Apostolic Exhortation FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO (On the Family) of His Holiness, Pope John Paul
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
--------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.
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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.
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PART ONE
BRIGHT SPOTS AND SHADOWS FOR THE FAMILY TODAY
4. The Need to Understand the Situation.
----------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------
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 ------
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Faithful.
---------
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 sin -- which has profoundly
penetrated the structures of today's world -- and 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.
------------------
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].
--------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[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.
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PART TWO
THE PLAN OF GOD FOR MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
11. Man, the Image of the God Who Is Love.
------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------
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
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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 enter -- appeal 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.
---------------------------------------
In matrimony and in the family a complex of interpersonal
relationships is set up -- married life, fatherhood and motherhood,
filiation and fraternity -- through 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.
---------------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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 family -- between
parents and children, brothers and sisters and relatives and
members of the household -- is 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 levels -- of 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 apostles -- these 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,
prostitution -- especially in an organized form -- and 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].
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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 creator -- that
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 conditions -- psychological, moral
and spiritual -- indispensable 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
priests -- a 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 all -- doctors, experts, marriage counselors,
teachers and married couples -- who 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].
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[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.
------------------------------------------------------------------
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 person -- body, emotions and soul -- and 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 serenity -- while
still in the years of innocence -- by 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 Christ -- both the
eucharistic and the ecclesial body -- they 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 itself -- both civil
and ecclesial -- demands 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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 escapism -- such as alcoholism, drugs and even
terrorism -- the 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 state -- must 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 aids -- economic, social,
educational, political and cultural assistance -- that 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 love -- both
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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 family -- a 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 reality -- by 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 news -- the
good news -- of 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. 