Realism and adequacy of the Catholic model of marriage and family
Attacks on the traditional family model in the so-called postmodern world are more and more clearly visible. In the name of pluralism and tolerance, as well as individualism and specific experimentation, there are noticeable tendencies to undermine the natural, universal, necessary and irreplaceable character of the family, built on a formalized, permanent relationship between a woman and a man. At the same time, the thesis that the family does not have "roots" in human nature is being promoted, but rather in culture and social tradition. The same tendency is visible today with regard to the so-called the cultural and social sex (gender), which has a great influence on the understanding, or rather a falsification of the image of the human person, and through it - marriage and family.
Apart from the traditional model of marriage and family, alternative forms of "marriage and family" life appear, such as: cohabitation, reconstructed family, nomadic family, monoparentality, DINKS (Double Income No Kids), LAT (Living Apart Together - together, but separately), LiL (Live in Lover - life with the beloved), singles, homosexual relationships, etc. The emergence of alternative models of marriage and family is fostered by changes in morality, as well as legislative processes and related changes in legislation, aimed at redefining marriage and family.
The above-mentioned phenomena lead to a family crisis, which is additionally generated by great social problems, such as unemployment, increasing poverty, economic emigration. The lack of family policy, often confused with social assistance, also contributes to the crisis of the modern family.
John Paul II recalled in his teaching that the Church, accompanying man for over two thousand years in his joys and hopes, sorrows and fears, has great "experience in human matters". Through her teachings and activities, the Church constantly defends human dignity and rights. An expression of her concern for the human person and the basic environments in which it lives, and works is Churcher’s Catholic social teaching.
Marriage and family issues occupy one of the most important places in the contemporary teaching of the Church. John Paul II wrote in the exhortation Familiaris Consortio devoted to the family that " 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, illuminating the second and assisting the others, the Church offers her services to every person who wonders about the destiny of marriage and the family"(no. 1).
The Church knows that the family is a fundamental good and value of every person and of all societies. For the life of every person, and through him of individual societies and states, is organically connected with the family. Every Nation begins with the love of a wife and husband, grows under the hearts of mothers, develops and matures in morally healthy families. A man-to-woman marriage, monogamous and lasting family is a necessary and irreplaceable foundation of society. It is therefore understandable that all - without exception - institutions of social life have a service task towards the family.
The awareness of the place and role of marriage and the family in the personal and social development of every human being allowed John Paul II to say that the family is for the Church "the first and for many reasons the most important" and that it is "the first and irreplaceable school of social life. […] 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 to building up the world, by making possible a life that is properly speaking human, in particular by guarding and transmitting virtues and "values." "(Familiaris Consortio, No. 43).
The Church, accompanying the family in the modern era, notices its lights and shadows, which is reflected, for example, in the already mentioned apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (No. 4-10) and in the Letter to Families (No. 13-14, 19-22) and in many other documents, such as the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, including the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (No. 47-52), the Code of Canon Law (can. 1055-1165), the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 369-373, 2331-2400), The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (No. 209-254), as well as occasional speeches.
The Catholic Church is aware of the fact that because "the family is the history of man", it is therefore "in the midst of this great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and everything that is its opposite" (John Paul II, Letter to Families, No. 3). In view of this situation, the Church feels compelled to "save and implement the whole truth and the full dignity of marriage and the family" (John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, No. 5), helping these communities discover their deepest identity and become what they are in its nature (see ibid., no. 17).
In accordance with natural law, the Church's teaching on marriage and the family is interdisciplinary. It uses the achievements of familiological sciences, psychology, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology and ethics. All this reflection is completed with the wisdom dimension of philosophy and theology, because, as the Pope emphasized, "the future fate of the world is in danger if people do not become wiser" (Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, No. 8). Therefore, the analyzed and discussed teaching finds its deepening and confirmation in Revelation, i.e., in the mind of the Creator God, who guards the truth about the analyzed communities, bringing undeniable value to the understanding of their nature and identity.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george