APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO
OF
POPE
JOHN PAUL II
TO THE EPISCOPATE
TO THE CLERGY AND TO THE
FAITHFUL
OF THE WHOLE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON THE ROLE
OF THE CHRISTIAN
FAMILY
IN THE MODERN WORLD
INTRODUCTION
The Church at the Service of the Family
1. 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, illuminating the second and assisting the others, the
Church offers her services to every person who wonders about the destiny of
marriage and the family.(1)
In a particular way the Church addresses the young, who are beginning their
journey towards 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.
The Synod of 1980 in Continuity with Preceding Synods
2. A sign of this profound interest of the Church in the family was the last
Synod of Bishops, held in Rome from September 26 to October 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 ministerilal 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.
The Precious Value of Marriage and of the Family
3. 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 all
those who are called to marriage and are preparing for it, to all married
couples and parents in the world.
The Church is deeply convinced that only by the acceptance of the Gospel are
the hopes that man legitimately places in marriage and in the family capable of
being fulfilled.
Willed by God in the very act of creation,(3) marriage and the family are
interiorly ordained to fulfillment in Christ(4) and have need of His graces in
order to be healed from the wounds of sin(5) and restored to their "beginning,"(6)
that is, to full understanding and the full realization of God's plan.
At a moment of history in which the family is the object of numerous forces
that seek to destroy it or in some way to deform it, and aware that the
well-being of society and her own good are intimately tied to the good of the
family,(7) the Church perceives in a more urgent and compelling way her mission
of proclaiming to all people the plan of God for marriage and the family,
ensuring their full vitality and human and Christian development, and thus
contributing to the renewal of society and of the People of God.
PART ONE
BRIGHT SPOTS AND SHADOWS FOR THE FAMILY TODAY
The Need To Understand the Situation
4. 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 the 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 endanger freedom
and the capacity for objective judgment.
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.
Evangelical Discernment
5. 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 (cf. 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, in as much
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 the 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 the faith in all the faithful, examine and
authoritatively 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 specific gift, the gift of the sacrament of matrimony.(15)
The Situation of the Family in the World Today
6. The situation in which the family finds itself presents positive and
negative aspects: the first are 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, to 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 that, 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 towards 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 well-known 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.
The Influence of Circumstances on the Consciences of the Faithful
7. 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
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 to 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 the moral norms that guide and promote
the human and Christian exercise of sexuality in marriage.
Our Age Needs Wisdom
8. 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.
Gradualness and Conversion
9. 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 lead us ever forward. Thus a dynamic
process develops, one which advances 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.
Inculturation
10. 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 towards 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 towards the
full restoration of the covenant with the Wisdom of God, which is Christ
Himself. The whole Church will be enriched also by the cultures which, though
lacking technology, abound in human wisdom and are enlivened by profound moral
values.
So that the goal of this journey might be clear and consequently the way
plainly indicated, the Synod was right to begin by considering in depth the
original design of God for marriage and the family: it "went back to the
beginning," in deference to the teaching of Christ.(19)
PART TWO
THE PLAN OF GOD FOR MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY
Man, the Image of the God Who Is Love
11. 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 own 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
part 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.
Marriage and Communion Between God and People
12. 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 of
faithful love which should exist between spouses.
Jesus Christ, Bridegroom of the Church, and the Sacrament of
Matrimony
13. 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(23); 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."(24)
Receiving and meditating faithfully on the word of God, the Church has
solemnly taught and continues 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 sacramentality 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, towards 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 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 it 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)
Children, the Precious Gift of Marriage
14. 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 are ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom they
find their 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 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.
The Family, a Communion of Persons
15. 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 the
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 the 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 grow 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
their turn can enter the Church.
Marriage and Virginity or Celibacy
16. Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God not only does
not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes it and confirms it.
Marriage and virginity or celibacy are two ways of expressing and living the one
mystery of the covenant of God with His people. When marriage is not esteemed,
neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not
regarded as a great value given by the Creator, the renunciation of it for the
sake of the Kingdom of Heaven loses its meaning.
Rightly indeed does St. John Chrysostom say: "Whoever denigrates
marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity. Whoever praises it makes
virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison
with evil would not be particularly good. It is something better than what is
admitted to be good that is the most excellent good."(38)
In virginity or celibacy, the human being is awaiting, also in a bodily way,
the eschatological marriage of Christ with the Church, giving himself or herself
completely to the Church in the hope that Christ may give Himself to the Church
in the full truth of eternal life. The celibate person thus anticipates in his
or her flesh the new world of the future resurrection.(39)
By virtue of this witness, virginity or celibacy keeps alive in the Church a
consciousness of the mystery of marriage and defends it from any reduction and
impoverishment.
Virginity or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way,(40) "so
as to make it burn with greater love for God and all humanity,"(41) bears
witness that the Kingdom of God and His justice is that pearl of great price
which is preferred to every other value no matter how great, and hence must be
sought as the only definitive value. It is for this reason that the Church,
throughout her history, has always defended the superiority of this charism to
that of marriage, by reason of the wholly singular link which it has with the
Kingdom of God.(42)
In spite of having renounced physical fecundity, the celibate person becomes
spiritually fruitful, the father and mother of many, cooperating in the
realization of the family according to God's plan.
Christian couples therefore have the right to expect from celibate persons a
good example and a witness of fidelity to their vocation until death. Just as
fidelity at times becomes difficult for married people and requires sacrifice,
mortification and self-denial, the same can happen to celibate persons, and
their fidelity, even in the trials that may occur, should strengthen the
fidelity of married couples.(43)
These reflections on virginity or celibacy can enlighten and help those who,
for reasons independent of their own will, have been unable to marry and have
then accepted their situation in a spirit of service.
PART THREE
THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY
Family, Become What You Are
17. 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 life 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 expressive 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:
1) forming a community of persons;
2) serving life;
3) participating in the development of society;
4) sharing in the life and mission of the Church.
I - FORMING A COMMUNITY OF PERSONS
Love as the Principle and Power of Communion
18. 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 an 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.
The Indivisible Unity of Conjugal Communion
19. 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 towards
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)
An Indissoluble Communion
20. 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 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 the 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 He 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
the 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 and of Christian hope have not entered
a new union: these spouses too 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.
The Broader Communion of the Family
21. Conjugal communion constitutes the foundation on which is built the
broader communion of the 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 first-born 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 building, 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 towards 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 reestablished,
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 towards
the fullness of communion willed by God, responding in this way to the ardent
desire of the Lord: "that they may be one."(62)
The Rights and Role of Women
22. In that it is, and ought always 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 of the dignity of
women.
In creating the human race "male and female,"(64) God gives man
and woman an equal personal dignity, endowing them with 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
towards 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 Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave
nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."(65)
Women and Society
23. 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 and in rearing children.(66) Therefore
the Church can and should help modern society by tirelessly insisting that the
work of women 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 their 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 of it, without disregarding the differences of customs and cultures in
this sphere.
Offenses Against Women's Dignity
24. 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 men 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.
Men as Husbands and Fathers
25. 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 fit for him,"(67)
and he makes his own 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 a 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
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 towards his wife a charity that
is both gentle and strong like 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
solicitous 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.
The Rights of Children
26. 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
for 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 on October 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 wish can I express for every nation and for 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 own precious contribution to building up the family community and
even to the sanctification of their parents.(78)
The Elderly in the Family
27. There are cultures which manifest a unique veneration and great love for
the elderly: far from being outcasts from the family or merely tolerated as a
useless burden, they continue to be present and to take an active and
responsible part in family life, though having to respect the autonomy of the
new family; above all they carry out the important mission of being a witness to
the past and a source of wisdom for the young and for the future.
Other cultures, however, especially in the wake of disordered industrial and
urban development, have both in the past and in the present set the elderly
aside in unacceptable ways. This causes acute suffering to them and spiritually
impoverishes many families.
The pastoral activity of the Church must help everyone to discover and to
make good use of the role of the elderly within the civil and ecclesial
community, in particular within the family. In fact, "the life of the aging
helps to clarify a scale of human values; it shows the continuity of generations
and marvelously demonstrates the interdependence of God's people. The elderly
often have the charism to bridge generation gaps before they are made: how many
children have found understanding and love in the eyes and words and caresses of
the aging! And how many old people have willingly subscribed to the inspired
word that the 'crown of the aged is their children's children' (Prv. 17:6)!"(79)
II - SERVING LIFE
1. The Transmission of Life
Cooperators in the Love of God the Creator
28. 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 in His power as Creator and Father, 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 selfgiving 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.
The Church's Teaching and Norm, Always Old Yet Always New
29. 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 afterwards 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)
The Church Stands for Life
30. 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 technical 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)
That God's Design May Be Ever More Completely Fulfilled
31. 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 hierarchical 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.
In an Integral Vision of the Human Person and of His or Her
Vocation
32. In the context of a culture which seriously distorts or entirely
misinterprets the true meaning of human sexuality, because it separates it from
its essential 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."(85)
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 the 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" selfgiving, without manipulation or alteration.(90)
In the 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.
The Church as Teacher and Mother for Couples in Difficulty
33. 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 the
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 many 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 the 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
the 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 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 alone in the 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 selfcontrol: hence the absolute necessity for the virtue of
chastity and for permanent education in it. In the Christian view, chastily by
no means signifies rejection of human sexuality or 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 towards 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 undoubtedly 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 on it 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
in the education of their offspring.
The Moral Progress of Married People
34. 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 of 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 towards 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 known 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
should first of all 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 however called to harmonize their mentality and behavior: this requires
much patience, understanding and time. Uniquely important in this field is unity
of moral and pastoral judgment 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 the
authentic love that is offered by the Gospel and set before us by the Lord's
commandment. Instilling Conviction and Offering Practical Help
35. 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 a 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 the 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)
2. Education
The Right and Duty of Parents Regarding Education
36. 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 to
growth and development, parents by that very fact take on 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 these 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.
Educating in the Essential Values of Human Life
37. Even amid the 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 life style 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 and 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 reduces human sexuality to the level of something
common place, 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 form 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.
The Mission To Educate and the Sacrament of Marriage
38. 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 gifts 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 Saint 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 their 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.
First Experience of the Church
39. 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. 1 Pt. 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 the 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
educating, 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.
Relations with Other Educating Agents
40. 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 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
the school authorities.
If ideologics opposed to the Christian faith are taught in the schools, the
family must join with other families, if possible through family associations,
and with all its strength and with wisdom help the young 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.
Manifold Service to Life
41. Fruitful married love 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 towards 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 them.
Rediscovering the warmth of affection of a family, these children will be able
to experience God's loving and provident fatherhood witnessed to by Christian
parents, and they will thus be able to grow up with serenity and confidence in
life. At the same time the whole family will be enriched with the spiritual
values of a wider fraternity. Family fecundity must have an unceasing "creativity,"
a marvelous fruit of the Spirit of God, who opens the eyes of the heart to
discover the new needs and sufferings of our society and gives courage for
accepting them and responding to them. A vast field of activity. lies open to
families: today, even more preoccupying than child abandonment is the phenomenon
of social and cultural exclusion, which seriously affects the elderly, the sick,
the disabled, drug addicts, ex-prisoners, etc.
This broadens enormously the horizons of the parenthood of Christian
families: these and many other urgent needs of our time are a challenge to their
spiritually fruitful love. With families and through them, the Lord Jesus
continues to "have compassion" on the multitudes.
III - PARTICIPATING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY
The Family as the First and Vital Cell of Society
42. "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.
Family Life as an Experience of Communion and Sharing
43. 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, and example and
stimulus for the broader community 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 to 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 anonymity, 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.
The Social and Political Role
44. 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, to 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 known 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 also holds good
for the family as such."(110)
Society at the Service of the Family
45. Just as the intimate connection between the family and society demands
that the family be open to and participate in society and 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.
By virtue of this principle, the State cannot and must not take away 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.
The Charter of Family Rights
46. 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 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 a 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 usurpations 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; family life;
- the right to the intimacy of conjugal and family life;
- 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 to 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.
The Christian Family's Grace and Responsibility
47. 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 upon 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.
For a New International Order
48. 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 given 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, towards 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 by
supporting in various ways the associations specifically devoted to
international issues.
IV - SHARING IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH
The Family, Within the Mystery of the Church
49. 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 domestica),(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.(116)
A Specific and Original Ecclesial Role
50. 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"(117) in
faith, through the shared apostolic zeal that animates them, and through their
shared commitment to works of service to 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.
1. The Christian Family as a Believing and Evangelizing Community
Faith as the Discovery and Admiring Awareness of God's Plan for the
Family
51. 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.
The Christian Family's Ministry of Evangelization
52. To the extent in which the Christian family accepts the Gospel and
matures in faith, it becomes an evangelizing community. Let us listen again to
Paul VI: "The family, like the Church, ought to be a place where the Gospel
is transmitted and from which the Gospel radiates. In a family which is
conscious of this mission, all the members evangelize and are evangelized. The
parents not only communicate the Gospel to their children, but from their
children they can themselves receive the same Gospel as deeply lived by them.
And such a family becomes the evangelizer of many other families, and of the
neighborhood of which it forms part."(123)
As the Synod repeated, taking up the appeal which I launched at Puebla, the
future of evangelization depends in great part on the Church of the home.(124)
This apostolic mission of the family is rooted in Baptism and receives from the
grace of the sacrament of marriage new strength to transmit the faith, to
sanctify and transform our present society according to God's plan.
Particularly today, the Christian family has a special vocation to witness
to the paschal covenant of Christ by constantly radiating the joy of love and
the certainty of the hope for which it must give an account: "The Christian
family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the
hope of a blessed life to come."(125)
The absolute need for family catechesis emerges with particular force in
certain situations that the Church unfortunately experiences in some places: "In
places where anti-religious legislation endeavors even to prevent education in
the faith, and in places where widespread unbelief or invasive secularism makes
real religious growth practically impossible, 'the Church of the home' remains
the one place where children and young people can receive an authentic
catechesis."(126)
Ecclesial Service
53. The ministry of evangelization carried out by Christian parents is
original and irreplaceable. It assumes the characteristics typical of family
life itself, which should be interwoven with love, simplicity, practicality and
daily witness.(127)
The family must educate the children for life in such a way that each one
may fully perform his or her role according to the vocation received from God.
Indeed, the family that is open to transcendent values, that serves its brothers
and sisters with joy, that fulfills its duties with generous fidelity, and is
aware of its daily sharing in the mystery of the glorious Cross of Christ,
becomes the primary and most excellent seed-bed of vocations to a life of
consecration to the Kingdom of God.
The parents' ministry of evangelization and catechesis ought to play a part
in their children's lives also during adolescence and youth, when the children,
as often happens, challenge or even reject the Christian faith received in
earlier years. Just as in the Church the work of evangelization can never be
separated from the sufferings of the apostle, so in the Christian family parents
must face with courage and great interior serenity the difficulties that their
ministry of evangelization sometimes encounters in their own children.
It should not be forgotten that the service rendered by Christian spouses
and parents to the Gospel is essentially an ecclesial service. It has its place
within the context of the whole Church as an evangelized and evangelizing
community. In so far as the ministry of evangelization and catechesis of the
Church of the home is rooted in and derives from the one mission of the Church
and is ordained to the upbuilding of the one Body of Christ,(128) it must remain
in intimate communion and collaborate responsibly with all the other
evangelizing and catechetical activities present and at work in the ecclesial
community at the diocesan and parochial levels.
To Preach the Gospel to the Whole Creation
54. Evangelization, urged on within by irrepressible missionary zeal, is
characterized by a universality without boundaries. It is the response to
Christ's explicit and unequivocal command: "Go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to the whole creation."(129)
The Christian family's faith and evangelizing mission also possesses this
catholic missionary inspiration. The sacrament of marriage takes up and
reproposes the task of defending and spreading the faith, a task that has its
roots in Baptism and Confirmation,(130) and makes Christian married couples and
parents witnesses of Christ "to the end of the earth,"(131)
missionaries, in the true and proper sense, of love and life.
A form of missionary activity can be exercised even within the family. This
happens when some member of the family does not have the faith or does not
practice it with consistency. In such a case the other members must give him or
her a living witness of their own faith in order to encourage and support him or
her along the path towards full acceptance of Christ the Savior.(132)
Animated in its own inner life by missionary zeal, the Church of the home is
also called to be a luminous sign of the presence of Christ and of His love for
those who are "far away," for families who do not yet believe, and for
those Christian families who no longer live in accordance with the faith that
they once received. The Christian family is called to enlighten "by its
example and its witness...those who seek the truth."(133)
Just as at the dawn of Christianity Aquila and Priscilla were presented as a
missionary couple,(134) so today the Church shows forth her perennial newness
and fruitfulness by the presence of Christian couples and families who dedicate
at least a part of their lives to working in missionary territories, proclaiming
the Gospel and doing service to their fellowman in the love of Jesus Christ.
Christian families offer a special contribution to the missionary cause of
the Church by fostering missionary vocations among their sons and daughters(135)
and, more generally, "by training their children from childhood to
recognize God's love for all people."(136)
2. The Christian Family as a Community in Dialogue with God
The Church's Sanctuary in the Home
55. The proclamation of the Gospel and its acceptance in faith reach their
fullness in the celebration of the sacraments. The Church which is a believing
and evangelizing community is also a priestly people invested with the dignity
and sharing in the power of Christ the High Priest of the New and Eternal
Covenant.(137)
The Christian family too is part of this priestly people which is the
Church. By means of the sacrament of marriage, in which it is rooted and from
which it draws its nourishment, the Christian family is continuously vivified by
the Lord Jesus and called and engaged by Him in a dialogue with God through the
sacraments, through the offering of one's life, and through prayer.
This is the priestly role which the Christian family can and ought to
exercise in intimate communion with the whole Church, through the daily
realities of married and family life. In this way the Christian family is called
to be sanctified and to sanctify the ecclesial community and the world.
Marriage as a Sacrament of Mutual Sanctification and an Act of
Worship
56. The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original means of
sanctification for Christian married couples and families. It takes up again
and makes specific the sanctifying grace of Baptism. By virtue of the mystery of
the death and Resurrection of Christ, of which the spouses are made part in a
new way by marriage, conjugal love is purified and made holy: "This love
the Lord has judged worthy of special gifts, healing, perfecting and exalting
gifts of grace and of charity."(138)
The gift of Jesus Christ is not exhausted in the actual celebration of the
sacrament of marriage, but rather accompanies the married couple throughout
their lives. This fact is explicitly recalled by the Second Vatican Council when
it says that Jesus Christ "abides with them so that, just as He loved the
Church and handed Himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other
with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal.... For this reason,
Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and
receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By
virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfill their conjugal and family
obligations, they are penetrated with the Spirit of Christ, who fills their
whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance towards
their own perfection, as well as towards their mutual sanctification, and hence
contribute jointly to the glory of God."(139)
Christian spouses and parents are included in the universal call to
sanctity. For them this call is specified by the sacrament they have celebrated
and is carried out concretely in the realities proper to their conjugal and
family life.(140) This gives rise to the grace and requirement of an authentic
and profound conjugal and family spirituality that draws its inspiration from
the themes of creation, covenant, cross, resurrection, and sign, which were
stressed more than once by the Synod.
Christian marriage, like the other sacraments, "whose purpose is to
sanctify people, to build up the body of Christ, and finally, to give worship to
God,"(141) is in itself a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus Christ
and in the Church. By celebrating it, Christian spouses profess their gratitude
to God for the sublime gift bestowed on them of being able to live in their
married and family lives the very love of God for people and that of the Lord
Jesus for the Church, His bride.
Just as husbands and wives receive from the sacrament the gift and
responsibility of translating into daily living the sanctification bestowed on
them, so the same sacrament confers on them the grace and moral obligation of
transforming their whole lives into a "spiritual sacrifice."(142) What
the Council says of the laity applies also to Christian spouses and parents,
especially with regard to the earthly and temporal realities that characterize
their lives: "As worshippers leading holy lives in every place, the laity
consecrate the world itself to God."(143)
Marriage and the Eucharist
57. The Christian family's sanctifying role is grounded in Baptism and has
its highest expression in the Eucharist, to which Christian marriage is
intimately connected. The Second Vatican Council drew attention to the unique
relationship between the Eucharist and marriage by requesting that "marriage
normally be celebrated within the Mass."(144) To understand better and live
more intensely the graces and responsibilities of Christian marriage and family
life, it is altogether necessary to rediscover and strengthen this relationship.
The Eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage. The Eucharistic
Sacrifice, in fact, represents Christ's covenant of love with the Church, sealed
with His blood on the Cross.(145) In this sacrifice of the New and Eternal
Covenant, Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage
covenant flows, is interiorly structured and continuously renewed. As a
representation of Christ's sacrifice of love for the Church, the Eucharist is a
fountain of charity. In the Eucharistic gift of charity the Christian family
finds the foundation and soul of its "communion" and its "mission":
by partaking in the Eucharistic bread, the different members of the Christian
family become one body, which reveals and shares in the wider unity of the
Church. Their sharing in the Body of Christ that is "given up" and in
His Blood that is "shed" becomes a never-ending source of missionary
and apostolic dynamism for the Christian family.
The Sacrament of Conversion and Reconciliation
58. An essential and permanent part of the Christian family's sanctifying
role consists in accepting the call to conversion that the Gospel addresses to
all Christians, who do not always remain faithful to the "newness" of
the Baptism that constitutes them "saints." The Christian family too
is sometimes unfaithful to the law of baptismal grace and holiness proclaimed
anew in the sacrament of marriage.
Repentance and mutual pardon within the bosom of the Christian family, so
much a part of daily life, receive their specific sacramental expression in
Christian Penance. In the Encyclical Humanae vitae, Paul VI wrote of married
couples: "And if sin should still keep its hold over them, let them not be
discouraged, but rather have recourse with humble perseverance to the mercy of
God, which is abundantly poured forth in the sacrament of Penance."(146)
The celebration of this sacrament acquires special significance for family
life. While they discover in faith that sin contradicts not only the covenant
with God, but also the covenant between husband and wife and the communion of
the family, the married couple and the other members of the family are led to an
encounter with God, who is "rich in mercy,"(147) who bestows on them
His love which is more powerful than sin,(148) and who reconstructs and brings
to perfection the marriage covenant and the family communion.
Family Prayer
59. The Church prays for the Christian family and educates the family to
live in generous accord with the priestly gift and role received from Christ the
High Priest. In effect, the baptismal priesthood of the faithful, exercised in
the sacrament of marriage, constitutes the basis of a priestly vocation and
mission for the spouses and family by which their daily lives are transformed
into "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."(149)
This transformation is achieved not only by celebrating the Eucharist and the
other sacraments and through offering themselves to the glory of God, but also
through a life of prayer, through prayerful dialogue with the Father, through
Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities. It is prayer offered in
common, husband and wife together, parents and children together. Communion in
prayer is both a consequence of and a requirement for the communion bestowed by
the sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony. The words with which the Lord Jesus
promises His presence can be applied to the members of the Christian family in a
special way: "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about
anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where
two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."(150)
Family prayer has for its very own object family life itself, which in all
its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God and lived as a filial
response to His call. Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and
birthday celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures,
separations and homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of
those who are dear, etc.-all of these mark God's loving intervention in the
family's history. They should be seen as suitable moments for thanksgiving, for
petition, for trusting abandonment of the family into the hands of their common
Father in heaven. The dignity and responsibility of the Christian family as the
domestic Church can be achieved only with God's unceasing aid, which will surely
be granted if it is humbly and trustingly petitioned in prayer.
Educators in Prayer
60. By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have the
specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer, introducing them
to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to personal dialogue with Him: "It
is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and the office of
the sacrament of Matrimony, that from the earliest years children should be
taught, according to the faith received in Baptism, to have a knowledge of God,
to worship Him and to love their neighbor."(151)
The concrete example and living witness of parents is fundamental and
irreplaceable in educating their children to pray. Only by praying together with
their children can a father and mother-exercising their royal
priesthood-penetrate the innermost depths of their children's hearts and leave
an impression that the future events in their lives will not be able to efface.
Let us again listen to the appeal made by Paul VI to parents: "Mothers, do
you teach your children the Christian prayers? Do you prepare them, in
conjunction with the priests, for the sacraments that they receive when they are
young: Confession, Communion and Confirmation? Do you encourage them when they
are sick to think of Christ suffering to invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin
and the saints Do you say the family rosary together? And you, fathers, do you
pray with your children, with the whole domestic community, at least sometimes?
Your example of honesty in thought and action, joined to some common prayer, is
a lesson for life, an act of worship of singular value. In this way you bring
peace to your homes: Pax huic domui. Remember, it is thus that you build up the
Church."(152)
Liturgical Prayer and Private Prayer
61. There exists a deep and vital bond between the prayer of the Church and
the prayer of the individual faithful, as has been clearly reaffirmed by the
Second Vatican Council.(153) An important purpose of the prayer of the domestic
Church is to serve as the natural introduction for the children to the
liturgical prayer of the whole Church, both in the sense of preparing for it and
of extending it into personal, family and social life. Hence the need for
gradual participation by all the members of the Christian family in the
celebration of the Eucharist, especially on Sundays and feast days, and of the
other sacraments, particularly the sacraments of Christian initiation of the
children. The directives of the Council opened up a new possibility for the
Christian family when it listed the family among those groups to whom it
recommends the recitation of the Divine Office in common.(154) Likewise, the
Christian family will strive to celebrate at home, and in a way suited to the
members, the times and feasts of the liturgical year.
As preparation for the worship celebrated in church, and as its prolongation
in the home, the Christian family makes use of private prayer, which presents a
great variety of forms. While this variety testifies to the extraordinary
richness with which the Spirit vivifies Christian prayer, it serves also to meet
the various needs and life situations of those who turn to the Lord in prayer.
Apart from morning and evening prayers, certain forms of prayer are to be
expressly encouraged, following the indications of the Synod Fathers, such as
reading and meditating on the word of God, preparation for the reception of the
sacraments, devotion and consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the various
forms of veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grace before and after meals,
and observance of popular devotions.
While respecting the freedom of the children of God, the Church has always
proposed certain practices of piety to the faithful with particular solicitude
and insistence. Among these should be mentioned the recitation of the rosary: "We
now desire, as a continuation of the thought of our predecessors, to recommend
strongly the recitation of the family rosary.... There is no doubt that... the
rosary should be considered as one of the best and most efficacious prayers in
common that the Christian family is invited to recite. We like to think, and
sincerely hope, that when the family gathering becomes a time of prayer the
rosary is a frequent and favored manner of praying."(155) In this way
authentic devotion to Mary, which finds expression in sincere love and generous
imitation of the Blessed Virgin's interior spiritual attitude, constitutes a
special instrument for nourishing loving communion in the family and for
developing conjugal and family spirituality. For she who is the Mother of Christ
and of the Church is in a special way the Mother of Christian families, of
domestic Churches.
Prayer and Life
62. It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential part
of Christian life, understood in its fullness and centrality. Indeed, prayer is
an important part of our very humanity: it is "the first expression of
man's inner truth, the first condition for authentic freedom of spirit."(156)
Far from being a form of escapism from everyday commitments, prayer
constitutes the strongest incentive for the Christian family to assume and
comply fully with all its responsibilities as the primary and fundamental cell
of human society. Thus the Christian family's actual participation in the
Church's life and mission is in direct proportion to the fidelity and intensity
of the prayer with which it is united with the fruitful vine that is Christ the
Lord.(157)
The fruitfulness of the Christian family in its specific service to human
advancement, which of itself cannot but lead to the transformation of the world,
derives from its living union with Christ, nourished by Liturgy, by
self-oblation and by prayer.(158)
3. The Christian Family
The New Commandment of Love
63. The Church, a prophetic, priestly and kingly people, is endowed with the
mission of bringing all human beings to accept the word of God in faith, to
celebrate and profess it in the sacraments and in prayer, and to give expression
to it in the concrete realities of life in accordance with the gift and new
commandment of love.
The law of Christian life is to be found not in a written code, but in the
personal action of the Holy Spirit who inspires and guides the Christian. It is
the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"(159) "God's love
has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to
us."(160)
This is true also for the Christian couple and family. Their guide and rule
of life is the Spirit of Jesus poured into their hearts in the celebration of
the sacrament of Matrimony. In continuity with Baptism in water and the Spirit,
marriage sets forth anew the evangelical law of love, and with the gift of the
Spirit engraves it more profoundly on the hearts of Christian husbands and
wives. Their love, purified and saved, is a fruit of the Spirit acting in the
hearts of believers and constituting, at the same time, the fundamental
commandment of their moral life to be lived in responsible freedom.
Thus, the Christian family is inspired and guide by the new law of the
Spirit and, in intimate communion with the Church, the kingly people, it is
called to exercise its "service" of love towards God and towards its
fellow human beings. Just as Christ exercises His royal power by serving
us,(161) so also the Christian finds the authentic meaning of his participation
in the kingship of his Lord in sharing His spirit and practice of service to
man. "Christ has communicated this power to his disciples that they might
be established in royal freedom and that by self-denial and a holy life they
might conquer the reign of sin in themselves (cf. Rom. 6:12). Further, He has
shared this power so that by serving Him in their fellow human beings they might
through humility and patience lead their brothers and sisters to that King whom
to serve is to reign. For the Lord wishes to spread His kingdom by means of the
laity also, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a
kingdom of justice, love and peace. In this kingdom, creation itself will be
delivered out of its slavery to corruption and into the freedom of the glory of
the children of God (cf. Rom. 8:21). "(162)
To Discover the Image of God in Each Brother and Sister
64. Inspired and sustained by the new commandment of love, the Christian
family welcomes, respects and serves every human being, considering each one in
his or her dignity as a person and as a child of God.
It should be so especially between husband and wife and within the family,
through a daily effort to promote a truly personal community, initiated and
fostered by an inner communion of love. This way of life should then be extended
to the wider circle of the ecclesial community of which the Christian family is
a part. Thanks to love within the family, the Church can and ought to take on a
more homelike or family dimension, developing a more human and fraternal style
of relationships.
Love, too, goes beyond our brothers and sisters of the same faith since "everybody
is my brother or sister." In each individual, especially in the poor, the
weak, and those who suffer or are unjustly treated, love knows how to discover
the face of Christ, and discover a fellow human being to be loved and served.
In order that the family may serve man in a truly evangelical way, the
instructions of the Second Vatican Council must be carefully put into practice:
"That the exercise of such charity may rise above any deficiencies in fact
and even in appearance, certain fundamentals must be observed. Thus, attention
is to be paid to the image of God in which our neighbor has been created, and
also to Christ the Lord to whom is really offered whatever is given to a needy
person."(163)
While building up the Church in love, the Christian family places itself at
the service of the human person and the world, really bringing about the "human
advancement" whose substance was given in summary form in the Synod's
Message to families: "Another task for the family is to form persons in
love and also to practice love in all its relationships, so that it does not
live closed in on itself, but remains open to the community, moved by a sense of
justice and concern for others, as well as by a consciousness of its
responsibility towards the whole of society."(164)
PART FOUR
PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY: STAGES, STRUCTURES, AGENTS AND SITUATIONS
I - STAGES OF PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY
The Church Accompanies the Christian Family on Its Journey Through
Life
65. Like every other living reality, the family too is called upon to
develop and grow. After the preparation of engagement and the sacramental
celebration of marriage, the couple begin their daily journey towards the
progressive actuation of the values and duties of marriage itself.
In the light of faith and by virtue of hope, the Christian family too
shares, in communion with the Church, in the experience of the earthly
pilgrimage towards the full revelation and manifestation of the Kingdom of God.
Therefore, it must be emphasized once more that the pastoral intervention of
the Church in support of the family is a matter of urgency. Every effort should
be made to strengthen and develop pastoral care for the family, which should be
treated as a real matter of priority, in the certainty that future
evangelization depends largely on the domestic Church."(165)
The Church's pastoral concern will not be limited only to the Christian
families closest at hand; it will extend its horizons in harmony with the Heart
of Christ, and will show itself to be even more lively for families in general
and for those families in particular which are in difficult or irregular
situations. For all of them the Church will have a word of truth, goodness,
understanding, hope and deep sympathy with their sometimes tragic difficulties.
To all of them she will offer her disinterested help so that they can come
closer to that model of a family which the Creator intended from "the
beginning" and which Christ has renewed with His redeeming grace.
The Church's pastoral action must be progressive, also in the sense that it
must follow the family, accompanying it step by step in the different stages of
its formation and development.
Preparation for Marriage
66. More than ever necessary in our times is preparation of young people for
marriage and family life. In some countries it is still the families themselves
that, according to ancient customs, ensure the passing on to young people of the
values concerning married and family life, and they do this through a gradual
process of education or initiation. But the changes that have taken place within
almost all modern societies demand that not only the family but also society and
the Church should be involved in the effort of properly preparing young people
for their future responsibilities. Many negative phenomena which are today noted
with regret in family life derive from the fact that, in the new situations,
young people not only lose sight of the correct hierarchy of values but, since
they no longer have certain criteria of behavior, they do not know how to face
and deal with the new difficulties. But experience teaches that young people who
have been well prepared for family life generally succeed better than others.
This is even more applicable to Christian marriage, which influences the
holiness of large numbers of men and women. The Church must therefore promote
better and more intensive programs of marriage preparation, in order to
eliminate as far as possible the difficulties that many married couples find
themselves in, and even more in order to favor positively the establishing and
maturing of successful marriages.
Marriage preparation has to be seen and put into practice as a gradual and
continuous process. It includes three main stages: remote, proximate and
immediate preparation.
Remote preparation begins in early childhood, in that wise family training
which leads children to discover themselves as being endowed with a rich and
complex psychology and with a particular personality with its own strengths and
weaknesses. It is the period when esteem for all authentic human values is
instilled, both in interpersonal and in social relationships, with all that this
signifies for the formation of character, for the control and right use of one's
inclinations, for the manner of regarding and meeting people of the opposite
sex, and so on. Also necessary, especially for Christians, is solid spiritual
and catechetical formation that will show that marriage is a true vocation and
mission, without excluding the possibility of the total gift of self to God in
the vocation to the priestly or religious life.
Upon this basis there will subsequently and gradually be built up the
proximate preparation, which-from the suitable age and with adequate catechesis,
as in a catechumenal process-involves a more specific preparation for the
sacraments, as it were, a rediscovery of them. This renewed catechesis of young
people and others preparing for Christian marriage is absolutely necessary in
order that the sacrament may be celebrated and lived with the right moral and
spiritual dispositions. The religious formation of young people should be
integrated, at the right moment and in accordance with the various concrete
requirements, with a preparation for life as a couple. This preparation will
present marriage as an interpersonal relationship of a man and a woman that has
to be continually developed, and it will encourage those concerned to study the
nature of conjugal sexuality and responsible parenthood, with the essential
medical and biological knowledge connected with it. It will also acquaint those
concerned with correct methods for the education of children, and will assist
them in gaining the basic requisites for well-ordered family life, such as
stable work, sufficient financial resources, sensible administration, notions of
housekeeping.
Finally, one must not overlook preparation for the family apostolate, for
fraternal solidarity and collaboration with other families, for active
membership in groups, associations, movements and undertakings set up for the
human and Christian benefit of the family.
The immediate preparation for the celebration of the sacrament of Matrimony
should take place in the months and weeks immediately preceding the wedding, so
as to give a new meaning, content and form to the so-called premarital enquiry
required by Canon Law. This preparation is not only necessary in every case, but
is also more urgently needed for engaged couples that still manifest
shortcomings or difficulties in Christian doctrine and practice.
Among the elements to be instilled in this journey of faith, which is
similar to the catechumenate, there must also be a deeper knowledge of the
mystery of Christ and the Church, of the meaning of grace and of the
responsibility of Christian marriage, as well as preparation for taking an
active and conscious part in the rites of the marriage liturgy.
The Christian family and the whole of the ecclesial community should feel
involved in the different phases of the preparation for marriage, which have
been described only in their broad outlines. It is to be hoped that the
Episcopal Conferences, just as they are concerned with appropriate initiatives
to help engaged couples to be more aware of the seriousness of their choice and
also to help pastors of souls to make sure of the couples' proper dispositions,
so they will also take steps to see that there is issued a Directory for the
Pastoral Care of the Family. In this they should lay down, in the first place,
the minimum content, duration and method of the "Preparation Courses,"
balancing the different aspects-doctrinal, pedagogical, legal and
medical-concerning marriage, and structuring them in such a way that those
preparing for marriage will not only receive an intellectual training but will
also feel a desire to enter actively into the ecclesial community.
Although one must not underestimate the necessity and obligation of the
immediate preparation for marriage-which would happen if dispensations from it
were easily given-nevertheless such preparation must always be set forth and put
into practice in such a way that omitting it is not an impediment to the
celebration of marriage.
The Celebration
67. Christian marriage normally requires a liturgical celebration expressing
in social and community form the essentially ecclesial and sacramental nature of
the conjugal covenant between baptized persons.
Inasmuch as it is a sacramental action of sanctification, the celebration of
marriage-inserted into the liturgy, which is the summit of the Church's action
and the source of her sanctifying power(166) must be per se valid, worthy and
fruitful. This opens a wide field for pastoral solicitude, in order that the
needs deriving from the nature of the conjugal convent, elevated into a
sacrament, may be fully met, and also in order that the Church's discipline
regarding free consent, impediments, the canonical form and the actual rite of
the celebration may be faithfully observed. The celebration should be simple and
dignified, according to the norms of the competent authorities of the Church. It
is also for them-in accordance with concrete circumstances of time and place and
in conformity with the norms issued by the Apostolic See(167)-to include in the
liturgical celebration such elements proper to each culture which serve to
express more clearly the profound human and religious significance of the
marriage contract, provided that such elements contain nothing that is not in
harmony with Christian faith and morality.
Inasmuch as it is a sign, the liturgical celebration should be conducted in
such a way as to constitute, also in its external reality, a proclamation of the
word of God and a profession of faith on the part of the community of believers.
Pastoral commitment will be expressed here through the intelligent and careful
preparation of the Liturgy of the Word and through the education to faith of
those participating in the celebration and in the first place the couple being
married.
Inasmuch as it is a sacramental action of the Church, the liturgical
celebration of marriage should involve the Christian community, with the full,
active and responsible participation of all those present, according to the
place and task of each individual: the bride and bridegroom, the priest, the
witnesses, the relatives, the friends, the other members of the faithful, all of
them members of an assembly that manifests and lives the mystery of Christ and
His Church. For the celebration of Christian marriage in the sphere of ancestral
cultures or traditions, the principles laid down above should be followed.
Celebration of Marriage and Evangelization of Non-believing Baptized
Persons
68. Precisely because in the celebration of the sacrament very special
attention must be devoted to the moral and spiritual dispositions of those being
married, in particular to their faith, we must here deal with a not infrequent
difficulty in which the pastors of the Church can find themselves in the context
of our secularized society.
In fact, the faith of the person asking the Church for marriage can exist in
different degrees, and it is the primary duty of pastors to bring about a
rediscovery of this faith and to nourish it and bring it to maturity. But
pastors must also understand the reasons that lead the Church also to admit to
the celebration of marriage those who are imperfectly disposed.
The sacrament of Matrimony has this specific element that distinguishes it
from all the other sacraments: it is the sacrament of something that was part of
the very economy of creation; it is the very conjugal covenant instituted by the
Creator "in the beginning." Therefore the decision of a man and a
woman to marry in accordance with this divine plan, that is to say, the decision
to commit by their irrevocable conjugal consent their whole lives in
indissoluble love and unconditional fidelity, really involves, even if not in a
fully conscious way, an attitude of profound obedience to the will of God, an
attitude which cannot exist without God's grace. They have thus already begun
what is in a true and proper sense a journey towards salvation, a journey which
the celebration of the sacrament and the immediate preparation for it can
complement and bring to completion, given the uprightness of their intention.
On the other hand it is true that in some places engaged couples ask to be
married in church for motives which are social rather than genuinely religious.
This is not surprising. Marriage, in fact, is not an event that concerns only
the persons actually getting married. By its very nature it is also a social
matter, committing the couple being married in the eyes of society. And its
celebration has always been an occasion of rejoicing that brings together
families and friends. It therefore goes without saying that social as well as
personal motives enter into the request to be married in church.
Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that these engaged couples, by virtue
of their Baptism, are already really sharers in Christ's marriage Covenant with
the Church, and that, by their right intention, they have accepted God's plan
regarding marriage and therefore at least implicitly consent to what the Church
intends to do when she celebrates marriage. Thus, the fact that motives of a
social nature also enter into the request is not enough to justify refusal on
the part of pastors. Moreover, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, the
sacraments by words and ritual elements nourish and strengthen faith"(171):
that faith towards which the married couple are already journeying by reason of
the uprightness of their intention, which Christ's grace certainly does not fail
to favor and support.
As for wishing to lay down further criteria for admission to the ecclesial
celebration of marriage, criteria that would concern the level of faith of those
to be married, this would above all involve grave risks. In the first place, the
risk of making unfounded and discriminatory judgments; secondly, the risk of
causing doubts about the validity of marriages already celebrated, with grave
harm to Christian communities, and new and unjustified anxieties to the
consciences of married couples; one would also fall into the danger of calling
into question the sacramental nature of many marriages of brethren separated
from full communion with the Catholic Church, thus contradicting ecclesial
tradition.
However, when in spite of all efforts, engaged couples show that they reject
explicitly and formally what the Church intends to do when the marriage of
baptized persons is celebrated, the pastor of souls cannot admit them to the
celebration of marriage. In spite of his reluctance to do so, he has the duty to
take note of the situation and to make it clear to those concerned that, in
these circumstances, it is not the Church that is placing an obstacle in the way
of the celebration that they are asking for, but themselves.
Once more there appears in all its urgency the need for evangelization and
catechesis before and after marriage, effected by the whole Christian-community,
so that every man and woman that gets married celebrates the sacrament of
Matrimony not only validly but also fruitfully.
Pastoral Care After Marriage
69. The pastoral care of the regularly established family signifies, in
practice, the commitment of all the members of the local ecclesial community to
helping the couple to discover and live their new vocation and mission. In order
that the family may be ever more a true community of love, it is necessary that
all its members should be helped and trained in their responsibilities as they
face the new problems that arise, in mutual service, and in active sharing in
family life.
This holds true especially for young families, which, finding themselves in
a context of new values and responsibilities, are more vulnerable, especially in
the first years of marriage, to possible difficulties, such as those created by
adaptation to life together or by the birth of children. Young married couples
should learn to accept willingly, and make good use of, the discreet, tactful
and generous help offered by other couples that already have more experience of
married and family life. Thus, within the ecclesial community-the great family
made up of Christian families-there will take place a mutual exchange of
presence and help among all the families, each one putting at the service of
others its own experience of life, as well as the gifts of faith and grace.
Animated by a true apostolic spirit, this assistance from family to family will
constitute one of the simplest, most effective and most accessible means for
transmitting from one to another those Christian values which are both the
starting point and goal of all pastoral care. Thus young families will not limit
themselves merely to receiving, but in their turn, having been helped in this
way, will become a source of enrichment for other longer established families,
through their witness of life and practical contribution.
In her pastoral care of young families, the Church must also pay special
attention to helping them to live married love responsibly in relationship with
its demands of communion and service to life. She must likewise help them to
harmonize the intimacy of home life with the generous shared work of building up
the Church and society. When children are born and the married couple becomes a
family in the full and specific sense, the Church will still remain close to the
parents in order that they may accept their children and love them as a gift
received from the Lord of life, and joyfully accept the task of serving them in
their human and Christian growth.
II - STRUCTURES OF FAMILY PASTORAL CARE
Pastoral activity is always the dynamic expression of the reality of the
Church, committed to her mission of salvation. Family pastoral care too-which is
a particular and specific form of pastoral activity- has as its operative
principle and responsible agent the Church herself, through her structures and
workers.
The Ecclesial Community and in Particular the Parish
70. The Church, which is at the same time a saved and a saving community,
has to be considered here under two aspects: as universal and particular. The
second aspect is expressed and actuated in the diocesan community, which is
pastorally divided up into lesser communities, of which the parish is of special
importance.
Communion with the universal Church does not hinder but rather guarantees
and promotes the substance and originality of the various particular Churches.
These latter remain the more immediate and more effective subjects of operation
for putting the pastoral care of the family into practice. In this sense every
local Church and, in more particular terms, every parochial community, must
become more vividly aware of the grace and responsibility that it receives from
the Lord in order that it may promote the pastoral care of the family. No plan
for organized pastoral work, at any level, must ever fail to take into
consideration the pastoral care of the family.
Also to be seen in the light of this responsibility is the importance of the
proper preparation of all those who will be more specifically engaged in this
kind of apostolate. Priests and men and women religious, from the time of their
formation, should be oriented and trained progressively and thoroughly for the
various tasks. Among the various initiatives I am pleased to emphasize the
recent establishment in Rome, at the Pontifical Lateran University, of a Higher
Institute for the study of the problems of the family. Institutes of this kind
have also been set up in some dioceses. Bishops should see to it that as many
priests as possible attend specialized courses there before taking on parish
responsibilities. Elsewhere, formation courses are periodically held at Higher
Institutes of theological and pastoral studies. Such initiatives should be
encouraged, sustained, increased in number, and of course are also open to lay
people who intend to use their professional skills (medical, legal,
psychological, social or educational) to help the family.
The Family
71. But it is especially necessary to recognize the unique place that, in
this field, belongs to the mission of married couples and Christian families, by
virtue of the grace received in the sacrament. This mission must be placed at
the service of the building up of the Church, the establishing of the Kingdom of
God in history. This is demanded as an act of docile obedience to Christ the
Lord. For it is He who, by virtue of the fact that marriage of baptized persons
has been raised to a sacrament, confers upon Christian married couples a special
mission as apostles, sending them as workers into His vineyard, and, in a very
special way, into this field of the family.
In this activity, married couples act in communion and collaboration with
the other members of the Church, who also work for the family, contributing
their own gifts and ministries. This apostolate will be exercised in the first
place within the families of those concerned, through the witness of a life
lived in conformity with the divine law in all its aspects, through the
Christian formation of the children, through helping them to mature in faith,
through education to chastity, through preparation for life, through vigilance
in protecting them from the ideological and moral dangers with which they are
often threatened, through their gradual and responsible inclusion in the
ecclesial community and the civil community, through help and advice in choosing
a vocation, through mutual help among family members for human and Christian
growth together, and so on. The apostolate of the family will also become wider
through works of spiritual and material charity towards other families,
especially those most in need of help and support, towards the poor, the sick,
the old, the handicapped, orphans, widows, spouses that have been abandoned,
unmarried mothers and mothers-to-be in difficult situations who are tempted to
have recourse to abortion, and so on.
Associations of Families for Families
72. Still within the Church, which is the subject responsible for the
pastoral care of the family, mention should be made of the various groupings of
members of the faithful in which the mystery of Christ's Church is in some
measure manifested and lived. One should therefore recognize and make good use
of-each one in relationship to its own characteristics, purposes effectiveness
and methods-the different ecclesial communities, the various groups and the
numerous movements engaged in various ways, for different reasons and at
different levels, in the pastoral care of the family.
For this reason the Synod expressly recognized the useful contribution made
by such associations of spirituality, formation and apostolate. It will be their
task to foster among the faithful a lively sense of solidarity, to favor a
manner of living inspired by the Gospel and by the faith of the Church, to form
consciences according to Christian values and not according to the standards of
public opinion; to stimulate people to perform works of charity for one another
and for others with a spirit of openness which will make Christian families into
a true source of light and a wholesome leaven for other families.
It is similarly desirable that, with a lively sense of the common good,
Christian families should become actively engaged, at every level, in other
non-ecclesial associations as well. Some of these associations work for the
preservation, transmission and protection of the wholesome ethical and cultural
values of each people, the development of the human person, the medical,
juridical and social protection of mothers and young children, the just
advancement of women and the struggle against all that is detrimental to their
dignity, the increase of mutual solidarity, knowledge of the problems connected
with the responsible regulation of fertility in accordance with natural methods
that are in conformity with human dignity and the teaching of the Church. Other
associations work for the building of a more just and human world; for the
promotion of just laws favoring the right social order with full respect for the
dignity and every legitimate freedom of the individual and the family, on both
the national and international level; for collaboration with the school and with
the other institutions that complete the education of children, and so forth.
III - AGENTS OF THE PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY
As well as the family, which is the object but above all the subject of
pastoral care of the family, one must also mention the other main agents in this
particular sector.
Bishops and Priests
73. The person principally responsible in the diocese for the pastoral care
of the family is the Bishop. As father and pastor, he must exercise particular
solicitude in this clearly priority sector of pastoral care. He must devote to
it personal interest, care, time, personnel and resources, but above all
personal support for the families and for all those who, in the various diocesan
structures, assist him in the pastoral care of the family. It will be his
particular care to make the diocese ever more truly a "diocesan family,"
a model and source of hope for the many families that belong to it. The setting
up of the Pontifical Council for the Family is to be seen in this light: to be a
sign of the importance that I attribute to pastoral care for the family in the
world, and at the same time to be an effective instrument for aiding and
promoting it at every level.
The Bishops avail themselves especially of the priests, whose task-as the
Synod expressly emphasized-constitutes an essential part of the Church's
ministry regarding marriage and the family. The same is true of deacons to whose
care this sector of pastoral work may be entrusted.
Their responsibility extends not only to moral and liturgical matters but to
personal and social matters as well. They must support the family in its
difficulties and sufferings, caring for its members and helping them to see
their lives in the light of the Gospel. It is not superfluous to note that from
this mission, if it is exercised with due discernment and with a truly apostolic
spirit, the minister of the Church draws fresh encouragement and spiritual
energy for his own vocation too and for the exercise of his ministry.
Priests and deacons, when they have received timely and serious preparation
for this apostolate, must unceasingly act towards families as fathers, brothers,
pastors and teachers, assisting them with the means of grace and enlightening
them with the light of truth. Their teaching and advice must therefore always be
in full harmony with the authentic Magisterium of the Church, in such a way as
to help the People of God to gain a correct sense of the faith, to be
subsequently applied to practical life. Such fidelity to the Magisterium will
also enable priests to make every effort to be united in their judgments, in
order to avoid troubling the consciences of the faithful.
In the Church, the pastors and the laity share in the prophetic mission of
Christ: the laity do so by witnessing to the faith by their words and by their
Christian lives; the pastors do so by distinguishing in that witness what is the
expression of genuine faith from what is less in harmony with the light of
faith; the family, as a Christian community, does so through its special sharing
and witness of faith. Thus there begins a dialogue also between pastors and
families. Theologians and experts in family matters can be of great help in this
dialogue, by explaining exactly the content of the Church's Magisterium and the
content of the experience of family life. In this way the teaching of the
Magisterium becomes better understood and the way is opened to its progressive
development. But it is useful to recall that the proximate and obligatory norm
in the teaching of the faith-also concerning family matters-belongs to the
hierarchical Magisterium. Clearly defined relationships between theologians,
experts in family matters and the Magisterium are of no little assistance for
the correct understanding of the faith and for promoting-within the boundaries
of the faith-legitimate pluralism.
Men and Women Religious
74. The contribution that can be made to the apostolate of the family by men
and women religious and consecrated persons in general finds its primary,
fundamental and original expression precisely in their consecration to God. By
reason of this consecration, "for all Christ's faithful religious recall
that wonderful marriage made by God, which will be fully manifested in the
future age, and in which the Church has Christ for her only spouse,"(175)
and they are witnesses to that universal charity which, through chastity
embraced for the Kingdom of heaven, makes them ever more available to dedicate
themselves generously to the service of God and to the works of the apostolate.
Hence the possibility for men and women religious, and members of Secular
Institutes and other institutes of perfection, either individually or in groups,
to develop their service to families, with particular solicitude for children,
especially if they are abandoned, unwanted, orphaned, poor or handicapped. They
can also visit families and look after the sick; they can foster relationships
of respect and charity towards one-parent families or families that are in
difficulties or are separated; they can offer their own work of teaching and
counseling in the preparation of young people for marriage, and in helping
couples towards truly responsible parenthood; they can open their own houses for
simple and cordial hospitality, so that families can find there the sense of
God's presence and gain a taste for prayer and recollection, and see the
practical examples of lives lived in charity and fraternal joy as members of the
larger family of God.
I would like to add a most pressing exhortation to the heads of institutes
of consecrated life to consider-always with substantial respect for the proper
and original charism of each one-the apostolate of the family as one of the
priority tasks, rendered even more urgent by the present state of the world.
Lay Specialists
75. Considerable help can be given to families by lay specialists (doctors,
lawyers, psychologists, social workers, consultants, etc.) who either as
individuals or as members of various associations and undertakings offer their
contribution of enlightenment, advice, orientation and support. To these people
one can well apply the exhortations that I had the occasion to address to the
Confederation of Family Advisory Bureaus of Christian Inspiration: "Yours
is a commitment that well deserves the title of mission, so noble are the aims
that it pursues, and so determining, for the good of society and the Christian
community itself, are the results that derive from it.... All that you succeed
in doing to support the family is destined to have an effectiveness that goes
beyond its own sphere and reaches other people too and has an effect on society
The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family."(170)
Recipients and Agents of Social Communications
76. This very important category in modern life deserves a word of its own.
It is well known that the means of social communication "affect, and often
profoundly, the minds of those who use them, under the affective and
intellectual aspect and also under the moral and religious aspect,"
especially in the case of young people.(171) They can thus exercise a beneficial
influence on the life and habits of the family and on the education of children,
but at the same time they also conceal "snares and dangers that cannot be
ignored."(172) They could also become a vehicle-sometimes cleverly and
systematically manipulated, as unfortunately happens in various countries of the
world-for divisive ideologies and distorted ways of looking at life, the family,
religion and morality, attitudes that lack respect for man's true dignity and
destiny.
This danger is all the more real inasmuch as "the modern life style-
especially in the more industrialized nations-all too often causes families to
abandon their responsibility to educate their children. Evasion of this duty is
made easy for them by the presence of television and certain publications in the
home, and in this way they keep their children's time and energies occupied."(173)
Hence "the duty. . .to protect the young from the forms of aggression they
are subjected to by the mass media," and to ensure that the use of the
media in the family is carefully regulated. Families should also take care to
seek for their children other forms of entertainment that are more wholesome,
useful and physically, morally and spiritually formative, "to develop and
use to advantage the free time of the young and direct their energies."(174)
Furthermore, because the means of social communication, like the school and
the environment, often have a notable influence on the formation of children,
parents as recipients must actively ensure the moderate, critical, watchful and
prudent use of the media, by discovering what effect they have on their children
and by controlling the use of the media in such a way as to "train the
conscience of their children to express calm and objective judgments, which will
then guide them in the choice or rejection of programs available .
With equal commitment parents will endeavor to influence the selection and
the preparation of the programs themselves, by keeping in contact-through
suitable initiatives-with those in charge of the various phases of production
and transmission. In this way they will ensure that the fundamental human values
that form part of the true good of society are not ignored or deliberately
attacked. Rather they will ensure the broadcasting of programs that present in
the right light family problems and their proper solution. In this regard my
venerated predecessor Paul VI wrote: "Producers must know and respect the
needs of the family, and this sometimes presupposes in them true courage, and
always a high sense of responsibility. In fact they are expected to avoid
anything that could harm the family in its existence, its stability, its balance
and its happiness. Every attack on the fundamental value of the family-meaning
eroticism or violence, the defense of divorce or of antisocial attitudes among
young people-is an attack on the true good of man."(176)
I myself, on a similar occasion, pointed out that families "to a
considerable extent need to be able to count on the good will, integrity and
sense of responsibility of the media professionals- publishers writers,
producers, directors, playwrights, newsmen, commentators and actors."(177)
It is therefore also the duty of the Church to continue to devote every care to
these categories, at the same time encouraging and supporting Catholics who feel
the call and have the necessary talents, to take up this sensitive type of work.
IV - PASTORAL CARE OF THE FAMILY IN DIFFICULT CASES
Particular Circumstances
77. An even more generous, intelligent and prudent pastoral commitment,
modelled on the Good Shepherd, is called for in the case of families which,
often independently of their own wishes and through pressures of various other
kinds, find themselves faced by situations which are objectively difficult.
In this regard it is necessary to call special attention to certain
particular groups which are more in need not only of assistance but also of more
incisive action upon public opinion and especially upon cultural, economic and
juridical structures, in order that the profound causes of their needs may be
eliminated as far as possible.
Such for example are the families of migrant workers; the families of those
obliged to be away for long periods, such as members of the armed forces,
sailors and all kinds of itinerant people; the families of those in prison, of
refugees and exiles; the families in big cities living practically speaking as
outcasts; families with no home; incomplete or single-parent families; families
with children that are handicapped or addicted to drugs; the families of
alcoholics; families that have been uprooted from their cultural and social
environment or are in danger of losing it; families discriminated against for
political or other reasons; families that are ideologically divided; families
that are unable to make ready contact with the parish; families experiencing
violence or unjust treatment because of their faith; teenage married couples;
the elderly, who are often obliged to live alone with inadequate means of
subsistence.
The families of migrants, especially in the case of manual workers and farm
workers, should be able to find a homeland everywhere in the Church. This is a
task stemming from the nature of the Church, as being the sign of unity in
diversity. As far as possible these people should be looked after by priests of
their own rite, culture and language. It is also the Church's task to appeal to
the public conscience and to all those in authority in social, economic and
political life, in order that workers may find employment in their own regions
and homelands, that they may receive just wages, that their families may be
reunited as soon as possible, be respected in their cultural identity and
treated on an equal footing with others, and that their children may be given
the chance to learn a trade and exercise it, as also the chance to own the land
needed for working and living.
A difficult problem is that of the family which is ideologically divided. In
these cases particular pastoral care is needed. In the first place it is
necessary to maintain tactful personal contact with such families. The believing
members must be strengthened in their faith and supported in their Christian
lives. Although the party faithful to Catholicism cannot give way, dialogue with
the other party must always be kept alive. Love and respect must be freely
shown, in the firm hope that unity will be maintained. Much also depends on the
relationship between parents and children. Moreover, ideologies which are alien
to the faith can stimulate the believing members of the family to grow in faith
and in the witness of love.
Other difficult circumstances in which the family needs the help of the
ecclesial community and its pastors are: the children's adolescence, which can
be disturbed, rebellious and sometimes stormy; the children's marriage, which
takes them away from their family; lack of understanding or lack of love on the
part of those held most dear; abandonment by one of the spouses, or his or her
death, which brings the painful experience of widowhood, or the death of a
family member, which breaks up and deeply transforms the original family
nucleus.
Similarly, the Church cannot ignore the time of old age, with all its
positive and negative aspects. In old age married love, which has been
increasingly purified and ennobled by long and unbroken fidelity, can be
deepened. There is the opportunity of offering to others, in a new form, the
kindness and the wisdom gathered over the years, and what energies remain. But
there is also the burden of loneliness, more often psychological and emotional
rather than physical, which results from abandonment or neglect on the part of
children and relations. There is also suffering caused by ill-health, by the
gradual loss of strength, by the humiliation of having to depend on others, by
the sorrow of feeling that one is perhaps a burden to one's loved ones, and by
the approach of the end of life. These are the circumstances in which, as the
Synod Fathers suggested, it is easier to help people understand and live the
lofty aspects of the spirituality of marriage and the family, aspects which take
their inspiration from the value of Christ's Cross and Resurrection, the source
of sanctification and profound happiness in daily life, in the light of the
great eschatological realities of eternal life.
In all these different situations let prayer, the source of light and
strength and the nourishment of Christian hope, never be neglected.
Mixed Marriages
78. The growing number of mixed marriages between Catholics and other
baptized persons also calls for special pastoral attention in the light of the
directives and norms contained in the most recent documents of the Holy See and
in those drawn up by the Episcopal Conferences, in order to permit their
practical application to the various situations.
Couples living in a mixed marriage have special needs, which can be put
under three main headings.
In the first place, attention must be paid to the obligations that faith
imposes on the Catholic party with regard to the free exercise of the faith and
the consequent obligation to ensure, as far as is possible, the Baptism and
upbringing of the children in the Catholic faith.(179)
There must be borne in mind the particular difficulties inherent in the
relationships between husband and wife with regard to respect for religious
freedom: this freedom could be violated either by undue pressure to make the
partner change his or her beliefs, or by placing obstacles in the way of the
free manifestation of these beliefs by religious practice.
With regard to the liturgical and canonical form of marriage, Ordinaries can
make wide use of their faculties to meet various necessities.
In dealing with these special needs, the following points should be kept in
mind:
- In the appropriate preparation for this type of marriage, every reasonable
effort must be made to ensure a proper understanding of Catholic teaching on the
qualities and obligations of marriage, and also to ensure that the pressures and
obstacles mentioned above will not occur.
- It is of the greatest importance that, through the support of the
community, the Catholic party should be strengthened in faith and positively
helped to mature in understanding and practicing that faith, so as to become a
credible witness within the family through his or her own life and through the
quality of love shown to the other spouse and the children.
Marriages between Catholics and other baptized persons have their own
particular nature, but they contain numerous elements that could well be made
good use of and developed, both for their intrinsic value and for the
contribution that they can make to the ecumenical movement. This is particularly
true when both parties are faithful to their religious duties. Their common
Baptism and the dynamism of grace provide the spouses in these marriages with
the basis and motivation for expressing their unity in the sphere of moral and
spiritual values.
For this purpose, and also in order to highlight the ecumenical importance
of mixed marriages which are fully lived in the faith of the two Christian
spouses, an effort should be made to establish cordial cooperation between the
Catholic and the non-Catholic ministers from the time that preparations begin
for the marriage and the wedding ceremony, even though this does not always
prove easy.
With regard to the sharing of the non-Catholic party in Eucharistic
Communion, the norms issued by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity
should be followed.(179)
Today in many parts of the world marriages between Catholics and
non-baptized persons are growing in numbers. In many such marriages the
non-baptized partner professes another religion, and his beliefs are to be
treated with respect, in accordance with the principles set out in the Second
Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra aetate on relations with non-Christian
religions. But in many other such marriages, particularly in secularized
societies, the non- baptized person professes no religion at all. In these
marriages there is a need for Episcopal Conferences and for individual Bishops
to ensure that there are proper pastoral safeguards for the faith of the
Catholic partner and for the free exercise of his faith, above all in regard to
his duty to do all in his power to ensure the Catholic baptism and education of
the children of the marriage. Likewise the Catholic must be assisted in every
possible way to offer within his family a genuine witness to the Catholic faith
and to Catholic life.
Pastoral Action in Certain Irregular Situations
79. In its solicitude to protect the family in all its dimensions, not only
the religious one, the Synod of Bishops did not fail to take into careful
consideration certain situations which are irregular in a religious sense and
often in the civil sense too. Such situations, as a result of today's rapid
cultural changes, are unfortunately becoming widespread also among Catholics
with no little damage to the very institution of the family and to society, of
which the family constitutes the basic cell.
a) Trial Marriages
80. A first example of an irregular situation is provided by what are called
"trial marriages," which many people today would like to justify by
attributing a certain value to them. But human reason leads one to see that they
are unacceptable, by showing the unconvincing nature of carrying out an "experiment"
with human beings, whose dignity demands that they should be always and solely
the term of a self-giving love without limitations of time or of any other
circumstance.
The Church, for her part, cannot admit such a kind of union, for further and
original reasons which derive from faith. For, in the first place, the gift of
the body in the sexual relationship is a real symbol of the giving of the whole
person: such a giving, moreover, in the present state of things cannot take
place with full truth without the concourse of the love of charity, given by
Christ. In the second place, marriage between two baptized persons is a real
symbol of the union of Christ and the Church, which is not a temporary or "trial"
union but one which is eternally faithful. Therefore between two baptized
persons there can exist only an indissoluble marriage.
Such a situation cannot usually be overcome unless the human person, from
childhood, with the help of Christ's grace and without fear, has been trained to
dominate concupiscence from the beginning and to establish relationships of
genuine love with other people. This cannot be secured without a true education
in genuine love and in the right use of sexuality, such as to introduce the
human person in every aspect, and therefore the bodily aspect too, into the
fullness of the mystery of Christ.
It will be very useful to investigate the causes of this phenomenon,
including its psychological and sociological aspect, in order to find the proper
remedy.
b) De Facto Free Unions
81. This means unions without any publicly recognized institutional bond,
either civil or religious. This phenomenon, which is becoming ever more
frequent, cannot fail to concern pastors of souls, also because it may be based
on widely varying factors, the consequences of which may perhaps be containable
by suitable action.
Some people consider themselves almost forced into a free union by difficult
economic, cultural or religious situations, on the grounds that, if they
contracted a regular marriage, they would be exposed to some form of harm, would
lose economic advantages, would be discriminated against, etc. In other cases,
however, one encounters people who scorn, rebel against or reject society, the
institution of the family and the social and political order, or who are solely
seeking pleasure. Then there are those who are driven to such situations by
extreme ignorance or poverty, sometimes by a conditioning due to situations of
real injustice, or by a certain psychological immaturity that makes them
uncertain or afraid to enter into a stable and definitive union. In some
countries, traditional customs presume that the true and proper marriage will
take place only after a period of cohabitation and the birth of the first child.
Each of these elements presents the Church with arduous pastoral problems,
by reason of the serious consequences deriving from them, both religious and
moral (the loss of the religious sense of marriage seen in the light of the
Covenant of God with His people; deprivation of the grace of the sacrament;
grave scandal), and also social consequences (the destruction of the concept of
the family; the weakening of the sense of fidelity, also towards society;
possible psychological damage to the children; the strengthening of
selfishness).
The pastors and the ecclesial community should take care to become
acquainted with such situations and their actual causes, case by case. They
should make tactful and respectful contact with the couples concerned, and
enlighten them patiently, correct them charitably and show them the witness of
Christian family life, in such a way as to smooth the path for them to
regularize their situation. But above all there must be a campaign of
prevention, by fostering the sense of fidelity in the whole moral and religious
training of the young, instructing them concerning the conditions and structures
that favor such fidelity, without which there is no true freedom; they must be
helped to reach spiritual maturity and enabled to understand the rich human and
supernatural reality of marriage as a sacrament.
The People of God should also make approaches to the public authorities, in
order that the latter may resist these tendencies which divide society and are
harmful to the dignity, security and welfare of the citizens as individuals, and
they must try to ensure that public opinion is not led to undervalue the
institutional importance of marriage and the family. And since in many regions
young people are unable to get married properly because of extreme poverty
deriving from unjust or inadequate social and economic structures, society and
the public authorities should favor legitimate marriage by means of a series of
social and political actions which will guarantee a family wage, by issuing
directives ensuring housing fitting for family life and by creating
opportunities for work and life.
c) Catholics in Civil Marriages
82. There are increasing cases of Catholics who for ideological or practical
reasons, prefer to contract a merely civil marriage, and who reject or at least
defer religious marriage. Their situation cannot of course be likened to that of
people simply living together without any bond at all, because in the present
case there is at least a certain commitment to a properly-defined and probably
stable state of life, even though the possibility of a future divorce is often
present in the minds of those entering a civil marriage. By seeking public
recognition of their bond on the part of the State, such couples show that they
are ready to accept not only its advantages but also its obligations.
Nevertheless, not even this situation is acceptable to the Church.
The aim of pastoral action will be to make these people understand the need
for consistency between their choice of life and the faith that they profess,
and to try to do everything possible to induce them to regularize their
situation in the light of Christian principle. While treating them with great
charity and bringing them into the life of the respective communities, the
pastors of the Church will regrettably not be able to admit them to the
sacraments.
d) Separated or Divorced Persons Who Have Not Remarried
83. Various reasons can unfortunately lead to the often irreparable
breakdown of valid marriages. These include mutual lack of understanding and the
inability to enter into interpersonal relationships. Obviously, separation must
be considered as a last resort, after all other reasonable attempts at
reconciliation have proved vain.
Loneliness and other difficulties are often the lot of separated spouses,
especially when they are the innocent parties. The ecclesial community must
support such people more than ever. It must give them much respect, solidarity,
understanding and practical help, so that they can preserve their fidelity even
in their difficult situation; and it must help them to cultivate the need to
forgive which is inherent in Christian love, and to be ready perhaps to return
to their former married life.
The situation is similar for people who have undergone divorce, but, being
well aware that the valid marriage bond is indissoluble, refrain from becoming
involved in a new union and devote themselves solely to carrying out their
family duties and the responsibilities of Christian life. In such cases their
example of fidelity and Christian consistency takes on particular value as a
witness before the world and the Church. Here it is even more necessary for the
Church to offer continual love and assistance, without there being any obstacle
to admission to the sacraments.
e) Divorced Persons Who Have Remarried
84. Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have obtained a
divorce usually intend to enter into a new union, obviously not with a Catholic
religious ceremony. Since this is an evil that, like the others, is affecting
more and more Catholics as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and
without delay. The Synod Fathers studied it expressly. The Church, which was set
up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon
to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental
marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore
make untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.
Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise
careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those
who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly
abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a
canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a
second union for the sake of the children's upbringing, and who are sometimes
subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed
marriage had never been valid.
Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole
community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make
sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as
baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be
encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to
persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts
in favor of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to
cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's
grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful
mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope.
However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred
Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have
remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state
and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ
and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this,
there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the
Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the
Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.
Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the
Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign
of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a
way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of
marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for
example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the
obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in
complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married
couples."(180)
Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples
themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful,
forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to
perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies
would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid
marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility
of a validly contracted marriage.
By acting in this way, the Church professes her own fidelity to Christ and
to His truth. At the same time she shows motherly concern for these children of
hers, especially those who, through no fault of their own, have been abandoned
by their legitimate partner.
With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected the Lord's
command and are still living in this state will be able to obtain from God the
grace of conversion and salvation, provided that they have persevered in prayer,
penance and charity.
Those Without a Family
85. I wish to add a further word for a category of people whom, as a result
of the actual circumstances in which they are living, and this often not through
their own deliberate wish, I consider particularly close to the Heart of Christ
and deserving of the affection and active solicitude of the Church and of
pastors.
There exist in the world countless people who unfortunately cannot in any
sense claim membership of what could be called in the proper sense a family.
Large sections of humanity live in conditions of extreme poverty, in which
promiscuity, lack of housing, the irregular nature and instability of
relationships and the extreme lack of education make it impossible in practice
to speak of a true family. There are others who, for various reasons, have been
left alone in the world. And yet for all of these people there exists a "good
news of the family."
On behalf of those living in extreme poverty, I have already spoken of the
urgent need to work courageously in order to find solutions, also at the
political level, which will make it possible to help them and to overcome this
inhuman condition of degradation.
It is a task that faces the whole of society but in a special way the
authorities, by reason of their position and the responsibilities flowing
therefrom, and also families, which must show great understanding and
willingness to help.
For those who have no natural family the doors of the great family which is
the Church-the Church which finds concrete expression in the diocesan and the
parish family, in ecclesial basic communities and in movements of the
apostolate-must be opened even wider. No one is without a family in this world:
the Church is a home and family for everyone, especially those who "labor
and are heavy laden."(181)
CONCLUSION
86. At the end of this Apostolic Exhortation my thoughts turn with earnest
solicitude:
to you, married couples, to you, fathers and mothers of families;
to you, young men and women, the future and the hope of the Church and the
world, destined to be the dynamic central nucleus of the family in the
approaching third millennium;
to you, venerable and dear Brothers in the Episcopate and in the priesthood,
beloved sons and daughters in the religious life, souls consecrated to the Lord,
who bear witness before married couples to the ultimate reality of the love of
God;
to you, upright men and women, who for any reason whatever give thought to
the fate of the family.
The future of humanity passes by way of the family.
It is therefore indispensable and urgent that every person of good will
should endeavor to save and foster the values and requirements of the family.
I feel that I must ask for a particular effort in this field from the sons
and daughters of the Church. Faith gives them full knowledge of God's wonderful
plan: they therefore have an extra reason for caring for the reality that is the
family in this time of trial and of grace.
They must show the family special love. This is an injunction that calls for
concrete action.
Loving the family means being able to appreciate its values and
capabilities, fostering them always. Loving the family means identifying the
dangers and the evils that menace it, in order to overcome them. Loving the
family means endeavoring to create for it an environment favorable for its
development. The modern Christian family is often tempted to be discouraged and
is distressed at the growth of its difficulties; it is an eminent form of love
to give it back its reasons for confidence in itself, in the riches that it
possesses by nature and grace, and in the mission that God has entrusted to it.
"Yes indeed, the families of today must be called back to their original
position. They must follow Christ."(182)
Christians also have the mission of proclaiming with joy and conviction the
Good News about the family, for the family absolutely needs to hear ever anew
and to understand ever more deeply the authentic words that reveal its identity,
its inner resources and the importance of its mission in the City of God and in
that of man.
The Church knows the path by which the family can reach the heart of the
deepest truth about itself. The Church has learned this path at the school of
Christ and the school of history interpreted in the light of the Spirit. She
does not impose it but she feels an urgent need to propose it to everyone
without fear and indeed with great confidence and hope, although she knows that
the Good News includes the subject of the Cross. But it is through the Cross
that the family can attain the fullness of its being and the perfection of its
love.
Finally, I wish to call on all Christians to collaborate cordially and
courageously with all people of good will who are serving the family in
accordance with their responsibilities. The individuals and groups, movements
and associations in the Church which devote themselves to the family's welfare,
acting in the Church's name and under her inspiration, often find themselves
side by side with other individuals and institutions working for the same ideal.
With faithfulness to the values of the Gospel and of the human person and with
respect for lawful pluralism in initiatives this collaboration can favor a more
rapid and integral advancement of the family.
And now, at the end of my pastoral message, which is intended to draw
everyone's attention to the demanding yet fascinating roles of the Christian
family, I wish to invoke the protection of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
Through God's mysterious design, it was in that family that the Son of God
spent long years of a hidden life. It is therefore the prototype and example for
all Christian families. It was unique in the world. Its life was passed in
anonymity and silence in a little town in Palestine. It underwent trials of
poverty, persecution and exile. It glorified God in an incomparably exalted and
pure way. And it will not fail to help Christian families-indeed, all the
families in the world-to be faithful to their day-to-day duties, to bear the
cares and tribulations of life, to be open and generous to the needs of others,
and to fulfill with joy the plan of God in their regard.
St. Joseph was "a just man," a tireless worker, the upright
guardian of those entrusted to his care. May he always guard, protect and
enlighten families.
May the Virgin Mary, who is the Mother of the Church, also be the Mother of "the
Church of the home." Thanks to her motherly aid, may each Christian family
really become a "little Church" in which the mystery of the Church of
Christ is mirrored and given new life. May she, the Handmaid of the Lord, be an
example of humble and generous acceptance of the will of God. May she, the
Sorrowful Mother at the foot of the Cross, comfort the sufferings and dry the
tears of those in distress because of the difficulties of their families.
May Christ the Lord, the Universal King, the King of Families, be present in
every Christian home as He was at Cana, bestowing light, joy, serenity and
strength. On the solemn day dedicated to His Kingship I beg of Him that every
family may generously make its own contribution to the coming of His Kingdom in
the world-"a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a
kingdom of justice, love, and peace," 183 towards which history is
journeying.
I entrust each family to Him, to Mary, and to Joseph. To their hands and
their hearts I offer this Exhortation: may it be they who present it to you,
venerable Brothers and beloved sons and daughters, and may it be they who open
your hearts to the light that the Gospel sheds on every family.
I assure you all of my constant prayers and I cordially impart the apostolic
blessing to each and every one of you, in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the twenty-second day of November, the
Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, in the year 1981, the fourth
of the Pontificate.
JOHN PAUL II