,
in order that the profound causes of their needs may be eliminated
as far as possible.
Such, for example, are the families of migrant workers; the
families of those obliged to be away for long periods of times,
such as members of the armed forces, sailors and all kinds of
itinerant people; the families of those in prison, of refugees
and exiles; the families in big cities living, practically speaking
as outcasts; families with no home; incomplete or single-parent
families; families with children that are handicapped or addicted
to drugs; the families of alcoholics; families that have been
uprooted from their cultural and social environment or are in
danger of losing it; families discriminated against for political
or other reasons; families that are ideologically divided; families
that are unable to make ready contact with the parish; families
experiencing violence or unjust treatment because of their faith;
teen-age married couples; the elderly, who are often obliged
to live alone with inadequate means of subsistence.
The families of migrants, especially in the case of manual
workers and farm workers, should be able to find a homeland everywhere
in the church. This is a task stemming from the nature of the
church, as being the sign of unity in diversity. As far as possible
these people should be looked after by priests of their own rite,
culture and language. It is also the church's task to appeal
to the public conscience and to all those in authority in social,
economic and political life, in order that workers may find employment
in their own regions and homelands, that they may receive just
wages, that their families may be reunited as soon as possible,
be respected in their cultural identity and treated on an equal
footing with others, and that their children may be given the
chance to learn a trade or exercise it, as also the change to
own the land needed for working and living.
A difficult problem is that of the family which is ideologically
divided. In these cases particular pastoral care is needed. In
the first place it is necessary to maintain tactful personal
contact with such families. The believing members must be strengthened
in their faith and supported in their Christian lives. Although
the party faithful to Catholicism cannot give way, dialogue with
the other party must be kept alive. Love and respect must be
freely shown in the firm hope that unity will be maintained.
Much also depends on the relationship between parents and children.
Moreover, ideologies which are alien to the faith can stimulate
the believing members of the family to grow in faith and in the
witness of love.
Other difficult circumstances in which the family needs the
help of the ecclesial community and its pastors are: the children's
adolescence, which can be disturbed, rebellious and sometimes
stormy; the children's marriage, which takes them away from their
family; lack of understanding or lack of love on the part of
those held most dear; abandonment or neglect on the part of children
and relations. There is also suffering caused by ill-health,
by the gradual loss of strength, by the humiliation of having
to depend on others, by the sorrow of feeling of the end of life.
These are the circumstances in which, as the synod fathers suggested,
it is easier to help people understand and live the lofty aspects
of the spirituality of marriage and the family, aspects which
take their inspiration from the value of Christ's cross and resurrection,
the source of sanctification and profound happiness in daily
life, in the light of the great eschatological realities of eternal
life.
In all these different situations let prayer, the source of
light and strength and the nourishment of Christian hope, never
be neglected.
78. Mixed Marriages.
--------------------
The growing number of mixed marriages between Catholics and
other baptized persons also calls for special pastoral attention
in the light of the directives and norms contained in the most
recent documents of the Holy See and in those drawn up by the
episcopal conferences, in order to permit their practical application
to the various situations.
Couples living in a mixed marriage have special needs, which
can be put under three main headings.
In the first place, attention must be paid to the obligations
that faith imposes on the Catholic party with regard to the free
exercise of the faith and the consequent obligation to ensure,
as far as is possible, the baptism and upbringing of the children
in the Catholic faith [178].
There must be borne in mind the particular difficulties inherent
in the relationships between husband and wife with regard to
respect for religious freedom: This freedom could be violated
either by undue pressure to make the partner change his or her
beliefs or by placing obstacles in the way of the free manifestation
of these beliefs by religious practice.
With regard to the liturgical and canonical form of marriage,
ordinaries can make wide use of their faculties to meet various
necessities.
In dealing with these special needs, the following points
should be kept in mind:
- In the appropriate preparation for this type of marriage
every reasonable effort must be made to ensure proper understanding
of Catholic teaching on the qualities and obligations of marriage
and also to ensure that the pressures and obstacles mentioned
above will not occur.
- It is of the greatest importance that through the support
of the community the Catholic party should be strengthened in
faith and positively helped to mature in understanding and practicing
that faith so as to become a credible witness within the family
through his or her own life and through the quality of love shown
to the other spouse and the children.
Marriages between Catholics and other baptized persons have
their particular nature, but they contain numerous elements that
could well be made good use of and developed, both for their
intrinsic value and for thee contribution that they can make
to the ecumenical movement. This is particularly true when both
parties are faithful to their religious duties. Their common
baptism and the dynamism of grace provide the spouses in these
marriages with the basis and motivations for expressing their
unity in the sphere of moral and spiritual values.
For this purpose and also in order to highlight the ecumenical
importance of mixed marriages which are fully lived in the faith
of the two Christian spouses an effort should be made to establish
cordial cooperation between the Catholic and non-Catholic
ministers from the time that preparations begin for the marriage
and the wedding ceremony even though this does not always prove
easy.
With regard to the sharing of the non-Catholic party
in eucharistic communion, the norms issued by the Secretariat
for Promoting Christian Unity should be followed [179].
Today in many parts of the world marriages between Catholics
and non-baptized persons are growing in numbers. In many
such marriages the non-baptized partner professes another
religion and his beliefs are to be treated with respect in accordance
with the principles set out in the Second Vatican Council's declaration
NOSTRA AETATE on relations with non-Christian religions.
But in many other such marriages, particularly in secularized
societies, the non-baptized person professes no religion
at all. In these marriages there is a need for episcopal conferences
and for individual bishops to ensure that there are proper pastoral
safeguards for the faith of the Catholic partner and for the
free exercise of his faith, above all in regard to his duty to
do all in his power to ensure the Catholic baptism and education
of the children of the marriage. Likewise the Catholic must be
assisted in every possible way to offer within his family a genuine
witness to the Catholic faith and to Catholic life.
79. Pastoral action in certain irregular situations.
----------------------------------------------------
In its solicitude to protect the family in all its dimensions,
not only the religious one, the Synod of Bishops did not fail
to take into careful consideration certain situations which are
irregular in a religious sense and often in the civil sense too.
Such situations, as a result of today's rapid cultural changes,
are unfortunately becoming widespread also among Catholics with
no little damage to the very institution of the family and to
society, of which the family constitutes the basic cell.
80.a. Trial marriages.
----------------------
A first example of an irregular situation is provided by what
are called "trial marriages," which many people today
would like to justify attributing a certain value to them. But
human reason leads one to see that they are unacceptable, by
showing the unconvincing nature of carrying out an "experiment"
with human beings, whose dignity demands that they should be
always and solely the term of a self-giving love without
limitations of time or of any other circumstance.
The church, for her part, cannot admit such a kind of union
for further and original reasons which derive from faith. For,
in the first place, the gift of the body in the sexual relationship
is a real symbol of the giving of the whole person: Such a giving,
moreover, in the present state of things cannot take place with
full truth without the concourse of the love of charity, given
by Christ. In the second place, marriage between two baptized
persons is a real symbol of the union of Christ and the church,
which is not a temporary or "trial" union, but one
which is eternally faithful. Therefore between two baptized persons
there can exist only an indissoluble marriage.
Such a situation cannot usually be overcome unless the human
person from childhood, with the help of Christ's grace and without
fear, has been trained to dominate concupiscence from the beginning
and to establish relationships of genuine love with other people.
This cannot be secured without a true education in genuine love
and in the right use of sexuality, such as to introduce the human
person in every aspect, and therefore the bodily aspect too,
into the fullness of the mystery of Christ.
It will be very useful to investigate the causes of this phenomenon,
including its psychological and sociological aspect, in order
to find the proper remedy.
81.b. De facto free unions.
---------------------------
This means unions without any publicly recognized institutional
bond, either civil or religious. This phenomenon, which is becoming
ever more frequent, cannot fail to concern pastors of souls,
also because it may be based on widely varying factors, the consequences
of which may perhaps be containable by suitable action.
Some people consider themselves almost forced into a free
union by difficult economic, cultural or religious situations,
on the grounds that if they would be exposed to some form of
harm, would lose economic advantages, would be discriminated
against, etc. In other cases, however, one encounters people
who scorn, rebel against or reject society, the institution of
the family and the social and political order, or who are solely
seeking pleasure. Then there are those who are driven to such
situations by extreme ignorance or poverty, sometimes by a conditioning
due to situations of real injustice or by a certain psychological
immaturity that makes them uncertain or afraid to enter into
a stable and definitive union. In some countries traditional
customs presume that the true and proper marriage will take place
only after a period of cohabitation and the birth of the first
child.
Each of these elements presents the church with arduous pastoral
problems, by reason of the serious consequences deriving from
them, both religious and moral (the loss of the religious sense
of marriage seen grace of the sacrament; grave scandal) and also
social consequences (the destruction of the concept of the family;
the weakening of the sense of fidelity, also toward society;
possible psychological damage to the children; the strengthening
of selfishness).
The pastors and the ecclesial community should take care to
become acquainted with such situations and their actual causes,
case by case. They should make tactful and respectful contact
with the couples concerned and enlighten them patiently, correct
them charitably and show them the witness of the Christian family
life in such a way as to smooth the path for them to regularize
their situation. But above all there must be a campaign of prevention,
by fostering the sense of fidelity in the whole moral and religious
training of the young, instructing them concerning the conditions
and structures that favor such fidelity, without which there
is no true freedom; they must be helped to reach spiritual maturity
and enabled to understand the rich human and supernatural reality
of marriage as a sacrament.
82. c. Catholics in civil marriages.
------------------------------------
There are increasing cases of Catholics who for ideological
or practical reasons prefer to contract a merely civil marriage
and who reject or at least defer religious marriage. Their situation
cannot, of course, be likened to that of people simply living
together without any bond at all, because in the present case
there is at least a certain commitment to a properly defined
and probably stable state of life even though the possibility
of a future divorce is often present in the minds of those entering
a civil marriage. By seeking public recognition of their bond
on the part of the state, such couples show that they are ready
to accept not only its advantages but also its obligations. Nevertheless,
not even this situation is acceptable to the church.
The aim of pastoral action will be to make these people understand
the need for consistency between their choice of life and the
faith that they profess, and to try to do everything possible
to induce them to regularize their situation in the light of
Christian principles. While treating them with great charity
and bringing them into the life of the respective communities,
the pastors of the church will regrettably not be able to admit
them to the sacraments.
83. d. Separated or divorced persons who have not remarried.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Various reasons can unfortunately lead to the often irreparable
breakdown of valid marriages. These include mutual lack of understanding
and the inability to enter into interpersonal relationships.
Obviously, separation must be considered as a last resort, after
all other reasonable attempts at reconciliation have proved vain.
Loneliness and other difficulties are often the lot of separated
spouses especially when they are the innocent parties. The ecclesial
community must support such people more than ever. It must give
them much respect, solidarity, understanding and practical help,
so that they can preserve their fidelity even in their difficult
situation; and it must help them to cultivate the need to forgive
which is inherent in Christian love and to be ready perhaps to
return to their former married life.
The situation is similar for people who have undergone divorce,
but, being well aware that the valid marriage bond is indissoluble,
refrain from becoming involved in a new union and devote themselves
solely to carrying out their family duties and the responsibilities
of Christian life. In such cases their example of fidelity and
Christian consistency takes on particular value as a witness
before the world and the church. Here it is even more necessary
for the church to offer continual love and assistance without
there being an obstacle to admission to the sacraments.
84. e. Divorced persons who have remarried.
-------------------------------------------
Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have
obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union,
obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this
is an evil that like the others is affecting more and more Catholics
as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without
delay. The synod fathers studied it expressly. The church, which
was set up to lead to salvation all people and especially the
baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those who have
been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted
a second marriage. The church will therefore make untiring efforts
to put at their disposal her means of salvation.
Pastors must know that for the sake of truth they are obliged
to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is, in fact,
a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their
first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned and those who,
through their own grave fault, have destroyed a canonically valid
marriage.
Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union
for the sake of the children's upbringing and who are sometimes
subjectively certain in conscience that their previous irreparably
destroyed marriage had never been valid.
Together with the synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and
the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced and
with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves
as separated from the church, for as baptized persons they can
and indeed must share in her life. They should be encouraged
to listen to the word of God, to attend the sacrifice of the
Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity
and to the community effort in favor of justice, to bring up
their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit
and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace.
Let the church pray for them, encourage them and show herself
a merciful mother and thus sustain them in faith and hope.
However, the church reaffirms her practice, which is based
upon sacred scripture, of not admitting to eucharistic communion
divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted
thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life
objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and
the church which is signified and effected by the eucharist.
Besides this there is another special pastoral reason: If these
people were admitted to the eucharist the faithful would be led
into error and confusion regarding the church's teaching about
the indissolubility of marriage.
Reconciliation in the sacrament of penance, which would open
the way to the eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting
of having broken the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to
Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is
no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.
This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons such
as, for example, the children's upbringing, a man and a woman
cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on
themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is,
by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples" [180].
Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of matrimony,
to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the
community of the faithful forbids any pastor for whatever reason
or pretext, even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies
of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies
would give the impression of the celebration of a new, sacramentally
valid marriage and would thus lead people into error concerning
the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.
By acting in this way the church professes her own fidelity
to Christ and to his truth. At the same time she shows motherly
concern for these children of hers, especially those who, through
no fault of their own, have been abandoned by their legitimate
partner.
With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected
the Lord's command and are still living in this state will be
able to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation,
provided that they have persevered in prayer, penance and charity.
85. Those without a family.
---------------------------
I wish to add a further word for a category of people whom,
as a result of actual circumstances in which they are living,
and this often not through their own deliberate wish, I consider
particularly close to the heart of Christ and deserving of the
affection and active solicitude of the church and of pastors.
There exist in the world countless people who unfortunately
cannot in any sense claim membership in what could be called,
in the proper sense, a family. Large sections of humanity live
in conditions of extreme poverty in which promiscuity, lack of
housing, the irregular nature and instability of relationships
and the extreme lack of education make it impossible in practice
to speak of a true family. There are others who for various reasons
have been left alone in the world. And yet for all of these people
there exists a "good news of the family."
On behalf of those living in extreme poverty I have already
spoken of the urgent need to work courageously in order to find
solutions also at the political level, which will make it possible
to help them and to overcome this inhuman condition of degradation.
It is a special task that faces the whole of society, but
in a special way the authorities, by reason of their position
and the responsibilities flowing therefrom, and also families,
which must show great understanding and willingness to help.
For those who have no natural family the doors of the great
family which is the churchthe church which finds concrete
expression in the diocesan and the parish family, in ecclesial
basic communities and in movements of the apostolatemust
be opened even wider. No one is without a family in this world:
The church is a home and family for everyone, especially those
who "labor and are heavy laden" [181].
86. CONCLUSION.
---------------
At the end of this apostolic exhortation my thoughts turn
with earnest solicitude:
To you, married couples, to you fathers and mothers of families;
To you, young men and women, the future and the hope of the
church and the world, destined to be the dynamic central nucleus
of the family in the approaching third millennium;
To you, venerable and dear brothers in the episcopate and
in the priesthood, beloved sons and daughters in the religious
life, souls consecrated to the Lord, who bear witness before
married couples to the ultimate reality of the love of God;
To you, upright men and women, who for any reason whatever
give thought to the fate of the family.
The future of humanity passes by way of the family.
It is therefore indispensable and urgent that every person
of good will should endeavor to save and foster the values and
requirements of the family.
I feel that I must ask for a particular effort in this field
from the sons and daughters of the church. Faith gives them full
knowledge of God's wonderful plan: They therefore have an extra
reason for caring for the reality that is the family in this
time of trial and of grace.
They must show the family special love. This is an injunction
that calls for concrete action.
Loving the family means being able to appreciate its values
and capabilities, fostering them always. Loving the family means
identifying the dangers and the evils that menace it in order
to overcome them. Loving the family means endeavoring to create
for it an environment favorable for this development. The modern
Christian family is often tempted to be discouraged and is distressed
at the growth of its difficulties; it is an eminent form of love
to give it back its reasons for confidence in itself, in the
riches that it possesses by nature and grace, and in the mission
that God has entrusted to it. "Yes, indeed, the families
of today must be called back to their original position. They
must follow Christ" [182].
Christians also have the mission of proclaiming with joy and
conviction the good news about the family, for the family absolutely
needs to hear ever anew and to understand ever more deeply the
authentic words that reveal its identity, its inner resources
and the importance of its mission in the city of God and in that
of man.
The church knows the path by which the family can reach the
heart of the deepest truth about itself. The church has learned
this path at the school of Christ and the school of history interpreted
in the light of the Spirit. She does not impose it, but she feels
an urgent need to propose it to everyone without fear and indeed
with great confidence and hope, although she knows that the good
news includes the subject of the cross. But it is through the
cross that the family can attain the fullness of its being and
the perfection of its love.
Finally, I wish to call on all Christians to collaborate cordially
and courageously with all people of good will who are serving
the family in accordance with their responsibilities. The individuals
and groups, movements and associations in the church which devote
themselves to the family's welfare, acting in the Church's name
and under her inspiration, often find themselves side by side
with other individuals and institutions working for the same
ideal. With faithfulness to the values of the Gospel and of the
human person and with respect for lawful pluralism in initiatives,
this collaboration can favor a more rapid and integral advancement
of the family.
And now, at the end of my pastoral message, which is intended
to draw everyone's attention to the demanding yet fascinating
roles of the Christian family, I wish to invoke the protection
of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
Through God's mysterious design, it was in that family that
the Son of God spent long years of a hidden life. It is therefore
the prototype and example for all Christian families. It was
unique in the world. Its life was passed in anonymity and silence
in a little town in Palestine. It underwent trials of poverty,
persecution and exile. It glorified God in an incomparably exalted
and pure way. And it will not fail to help Christian families
indeed all the families of the worldto be faithful to their
day-to-day duties, to bear the cares and tribulations
of life, to be open and generous to the needs of others and to
fulfill with joy the plan of God in their regard.
St. Joseph was "a just man", a tireless worker,
the upright guardian of those entrusted to his care. May he always
guard, protect and enlighten families.
May the Virgin Mary, who is the mother of the church, also
be the mother of "the church of the home." Thanks to
her motherly aid, may each Christian family really become a "little
church" in which the mystery of the church of Christ is
mirrored and given a new life May she, the handmaid of the Lord,
be an example of humble and generous acceptance of the will of
God. May she, the sorrowful mother at the foot of the cross,
comfort the sufferings and dry the tears of those in distress
because of the difficulties of their families.
May Christ the Lord, the universal king, the king of families,
be present in every Christian home as he was at Cana, bestowing
light, joy, serenity and strength. On the solemn day dedicated
to his kingship I beg of him that every family may generously
make its own contribution to the coming of his kingdom in the
world"a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness
and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace" [183],
toward which history is journeying.
I entrust each family to him, to Mary and to Joseph. To their
hands and their hearts I offer this exhortation: May it be they
who present it to you, venerable brothers and beloved sons and
daughters, and may it be they who open your hearts to the light
that the Gospel sheds on every family.
I assure you all of my constant prayers and I cordially impart
the apostolic blessing to each and every one of you, in the name
of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, Nov. 22, 1981, the solemnity
of our Lord Jesus Christ, universal king, the fourth of the pontificate.
John Paul II.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[1] Cf. Second Vatican Council GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[2] Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of the Sixth
Synod of Bishops (Sept. 26, 1980), 2: AAS 72 (1980), 1008.
[3] Cf. Gn. 1-2.
[4] Cf. Eph. 5.
[5] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 47; Pope
John Paul II, Letter APOPROPINQUAT IAM (Aug 15, 1980), 1: AAS
72 (1980), 791.
[6] Cf. Mt. 19:4.
[7] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS, 47.
[8] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Council of the General
Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops (Feb. 23, 1980): INSEGNAMENTI
DI GIOVANNI PAOLO II,) III, 1 (1980), 472-476.
[9] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 4.
[10] Cf. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12.
[11] Cf. 1 Jn. 2:20.
[12] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35.
[13] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12; Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration MYSTERIUM ECCLESIAE,
2: AAS 65 (1973), 398-400.
[14] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12; DEI VERBUM,
10.
[15] Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of the Sixth
Synod of Bishops, 3.
[16] Cf. St. Augustine, DE CIVITATE DEI, XIV, 28; CSEL 40,
II, 56-57.
[17] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 15.
[18] Cf. Eph. 3:8; Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES,
44; AD GENTES, 15, 22.
[19] Cf. Mt. 19:4-6.
[20] Cf. Gn. 1:26-27.
[21] Cf. 1 Jn. 4:8.
[22] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 12.
[23] Cf. Ibid, 48.
[24] Cf. e.g., Hos. 2:21; Jer. 3:6-13; Is. 54.
[25] Ez. 16:25.
[26] Cf. Hos. 3.
[27] Cf. G. 2:24; Mt. 19:5.
[28] Cf. Eph. 5:32-33.
[29] Tertullian, AD UXOREM, II, VIII, 6-8: CCL, I,
393.
[30] Cf. Council of Trent, Session XXIV, Canon 1:I.D. Mansi,
SACRORUM CONCILIORUM NOVA ET EMPLISSIMA COLLECTIO, 33, 149-150.
[31] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GUADIUM ET SPES, 48.
[32] John Paul II, Address to the delegates of the Centre
de Liaison des Equipes de Recherche ( Nov. 3, 1979), 3: INSEGNAMENTI
II, 2 (1979), 1038.
[33] Ibid, 4; loc. cit., 1032.
[34] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 50.
[35] St. John Chrysostom, VIRGINITY, X: PG 48: 540.
[39] Cf. Mt. 22:30.
[40] Cf. 1 Cor. 7:32-35.
[41] Second Vatican Council, PERFECTAE CARITATIS, 12.
[42] Cf. Pius XII, Encyclical SACRA VIRGINITAS, II: AAS 46
(1954), 174ff.
[43] Cf. John Paul II, Letter NOVO INCPIENTE (April 8, 1979),
9: AAS 71 (1979), 410-411.
[44] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[45] Encyclical REDEMPTOR HOMINIS, 10: AAS 71 (1979), 274.
[46] Mt. 19:6; cf. Gn. 2:24.
[47] Cf. John Paul II, Letter NOVO INCIPIENTE (April 8, 1979),
9: AAS 71 (1979), 274.
[48] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 49; cf. JOHN PAUL II, Address at Kinshasa
4: loc cit.
[49] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[50] Cf. Eph. 5:25.
[51] Mt. 19:8.
[52] Rv. 3:14.
[53] Cf. 2 Cor. 1:20.
[54] Cf. Jn. 13:1.
[55] Mt. 19:6.
[56] Rom. 8:29.
[57] St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, II-II, q
14, art. 2, ad 4.
[58] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11; cf. APOSTOLICAM
ACTUSITATEM, 11.
[59] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[60] Cf. Eph. 6:1-4.
[61] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[62] Jn. 17:21.
[63] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 24.
[64] Gn. 1:27.
[65] Gal. 3:26, 28.
[66] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical LABOREM ECERCENS, 19: AAS
73 (1981), 625.
[67] Gn. 2:18.
[68] Gn. 2:23.
[69] St. Ambrose, EXAMERON, V 7, 19: CSEL 32, I, 154.
[70] Paul VI, Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 9: AAS 60 (1968),
486.
[71] Cf. Eph. 5:25.
[72] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the General Assembly of
the United Nations (Oct. 2, 1979), 21: AAS 71 (1979), 1159.
[73] Cf. Eph. 3:15.
[74] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[75] Lk. 18:16; cf. Mt. 19:14; Mk. 18:16.
[76] John Paul II, Address to the General Assembly of the
United Nations (Oct. 2, 1979), 21: AAS 71 (1979), 1159.
[77] Lk. 2:52.
[78] Cf. Lk. 2:52.
[79] John Paul II, Address to the Participants in the International
Forum on Active Aging (Sept. 5, 1980), 5: INSEGNAMENTI, III (1980),
539.
[80] Gn. 1:28.
[81] Cf. Gn. 5:1-3.
[82] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[83] PROPOSITIO 21. Section 11 of the encyclical HUMANAE VITAE
ends with the statement: "The church, calling people back
to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted
by her constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage
act must remain open to the transmission of life (ut quilibet
matrimonii usus ad vitam humanan procreandam per se destinatus
permaneat)": AAS 60 (1968), 488.
[84] Cf. 2 Cor. 1:19; Rv. 3:14.
[85] Cf. The sixth Synod of Bishops' Message to Christian
Families in the Modern World (Oct. 24, 1980), 5.
[86] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 51.
[87] Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 7: AAS 60 (1968), 485.
[88] Ibid., 12: loc cit. 488-489.
[89] Ibid., 14: loc cit. 490.
[90] Ibid., 13: loc cit.,m 489.
[91] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 51.
[92] Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 29: AAS 60 (1968), 501.
[93] Cf. Ibid., 25: loc cit. 498-499.
[94] Ibid., 21: loc cit. 496.
[95] John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod
of Bishops (Oct. 25, 1980), 8: AAS 72 (1980), 1083.
[96] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 28: AAS 60 (1968),
501.
[97] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Delegates of the Centre
de Liaison des Equipes de Recherche (Nov. 3, 1979), 9: INSEGNAMENTI,
II, 2 (1979), 1035; and cf. Address to the Participants in the
First Congress for the Family of Africa and Europe (Jan. 15,
1981):
[98] Encyclical HUMANAE VITAE, 25: AAS 60 (1968), 499.
[99] GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 3.
[100] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 35.
[101] St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES, IV, 58.
[102] GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 2.
[103] Apostolic Exhortation EVANGELII NUNTIANDI, 71: AAS 68
(1976), 60-61.
[104] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 3.
[105] Second Vatican Council, APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM, 11.
[106] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 52.
[107] Cf. Second Vatican Council, DIGNITATIS HUMANAE, 5.
[108] Rom. 12:13.
[109] Mt. 10:42.
[110] Cf. GAUDIUM ET SPES, 30.
[111] Second Vatican Council, DIGNITATIS HUMANAE, 5.
[112] Cf. PROPOSITIO 42.
[113] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 31.
[114] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11; APOSTOLICAM
ACTUOSITATEM, 11; Pope John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of
the Sixth Synod of Bishops (Sept. 26, 1980), 3: AAS 72 (1980)
1008.
[115] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11.
[116] Cf. Ibid, 41.
[117] Acts 4:32.
[118] Cf. Paul VI, HUMANAE VITAE, 9.
[119] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 48.
[120] Cf. Second Vatican Council, DEI VERBUM, 1.
[121] Rom. 16:26.
[122] Cf. Paul VI, HUMANAE VITAE, 25.
[123] EVANGELII NUNTIANDI, 71.
[124] Cf. Address to the Third General Assembly of the Bishops
of Latin America (Jan. 28, 1979(, IV, A: AAS 71 (1979), 204.
[125] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35.
[126] John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, CATECHISI TRADENDAE,
68: AAS 71 (1979), 1334.
[127] Cf. Ibid, 36, loc. cit. 1308.
[128] Cf. 1 Cor. 12:4-6; Eph. 4:12-13.
[129] Mk. 16:15.
[130] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 11.
[131] Acts. 1:8.
[132] Cf. 1 Pt. 3:1-2.
[133] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35; cf. APOSTOLICAM
ACTUOSITATEM, 11.
[134] Cf. Acts 18; Rom. 16:3-4.
[135] Cf. Second Vatican Council, AD GENTES, 39.
[136] Second Vatican Council, APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM, 30.
[137] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 10.
[138] Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 49.
[139] Ibid, 48.
[140] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 41.
[141] Second Vatican Council, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM, 59.
[142] Cf. 1 Pt. 2:5; Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM,
34.
[143] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 34.
[144] SACROSANTUM CONCILIUM, 78.
[145] Cf. Jn. 19:34.
[146] Section 25: AAS (1968), 499.
[147] Eph. 2:4.
[148] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical DIVES IN MISERICORDIA,
13: AAS 72 (1980), 1218-1219.
[149] 1 Pt. 2:5.
[150] Mt. 18:19-20.
[151] Second Vatican Council, GRAVISSIUM EDUCATIONIS, 3; cf.
Pope John Paul II, CATECHESI TRANDENDAE, 36: AAS 71 (1979), 1308.
[152] General Audience Address, Aug. 11, 1976: INSEGNAMENTI
DI PAOLO VI, XIV (1976), 640.
[153] Cf. SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM, 12.
[154] Cf. INSTITUTIO GENRALIS DE LITUGIA HORARUM, 27.
[155] Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation MARIALIS CULTUS, 52,
54: AAS 66 (1974), 160-161.
[156] John Paul II, Address at the Mentorella Shrine (Oct.
28, 1978): INSEGNAMENTI, I (1978), 78-79.
[157] Cf. Second Vatican Council, APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM,
4.
[158] Cf. John Paul I, Address to the Bishops of the 12th
Pastoral Region of the United States (Sept. 21, 1978): AAS, 70
(1978), 767.
[159] Rom. 8:2.
[160] Rom. 5:5.
[161] Cf. Mk. 10:45.
[162] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 36.
[163] APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM, 8.
[164] Cf. Synod of Bishops' Message to Christian Families
(Oct. 24, 1980), 12.
[165] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Third General Assembly
of the Bishops of Latin America (Jan. 28, 1979), IV, A: AAS 71
(1979), 204.
[166] Cf. Second Vatican Council, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM,
10.
[167] Cf. ORDO CELBRANDI MATRIMONIUM, 17.
[168] Cf. Second Vatican Council, SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM,
59.
[169] Second Vatican Council, PERFECTAE CARITATIS, 12.
[170] John Paul II, Address to the Confederation of Family
Advisory Bureaus of Christian Inspiration (Nov. 29, 1980), 3-4:
INSEGNAMENTI III, 2 (1980), 1453-1454.
[171] Paul VI, Message for the Third Social Communications
Day (April 7, 1969): AAS 61 (1969), 455.
[172] John Paul II, Message for the 1980 World Social Communications
Day (May 1, 1980): INSEGNAMENTI III, 1 (1980), 1042.
[173] John Paul II, Message for the 1981 World Social Communications
Day (May 10, 1981): L'Osservatore Romano, May 22, 1981.
[174] Ibid.
[175] Paul VI, Message for the Third Social Communications
Day (April 7, 1969): AAS 61 (1969), 456.
[176] John Paul II, Message for the 1980 World Social Communications
Day, loc. cit. 1044.
[178] Cf. Paul VI, Motu Proprio MATRIMONIA MIXTA, 4-5:
AAS 62 (1970).
[179] Instruction IN QUIBUS RERUM CIRCUMSTANTIIS (June 15,
1972):
AAS 64 (1972), 518-525; Note on Oct. 17, 1973; AAS
65 (1973), 616-619.
[180] John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod
of Bishops, 7 (Oct. 25, 1980): AAS 72 (1980), 1082.
[181] Mt. 11:28.
[182] John Paul II, Letter APPROPINQUAT IAM (Aug. 15, 1980),
1: AAS 72 (1980), 791.
[183] The Roman Missal, Preface of Christ the King.
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