APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II ON THE FAMILY
TO THE EPISCOPATE TO THE CLERGY
AND TO THE FAITHFUL OF THE WHOLE CATHOLIC CHURCH
INTRODUCTION
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 toward
marriage and family life, for the purpose of
presenting them with new horizons, helping them
to discover the beauty and grandeur of the vocation
to love and the service of life.
2. A sign of this profound interest
of the church in the family was the last Synod
of Bishops, held in Rome from Sept. 26 to Oct.
25, 1980. This was a natural continuation of
the two preceding synods:[2] The Christian family,
in fact, is the first community called to announce
the Gospel to the human person during growth
and to bring him or her, through a progressive
education and catechesis, to full human and
Christian maturity.
Furthermore, the recent synod is logically
connected in some way as well with that on the
ministerial priesthood and on justice in the
modern world. In fact, as an educating community,
the family must help man to discern his own
vocation and to accept responsibility in the
search for greater justice, educating him from
the beginning in interpersonal relationships,
rich in justice and in love.
At the close of their assembly, the synod fathers
presented me with a long list of proposals in
which they had gathered the fruits of their
reflections, which had matured over intense
days of work, and they asked me unanimously
to be a spokesman before humanity of the church's
lively care for the family and to give suitable
indications for renewed pastoral effort in this
fundamental sector of the life of man and of
the church.
As I fulfill that mission with this exhortation,
thus actuating in a particular matter the apostolic
ministry with which I am entrusted, I wish to
thank all the members of the synod for the very
valuable contribution of teaching and experience
that they made, especially through the propositiones,
the text of which I am entrusting to the Pontifical
Council for the Family with instructions to
study it so as to bring out every aspect of
its rich content.
3. 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.
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 endangers 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.
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,
inasmuch as they are called to illuminate and
organize temporal realities according to the
plan of God, creator and redeemer.
The "supernatural sense of faith,"[13]
however, does not consist solely or necessarily
in the consensus of the faithful. Following
Christ, the church seeks the truth, which is
not always the same as the majority opinion.
She listens to conscience and not to power,
and in this way she defends the poor and 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 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]
6. The situation in which the family
finds itself presents positive and negative
aspects: The first is a sign of the salvation
of Christ operating in the world; the second,
a sign of the refusal that man gives to the
love of God.
On the one hand, in fact, there is a more lively
awareness of personal freedom and greater attention
to the quality of interpersonal relationships
in marriage, in promoting the dignity of women,
to responsible procreation, to the education
of children. There is also an awareness of the
need for the development of interfamily relationships,
for reciprocal spiritual and material assistance,
the rediscovery of the ecclesial mission proper
to the family and its responsibility for the
building of a more just society. On the other
hand, however, signs are not lacking of a disturbing
degradation of some fundamental values: a mistaken
theoretical and practical concept of the independence
of the spouses in relation to each other; serious
misconceptions regarding the relationship of
authority between parents and children; the
concrete difficulties that the family itself
experiences in the transmission of values; the
growing number of divorces; the scourge of abortion;
the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization;
the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality.
At the root of these negative phenomena there
frequently lies a corruption of the idea and
the experience of freedom, conceived not as
a capacity for realizing the truth of God's
plan for marriage and the family, but as an
autonomous power of self-affirmation, often
against others, for one's own selfish well-being.
Worthy of our attention also is the fact 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 toward what is better, but rather
an event of freedom, and even a struggle between
freedoms that are in mutual conflict, that is,
according to the wellknown expression of St.
Augustine, a conflict between two loves: the
love of God to the point of disregarding self,
and the love of self to the point of disregarding
God.[16]
It follows that only an education for love
rooted in faith can lead to the capacity of
interpreting "the signs of the times,"
which are the historical expression of this
twofold love.
7. 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.
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.
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.
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
toward a daily, more complete and profound awareness
of the truth, which has already been given to
her in its entirety by the Lord.
Holding fast to the two principles of the compatibility
with the Gospel of the various cultures to be
taken up and of communion with the universal
church, there must be further study, particularly
by the episcopal conferences and the appropriate
departments of the Roman Curia, and greater
pastoral diligence so that this "inculturation"
of the Christian faith may come about ever more
extensively in the context of marriage and the
family as well as in other fields.
It is by means of "inculturation"
that one proceeds toward the full restoration
of the covenant with the wisdom of God, which
is Christ himself. The whole church will be
enriched also by the cultures which, though
lacking technology, abound in human wisdom and
are enlivened by profound moral values.
So that the goal of this journey might be clear
and consequently the way plainly indicated,
the synod was right to begin by considering
in depth the original design of God for marriage
and the family: It "went back to the beginning,"
in deference to the teaching of Christ.[19]
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.
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
relations of faithful love which should exist
between spouses.[26]
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,[28] the
marriage of baptized persons thus becomes a
real symbol of that new and eternal covenant
sanctioned in the blood of Christ. The Spirit
which the Lord pours forth gives a new heart,
and renders man and woman capable of loving
one another as Christ has loved us. Conjugal
love reaches that fullness to which it is interiorly
ordained, conjugal charity, which is the proper
and specific way in which the spouses participate
in and are called to live the very charity of
Christ, who gave himself on the cross.
In a deservedly famous page, Tertullian has
well expressed the greatness of this conjugal
life in Christ and its beauty: "How can
I ever express the happiness of the marriage
that is joined together by the church, strengthened
by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced
by angels and ratified by the Father?!!! How
wonderful the bond between two believers, with
a single hope, a single desire, a single observance,
a single service! They are both brethren and
both fellow servants; there is no separation
between them in spirit or flesh. In fact they
are truly two in one flesh, and where the flesh
is one, one is the spirit."[29]
Receiving and meditating faithfully on the
word of God, the church has solemnly taught
and continued to teach that the marriage of
the baptized is one of the seven sacraments
of the new covenant.[30]
Indeed by means of baptism, man and woman are
definitively placed within the new and eternal
covenant, in the spousal covenant of Christ
with the church. And it is because of this indestructible
insertion that the intimate community of conjugal
life and love, founded by the creator,[31] is
elevated and assumed into the spousal charity
of Christ, sustained and enriched by his redeeming
power.
By virtue of the 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, toward
each other and their children, the demands of
a love which forgives and redeems. As prophecy,
it gives them the grace and duty of living and
bearing witness to the hope of the future encounter
with Christ."[32]
Like each 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]
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 is ordained to the procreation
and education of children, in whom it finds
its crowning.[34]
In its most profound reality, love is essentially
a gift; and conjugal love, while leading the
spouses to the reciprocal "knowledge"
which makes them "one flesh,"[35]
does not end with the couple, because it makes
them capable of the greatest possible gift,
the gift by which they become cooperators with
God for giving life to a new human person. Thus
the couple, while giving themselves to one another,
give not just themselves but also the reality
of children, who are a living reflection of
their love, a permanent sign of conjugal unity
and a living and inseparable synthesis of their
being a father and a mother.
When they become parents, spouses receive from
God the gift of a new responsibility. Their
parental love is called to become for the children
the visible sign of the very love of God, "from
whom every family in heaven and on earth is
named."[36]
It must not be forgotten however that, even
when procreation is not possible, conjugal life
does not for this reason lose its value. Physical
sterility in fact, can be for spouses the occasion
for other important services to the life of
the human person, for example, adoption, various
forms of educational work, and assistance to
other families and to poor or handicapped children.
15. 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.
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.
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 expression
and concrete actuation of that fundamental mission.
We must therefore go deeper into the unique
riches of the family's mission and probe its
contents, which are both manifold and unified.
Thus, with love as its point of departure and
making constant reference to it, the recent
synod emphasized four general tasks for the
family:
I. Forming a community of persons;
II. Serving life;
III. Participating in the development of society;
IV. Sharing in the life and mission of the
church.
I. FORMING A COMMUNITY OF PERSONS
18. 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.
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-today fidelity to their marriage promise
of total mutual self-giving.
This conjugal communion sinks its roots in
the natural complementarity that exists between
man and woman and is nurtured through the personal
willingness of the spouses to share their entire
life project, what they have and what they are:
For this reason such communion is the fruit
and the sign of a profoundly human need. But
in the Lord Christ God takes up this human need,
confirms it, purifies it and elevates it, leading
it to perfection through the sacrament of matrimony:
the Holy Spirit who is poured out in the sacramental
celebration offers Christian couples the gift
of a new communion of love that is the living
and real image of that unique unity which makes
of the church the indivisible mystical body
of the Lord Jesus.
The gift of the spirit is a commandment of
life for Christian spouses and at the same time
a stimulating impulse so that every day they
may progress toward an ever richer union with
each other on all levels--of the body, of the
character, of the heart, of the intelligence
and will, of the soul[47] --revealing in this
way to the church and to the world the new communion
of love, given by the grace of Christ.
Such a communion is radically contradicted
by polygamy: This, in fact, directly negates
the plan of God which was revealed from the
beginning, because it is contrary to the equal
personal dignity of men and women, who in matrimony
give themselves with a love that is total and
therefore unique and exclusive. As the Second
Vatican Council writes: "Firmly established
by the Lord, the unity of marriage will radiate
from the equal personal dignity of husband and
wife, a dignity acknowledged by mutual and total
love."[48]
20. 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.
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 firstborn
among many brethren,"[56] is by its nature
and interior dynamism "a grace of brotherhood,"
as St. Thomas Aquinas calls it.[57] The Holy
Spirit, who is poured forth in the celebration
of the sacraments, is the living source and
inexhaustible sustenance of the supernatural
communion that gathers believers and links them
with Christ and with each other in the unity
of the church of God. The Christian family constitutes
a specific revelation and realization of ecclesial
communion, and for this reason too it can and
should be called "the domestic church."[58]
All members of the family, each according to
his or her own gift, have the grace and responsibility
of 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 toward their parents,
children offer their specific and irreplaceable
contribution to the construction of an authentically
human and Christian family.[61] They will be
aided in this if parents exercise their unrenounceable
authority as a true and proper "ministry,"
that is, as a service to the human and Christian
well-being of their children and in particular
as a service aimed at helping them acquire a
truly responsible freedom, and if parents maintain
a living awareness of the "gift" they
continually receive from their children.
Family communion can only be preserved and
perfected through a great spirit of sacrifice.
It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness
of each and all to understanding, to forbearance,
to pardon, to reconciliation. There is no family
that does not know how selfishness, discord,
tension and conflict violently attack and at
times mortally wound its own communion: Hence
there arise the many and varied forms of division
in family life. But, at the same time, every
family is called by the God of peace to have
the joyous and renewing experience of "reconciliation,"
that is, communion re-established, unity restored.
In particular, participation in the sacrament
of reconciliation and in the banquet of the
one body of Christ offers to the Christian family
the grace and the responsibility of overcoming
every division and of moving toward the fullness
of communion willed by God, responding in this
way to the ardent desire of the Lord: "that
they may be one."[62]
22. 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 to the dignity of women.
In creating the human race "male and female,"[64]
God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity,
endowing them 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 toward
the women that he called to his following and
his friendship, his appearing on Easter morning
to a woman before the other disciples, the mission
entrusted to women to carry the good news of
the resurrection to the apostles--these are
all signs that confirm the special esteem of
the Lord Jesus for women. The apostle Paul will
say: "In Christ Jesus you are all children
of God through faith . . . There is neither
slave nor free, there is neither male nor female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus."[65]
23. Without intending to deal with all
the various aspects of the vast and complex
theme of the relationships between women and
society and limiting these remarks to a few
essential points, one cannot but observe that
in the specific area of family life a widespread
social and cultural tradition has considered
women's role to be exclusively that of wife
and mother, without adequate access to public
functions, which have generally been reserved
for men.
There is no doubt that the equal dignity and
responsibility of men and women fully justifies
women's access to public functions. On the other
hand the true advancement of women requires
that clear recognition be given to the value
of their maternal and family role, by comparison
with all other public roles and all other professions.
Furthermore, these roles and professions should
be harmoniously combined if we wish the evolution
of society and culture to be truly and fully
human.
This will come about more easily if, in accordance
with the wishes expressed by the synod, a renewed
"theology of work" can shed light
upon and study in depth the meaning of work
in the Christian life and determine the fundamental
bond between work and the family, and therefore
the original and irreplaceable meaning of work
in the home be recognized and respected by all
in its irreplaceable value.[66]
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.
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.
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 toward his
wife a charity that is both gentle and strong
like that which Christ has for the church.[71]
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.
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 Oct. 2, 1979:
"I wish to express the joy that we all
find in children, the springtime of life, the
anticipation of the future history of each of
our present earthly homelands. No country on
earth, no political system can think of its
own future otherwise than through the image
of these new generations that will receive from
their parents the manifold heritage of values,
duties and aspirations of the nation to which
they belong and of the whole human family. Concern
for the child, even before birth, from the first
moment of conception and then throughout the
years of infancy and youth, is the primary and
fundamental test of the relationship of one
human being to another. And so, what better
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]
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
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
self-giving of the spouses: "While not
making the other purposes of matrimony of less
account, the true practice of conjugal love,
and the whole meaning of the family life which
results from it, have this aim: that the couple
be ready with stout hearts to cooperate with
the love of the creator and the savior, who
through them will enlarge and enrich his own
family day by day."[82]
However, the fruitfulness of conjugal love
is not restricted solely to the procreation
of children, even understood in its specifically
human dimension: It is enlarged and enriched
by all those fruits of moral, spiritual and
supernatural life which the father and mother
are called to hand on to their children, and
through the children to the church and to the
world.
29. Precisely because the love of husband
and wife is a unique participation in the mystery
of life and of the love of God himself, the
church knows that she has received the special
mission of guarding and protecting the lofty
dignity of marriage and the most serious responsibility
of the transmission of human life.
Thus, in continuity with the living tradition
of the ecclesial community throughout history,
the recent Second Vatican Council and the magisterium
of my predecessor Paul VI, expressed above all
in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, have handed
on to our times a truly prophetic proclamation,
which reaffirms and reproposes with clarity
the church's teaching and norm, always old yet
always new, regarding marriage and regarding
the transmission of human life.
For this reason the synod fathers made the
following declaration at their last assembly:
"This sacred synod, gathered together
with the successor of Peter in the unity of
faith, firmly holds what has been set forth
in the Second Vatican Council (cf. Gaudium et
Spes, 50) and afterward in the encyclical Humanae
Vitae, particularly that love between husband
and wife must be fully human, exclusive and
open to new life (Humanae Vitae,ll:cf.9,12)."[83]
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 technological progress, which
contemporary man is continually expanding in
his dominion over nature, not only offers the
hope of creating a new and better humanity,
but also causes ever greater anxiety regarding
the future. Some ask themselves if it is a good
thing to be alive or if it would be better never
to have been born; they doubt therefore if it
is right to bring others into life when perhaps
they will curse their existence in a cruel world
with unforeseeable terrors. Others consider
themselves to be the only ones for whom the
advantages of technology are intended and they
exclude others by imposing on them contraceptives
or even worse means. Still others imprisoned
in a consumer mentality and whose sole concern
is to bring about a continual growth of material
goods, finish by ceasing to understand, and
thus by refusing, the spiritual riches of a
new human life. The ultimate reason for these
mentalities is the absence in people's hearts
of God, whose love alone is stronger than all
the world's fears and can conquer them.
Thus an anti-life mentality is born, as can
be seen in many current issues: One thinks,
for example of a certain panic deriving from
the studies of ecologists and futurologists
on population growth, which sometimes exaggerate
the danger of demographic increase to the quality
of life.
But the church firmly believes that human life,
even if weak and suffering, is always a splendid
gift of God's goodness. Against the pessimism
and selfishness which cast a shadow over the
world, the church stands for life: In each human
life she sees the splendor of that "yes,"
that "amen," who is Christ himself.[84]
To the "no" which assails and afflicts
the world, she replies with this living "yes,"
thus defending the human person and the world
from all who plot against and harm life.
The church is called upon to manifest anew
to everyone, with clear and stronger conviction,
her will to promote human life by every means
and to defend it against all attacks in whatever
condition or state of development it is found.
Thus the church condemns as a grave offense
against human dignity and justice all those
activities of governments or other public authorities
which attempt to limit in any way the freedom
of couples in deciding about children. Consequently
any violence applied by such authorities in
favor of contraception or, still worse, of sterilization
and procured abortion must be altogether condemned
and forcefully rejected. Likewise to be denounced
as gravely unjust are cases where in international
relations economic help given for the advancement
of peoples is made conditional on programs of
contraception, sterilization and procured abortion.[85]
31. The church is certainly aware of
the many complex problems which couples in many
countries face today in their task of transmitting
life in 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.
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."[86]
It is precisely by moving from "an integral
vision of man and of his vocation, not only
his natural and earthly, but also his supernatural
and eternal vocation,"[87] that Paul VI
affirmed that the teaching of the church "is
founded upon the inseparable connection willed
by God and unable to be broken by man on his
own initiative between the two meanings of the
conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative
meaning."[88] And he concluded by re-emphasizing
that there must be excluded as intrinsically
immoral "every action which, either in
anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its
accomplishment, or in the development of its
natural consequences, proposes, whether as an
end or as a means, to render procreation impossible."[89]
When couples, by means of recourse to contraception,
separate these two meanings that God the creator
has inscribed in the being of man and woman
and in the dynamism of their sexual communion,
they act as "arbiters" of the divine
plan and they "manipulate" and degrade
human sexuality and with it themselves and their
married partner by altering its value of "total"
self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses
the total reciprocal self-giving of husband
and wife is overlaid, through contraception,
by an objectively contradictory language, namely,
that of not giving oneself totally to the other.
This leads not only to a positive refusal to
be open to life, but also to a falsification
of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is
called upon to give itself in personal totality.
When, instead, by means of recourse to periods
of infertility, the couple respect 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"
self-giving, 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.
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 also include knowledge
of the bodily aspect and the body's rhythms
of fertility. Accordingly, every effort must
be made to render such knowledge accessible
to all married people and also to young adults
before marriage through clear, timely and serious
instruction and education given by married couples,
doctors and experts. Knowledge must then lead
to education in self-control: Hence the absolute
necessity for the virtue of chastity and for
permanent education in it. In the Christian
view, chastity by no means signifies rejection
of human sexuality or lack of esteem for it:
Rather it signifies spiritual energy capable
of defending love from the perils of selfishness
and aggressiveness, and able to advance it toward
its full realization.
With deeply wise and loving intuition, Paul
VI was only voicing the experience of many married
couples when he wrote in his encyclical: "To
dominate instinct by means of one's reason and
free will 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
on the education of their offspring."[94]
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 or
respecting them become more numerous and serious.
Since the moral order reveals and sets forth
the plan of God the creator, for this very reason
it cannot be something that harms man, something
impersonal. On the contrary, by responding to
the deepest demands of the human being created
by God, it places itself at the service of that
person's full humanity with the delicate and
binding love whereby God himself inspires, sustains
and guides every creature toward its happiness.
But man, who has been called to live God's
wise and loving design in a responsible manner,
is an historical being who day by day builds
himself up through his many free decisions;
and so he knows, loves and accomplishes moral
good by stages of growth.
Married people too are called upon to progress
unceasingly in their moral life with the support
of a sincere and active desire to gain ever
better knowledge of the values enshrined in
and fostered by the law of God. They must also
be supported by an upright and generous willingness
to embody these values in their concrete decisions.
They cannot, however, look on the law as merely
an ideal to be achieved in the future: They
must consider it as a command of Christ the
Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy.
"And so what is 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 thereby
called to harmonize their mentality and behavior,
requiring much patience, understanding and time.
Uniquely important in this field is unity of
moral and pastoral 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.
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]
36. The right and duty of parents regarding
education
The task of giving education is rooted in the
primary vocation of married couples to participate
in God's creative activity: By begetting in
love and for love a new person who has within
himself or herself the vocation for growth and
development, parents by that very fact take
the task of helping that person effectively
to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican
Council recalled, "Since parents have conferred
life on their children, they have a most solemn
obligation to educate their offspring. Hence,
parents must be acknowledged as the first and
foremost educators of their children. Their
role as educators is so decisive that scarcely
anything can compensate for their failure in
it. For it devolves on parents to create a family
atmosphere so animated with love and reverence
for God and others that a well-rounded personal
and social development will be fostered among
the children.
Hence, the family is the first school of those
social virtues which every society needs."[99]
The right and duty of parents to give education
is essential, since it is connected with the
transmission of human life; it is original and
primary with regard to the educational role
of others on account of the uniqueness of the
loving relationship between parents and children;
and it is irreplaceable and inalienable and
therefore incapable of being entirely delegated
to others or usurped by others.
In addition to those characteristics, it cannot
be forgotten that the most basic element, so
basic that it qualifies the educational role
of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment
in the task of education as it completes and
perfects its service of life. As well as being
a source, the parents' love is also the animating
principle and therefore the norm inspiring and
guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching
it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness,
service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice
that are the most precious fruit of love.
37. 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 lifestyle
and being fully convinced that "man is
more precious for what he is than for what he
has. "[100]
In a society shaken and split by tensions and
conflicts caused by the violent clash of various
kinds of individualism and selfishness, children
must be enriched not only with a sense of true
justice, which alone leads to respect for the
personal dignity of each individual, but also
and more powerfully by a sense of true love,
understood as sincere solicitude and disinterested
service with regard to others, especially the
poorest and those in most need. The family is
the first and fundamental school of social living:
As a community of love, it finds in self-giving
the law that guides it and makes it grow. The
self-giving that inspires the love of husband
and wife for each other is the model and norm
for the selfgiving 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
commonplace, since it interprets and lives it
in a reductive and impoverished way by linking
it solely with the body and with selfish pleasure,
the educational service of parents must aim
firmly at a training in the area of sex that
is truly and fully personal: for sexuality is
an enrichment of the whole person--body, emotions
and soul--and it manifests its inmost meaning
in leading the person to the gift of self in
love.
Sex education, which is a basic right and duty
of parents, must always be carried out under
their attentive guidance whether at home or
in educational centers chosen and controlled
by them. In this regard, the church reaffirms
the law of subsidiarity, which the school is
bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education,
by entering into the same spirit that animates
the parents.
In this context education for chastity is absolutely
essential, for it is a virtue that develops
a person's authentic maturity and makes him
or her capable of respecting and fostering the
"nuptial meaning" of the body. Indeed
Christian parents, discerning the signs of God's
call, will devote special attention and care
to education in virginity or celibacy as the
supreme 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.
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 St. Thomas has no
hesitation in comparing it with the ministry
of priests: "Some only propagate and guard
spiritual life by a spiritual ministry: This
is the role of the sacrament of orders, others
do this for both corporal and spiritual life,
and this is brought about by the sacrament of
marriage, by which a man and a woman join in
order to beget offspring and bring them up to
worship God."[101]
A vivid and attentive awareness of the mission
that they have received with the sacrament of
marriage will help Christian parents to place
themselves at the service of 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.
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. I 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 education, the synod
fathers expressed the hope that a suitable catechism
for families would be prepared, one that would
be clear, brief and easily assimilated by all.
The episcopal conferences were warmly invited
to contribute to producing this catechism.
40. 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 school authorities.
If ideologies 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 not to depart from
the faith. In this case the family needs special
assistance from pastors of souls, who must never
forget that parents have the inviolable right
to entrust their children to the ecclesial community.
41. 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 toward a human
being bears witness to and perfects the spiritual
fecundity of the family, since it is an act
of obedience to the deep inner dynamism of love
as self-giving to others.
For everyone this perspective is full of value
and commitment, and it can be an inspiration
in particular for couples who experience physical
sterility.
Christian families, recognizing with faith
all human beings as children of the same heavenly
Father, will respond generously to the children
of other families, giving them support and love
not as outsiders but as members of the one family
of God's children. Christian parents will thus
be able to spread their love beyond the bonds
of flesh and blood, nourishing the links that
are rooted in the spirit and that develop through
concrete service to the children of other families,
who are often without even the barest necessities.
Christian families will be able to show greater
readiness to adopt and foster children who have
lost their parents or have been abandoned by
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
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.
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, an example and stimulus for the broader
community of relationships marked by respect,
justice, dialogue and love.
The family is thus, as the synod fathers recalled,
the place of origin and the most effective means
for humanizing and personalizing society: It
makes an original contribution in depth in building
up the world, by making possible a life that
is, properly speaking, human, in particular
by guarding and transmitting virtues and "values."
As the Second Vatican Council states, in the
family "the various generations come together
and help one another to grow wiser and to harmonize
personal rights with the other requirements
of social living."[106]
Consequently, faced with a society that is
running the risk of becoming more and more depersonalized
and standardized and therefore inhuman and dehumanizing,
with the negative results of many forms of escapism--such
as alcoholism, drugs and even terrorism--the
family possesses and continues still to release
formidable energies capable of taking man out
of his 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.
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, 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]
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.
Society should not take from families the functions
that they can just as well perform on their
own or in free associations; instead it must
positively favor and encourage as far as possible
responsible initiative by families. In the conviction
that the good of the family is an indispensable
and essential value of the civil community,
the public authorities must do everything possible
to ensure that families have all those aids--economic,
social, educational, political and cultural
assistance--that they need in order to face
all their responsibilities in a human way.
46. The 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;
--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.
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.
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 "smallscale church," the
Christian family is called upon, like the "large-scale
church," to be a sign of unity for the
world and in this way to exercise its prophetic
role by bearing witness to the kingdom and peace
of Christ, toward which the whole world is journeying.
Christian families can do this through their
educational activity--that is to say, by presenting
to their children a model of life based on the
values of truth, freedom, justice and love--both
through active and responsible involvement in
the authentically human growth of society and
its institutions, and supporting in various
ways the associations specifically devoted to
international issues.
IV. SHARING IN THE LIFE AND MISSION 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]
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
in the ecclesial and civil communities.
The Christian family also builds up the kingdom
of God in history through the everyday realities
that concern and distinguish its state of life.
It is thus in the love between husband and wife
and between the members of the family--a love
lived out in all its extraordinary richness
of values and demands: totality, oneness, fidelity
and fruitfulness"[118]--that the Christian
family's participation in the prophetic, priestly
and kingly mission of Jesus Christ and of his
church finds expression and realization. Therefore,
love and life constitute the nucleus of the
saving mission of the Christian family in the
church and for the church.
The Second Vatican Council recalls this fact
when it writes: "Families will share their
spiritual riches generously with other families
too. Thus the Christian family, which springs
from marriage as a reflection of the loving
covenant uniting Christ with the church, and
as a participation in that covenant will manifest
to all people the savior's living presence in
the world, and the genuine nature of the church.
This the family will do by the mutual love of
the spouses, by their generous fruitfulness,
their solidarity and faithfulness, and by the
loving way in which all the members of the family
work together."[119]
Having laid the foundation of the participation
of the christian family in the church's mission,
it is now time to illustrate its substance in
reference to Jesus Christ as prophet, priest
and king--three aspects of a single reality--by
presenting the Christian family as 1) a believing
and evangelizing community, 2) a community in
dialogue with God, and 3) a community at the
service of man.
A. The Christian family as a believing and
evangelizing community
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.
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 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]
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
seedbed of vocations to a life of consecration
to the kingdom of God.
The parents' ministry of evangelization and
catechesis ought to play a part in their children's
lives also during adolescence and youth, when
the children, as often happens, challenge or
even reject the Christian faith received in
earlier years. Just as in the church the work
of evangelization can never be separated from
the sufferings of the apostle, so in the Christian
family parents must face with courage and great
interior serenity the difficulties that their
ministry of evangelization sometimes encounters
in their own children.
It should not be forgotten that the service
rendered by Christian spouses and parents to
the Gospel is essentially an ecclesial service.
It has its place within the context of the whole
church as an evangelized and evangelizing community.
Insofar as the ministry of evangelization and
catechesis of the church of the home is rooted
in and derives from the one mission of the church
and is ordained to the upbuilding of the one
body of Christ,[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.
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 toward full acceptance of Christ the
savior.[132]
Animated in its own inner life by missionary
zeal, the church of the home is also called
to be a luminous sign of the presence of Christ
and of his love for those who are "far
away," for families who do not yet believe
and for those Christian families who no longer
live in accordance with the faith that they
once received. The Christian family is called
to enlighten "by its example and its witness
those who seek the truth. "[133]
Just as at the dawn of Christianity Aquila
and Priscilla were presented as a missionary
couple,[134] so today the church shows forth
her perennial newness and fruitfulness by the
presence of Christian couples and families who
dedicate at least a part of their lives to working
in missionary territories, proclaiming the Gospel
and doing service to their fellow man in the
love of Jesus Christ.
Christian families offer a special contribution
to the missionary cause of the church by fostering
missionary vocations among their sons and daughters[135]
and, more generally, "by training their
children from childhood to recognize God's love
for all people."[136]
B. The Christian family as a community in
dialogue with God
55. The 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.
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 toward their own perfection
as well as toward their mutual sanctification,
and hence contribute jointly to the glory of
God."[139]
Christian spouses and parents are included
in the universal call to sanctity. For them
this call is specified by the sacrament they
have celebrated and is carried out concretely
in the realities proper to their conjugal and
family life.[140] This gives rise to the grace
and requirement of an authentic and profound
conjugal and family spirituality that draws
its inspiration from the themes of creation,
covenant, cross, resurrection and sign, which
were stressed more than once by the synod.
Christian marriage, like the other sacraments,
"whose purpose is to sanctify people, to
build up the body of Christ, and finally, to
give worship to God,"[141] is in itself
a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus
Christ and in the church. By celebrating it,
Christian spouses profess their gratitude to
God for the sublime gift bestowed on them of
being able to live in their married and family
lives the very love of God for people and that
of the Lord Jesus for the church, his bride.
Just as husbands and wives receive from the
sacrament the gift and responsibility of translating
into daily living the sanctification bestowed
on them, so the same sacrament confers on them
the grace and moral obligation of transforming
their whole lives into a "spiritual sacrifice."[142]
What the council says of the laity applies also
to Christian spouses and parents, especially
with regard to the earthly and temporal realities
that characterize their lives: "As worshippers
leading holy lives in every place, the laity
consecrate the world itself to God."[143]
57. 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.
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.
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.
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: Par huic domui.
Remember, it is thus that you build up the church."[152]
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.
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 the liturgy, by self-oblation
and by prayer.[158]
C. The Christian family as a community at
the service of man
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 guided
by the new law of the Spirit and, in intimate
communion with the church, the kingly people,
it is called to exercise its "service"
of love toward God and toward its fellow human
beings.
Just as Christ exercises his royal power by
serving us,[161] so also the Christian finds
the authentic meaning of his participation in
the kingship of his Lord in sharing his spirit
and practice of service to man. "Christ
has communicated this power to his disciples
that they might be established in royal freedom
and that by self-denial and a holy life they
might conquer the reign of sin in themselves
(cf. Rom. 6:12). Further, he has shared this
power so that by serving him in their fellow
human beings they might through humility and
patience lead their brothers and sisters to
that King whom to serve is to reign. For the
Lord wishes to spread his kingdom by means of
the laity also, a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of
justice, love and peace. In this kingdom, creation
itself will be delivered out of its slavery
to corruption and into the freedom of the glory
of the children of God (cf. Rom. 8:21)"[162]
64. 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 toward the whole of society."[164]
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 toward 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 and in the experience of the
earthly pilgrimage toward 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.
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 beings endowed with
a rich and complex psychology and with a particular
personality with its own strengths and weaknesses.
It is the period when esteem for all authentic
human values is instilled, both in interpersonal
and in social relationships, with all that this
signifies for the formation of character, for
the control and right use of one's inclinations,
for the manner of regarding and meeting people
of the opposite sex, and so on. Also necessary,
especially for Christians, is solid spiritual
and catechetical formation that will show that
marriage is a true vocation and mission, without
excluding the possibility of the total gift
of self to God in the vocation to the priestly
or religious life.
Upon this basis there will subsequently and
gradually be built up the proximate preparation,
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 inquiry
required by canon law. This preparation is not
only necessary in every case, but is also more
urgently needed for engaged couples that still
manifest shortcomings or difficulties in Christian
doctrine and practice.
Among the elements to be instilled in this
journey of faith, which is similar to the 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.
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 covenant, elevated into a sacrament,
may be fully met and also in order that the
church's discipline regarding free consent,
impediments, the canonical form and the actual
rite of the celebration may be faithfully observed.
The celebration should be simple and dignified,
according to the norms of the competent authorities
of the church. It is also for 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.
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
toward salvation, a journey which the celebration
of the sacrament and the immediate preparation
for it can complement and bring to completion,
given the uprightness of their intention.
On the other hand it is true that in some places
engaged couples ask to be married in church
for motives which are social rather than genuinely
religious. This is not surprising. Marriage,
in fact, is not an event that concerns only
the persons actually getting married. By its
very nature it is also a social matter, committing
the couple being married in the eyes of society.
And its celebration has always been an occasion
of rejoicing that brings together families and
friends. It therefore goes without saying that
social as well as personal motives enter into
the request to be married in church.
Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that
these engaged couples by virtue of their baptism
are already really sharers in Christ's marriage
covenant with the church, and that, by their
right intention, they have accepted God's plan
regarding marriage and therefore, at least implicitly,
consent to what the church intends to do when
she celebrates marriage. Thus the fact that
motives of a social nature also enter into the
request is not enough to justify refusal on
the part of pastors. Moreover, as the Second
Vatican Council teaches, the sacraments by words
and ritual elements nourish and strengthen faith:[168]
that faith toward which the married couple are
already journeying by reason of the uprightness
of their intention, which Christ's grace certainly
does not fail to favor and support.
As for wishing to lay down further criteria
for admission to the ecclesial celebration of
marriage, criteria that would concern the level
of faith of those to be married, this would
above all involve grave risks. In the first
place, the risk of making unfounded and discriminatory
judgments; second, the risk of causing doubts
about the validity of marriages already celebrated,
with grave harm to Christian communities and
new and unjustified anxieties to the consciences
of married couples; one would also fall into
the danger of calling into question the sacramental
nature of many marriages of brethren separated
from full communion with the Catholic Church,
thus contradicting ecclesial tradition.
However, when in spite of all efforts 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.
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 familiesthere will take place a
mutual exchange of presence and help among all
the families, each one putting at the service
of the others its own experience of life, as
well as the gifts of faith and grace. Animated
by a true apostolic spirit, this assistance
from family to family will constitute one of
the simplest, most effective and most accessible
means for transmitting from one to another those
Christian values which are both the starting
point and goal of all pastoral care. Thus young
families will not limit themselves merely to
receiving, but in their turn, having been helped
in this way, will become a source of enrichment
for other longer established families through
their witness of life and practical contribution.
In her pastoral care of young families the
church must also pay special attention to helping
them to live married love responsibly in relationship
with its demands 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.
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.
70. The ecclesial community and in particular
the parish
The church, which is at the same time a saved
and a saving community, has to be considered
here under two aspects: as universal and particular.
The second aspect is expressed and actuated
in the diocesan community, which is pastorally
divided up into lesser communities of which
the parish is of special importance.
Communion with the universal church does not
hinder, but rather guarantees and promotes the
substance and originality of the various particular
churches. These latter remain 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 of organized pastoral
work at any level must ever fail to take into
consideration the pastoral area of the family.
Also to be seen in the light of this responsibility
is the importance of the proper preparation
of all those who will be more specifically engaged
in this kind of apostolate. Priests and men
and women religious from the time of their formation
should be oriented and trained progressively
and thoroughly for the various tasks. Among
the various initiatives I am pleased to emphasize
the recent establishment in Rome, at the Pontifical
Lateran University, 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.
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 toward other families, especially those
most in need of help and support, toward the
poor, the sick, the old, the handicapped, orphans,
widows, spouses that have been abandoned, unmarried
mothers and mothers-to-be in difficult situations
who are tempted to have recourse to abortion,
and so on.
72. 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 the international
level; for collaboration with the school and
with the other institutions that complete the
education of children, and so forth.
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.
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 toward families as fathers,
brothers, pastors and teachers, assisting them
with the means of grace and enlightening them
with the light of truth. Their teaching and
advice must therefore always be in 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.
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,"[169]
and they are witnesses to that universal charity
which, through chastity embraced for the kingdom
of heaven, makes them every more available to
dedicate themselves generously to the service
of God and to the works of the apostolate.
Hence the possibility for men and women religious
and members of secular institutes and other
institutes of perfection, either individually
or in groups, to develop their service to families,
with particular solicitude for children, especially
if they are abandoned, unwanted, orphaned, poor
or handicapped. They can also visit families
and look after the sick; they can foster relationships
of respect and charity toward one-parent families
or families that are in difficulties or are
separated; they can offer their own work of
teaching and counseling in the preparation of
young people for marriage and in helping couples
toward truly responsible parenthood; they can
open their own houses for simple and cordial
hospitality so that families can find there
the sense of God's presence and gain a taste
for prayer and recollection and see the practical
examples of lives lived in charity and fraternal
joy as members of the larger family of God.
I would like to add a most pressing exhortation
to the heads of institutes of consecrated life
to 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.
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]
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 lifestyle--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 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."[175]
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 anti-social 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.
77. An even more generous, intelligent
and prudent pastoral commitment, modeled on
the Good Shepherd, is called for in the case
of families which, often independently of their
own wishes and through pressures of various
other kinds, find themselves faced by situations
which are objectively difficult.
In this regard it is necessary to call special
attention to certain particular groups which
are more in need not only of assistance but
also of more incisive action upon public opinion
and especially upon cultural, economic and juridical
structures, in order that the profound causes
of their needs may be eliminated as far as possible.
Such, for example, are the families of migrant
workers; the families of those obliged to be
away for long periods, such as members of the
armed forces, sailors and all kinds of itinerant
people; the families of those in prison, of
refugees and exiles; the families in big cities
living, practically speaking, as outcasts; families
with no home; incomplete or single-parent families;
families with children that are handicapped
or addicted to drugs; the families of alcoholics;
families that have been uprooted from their
cultural and social environment or are in danger
of losing it; families discriminated against
for political or other reasons; families that
are ideologically divided; families that are
unable to make ready contact with the parish;
families experiencing violence or unjust treatment
because of their faith; teen-age married couples;
the elderly, who are often obliged to live alone
with inadequate means of subsistence.
The families of migrants, especially in the
case of manual workers and farm workers, should
be able to find a homeland everywhere in the
church. This is a task stemming from the nature
of the church, as being the sign of unity in
diversity. As far as possible these people should
be looked after by priests of their own rite,
culture and language. It is also the church's
task to appeal to the public conscience and
to all those in authority in social, economic
and political life, in order that workers may
find employment in their own regions and homelands,
that they may receive just wages, that their
families may be reunited as soon as possible,
be respected in their cultural identity and
treated on an equal footing with others, and
that their children may be given the chance
to learn a trade 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.
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.[178]
There must be borne in mind the particular
difficulties inherent in the relationships between
husband and wife with regard to respect for
religious freedom: This freedom could be violated
either by undue pressure to make the partner
change his or her beliefs or by placing obstacles
in the way of the free manifestation of these
beliefs by religious practice.
With regard to the liturgical and canonical
form of marriage, ordinaries can make wide use
of their faculties to meet various necessities.
In dealing with these special needs, the following
points should be kept in mind: --In the appropriate
preparation for this type of marriage every
reasonable effort must be made to ensure 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 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.
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.
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.
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 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 toward society; possible psychological
damage to the children; the strengthening of
selfishness).
The pastors and the ecclesial community should
take care to become acquainted with such situations
and their actual causes, case by case. They
should make tactful and respectful contact with
the couples concerned and enlighten them patiently,
correct them charitably and show them the witness
of Christian family life in such a way as to
smooth the path for them to regularize their
situation. But above all there must be a campaign
of prevention, by fostering the sense of fidelity
in the whole moral and religious training of
the young, instructing them concerning the conditions
and structures that favor such fidelity, without
which there is no true freedom; they must be
helped to reach spiritual maturity and enabled
to understand the rich human and supernatural
reality of marriage as a sacrament.
82. There are increasing cases of Catholics
who for ideological or practical reasons prefer
to contract a merely civil marriage and who
reject or at least defer religious marriage.
Their situation cannot, of course, be likened
to that of people simply living together without
any bond at all, because in the present case
there is at least a certain commitment to a
properly defined and probably stable state of
life even though the possibility of a future
divorce is often present in the minds of those
entering a civil marriage. By seeking public
recognition of their bond on the part of the
state, such couples show that they are ready
to accept not only its advantages but also its
obligations. Nevertheless, not even this situation
is acceptable to the church.
The aim of pastoral action will be to make
these people understand the need for consistency
between their choice of life and the faith that
they profess, and to try to do everything possible
to induce them to regularize their situation
in the light of Christian principles. While
treating them with great charity and bringing
them into the life of the respective communities,
the pastors of the church will regrettably not
be able to admit them to the sacraments.
83. 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.
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 convenant and of fidelity
to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake
a way of life that is no longer in contradiction
to the indissolubility of marriage.
This means, in practice, that when, for serious
reasons such as, for example, the children's
upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy
the obligation to separate, they "take
on themselves the duty to live in complete continence,
that is, by abstinence from the acts proper
to married couples."[180]
Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament
of matrimony, to the couples themselves and
their families, and also to the community of
the faithful forbids any pastor for whatever
reason or pretext, even of a pastoral nature,
to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced
people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give
the impression of the celebration of a new,
sacramentally valid marriage and would thus
lead people into error concerning the indissolubility
of a validly contracted marriage.
By acting in this way the church professes
her own fidelity to Christ and to his truth.
At the same time she shows motherly concern
for these children of hers, especially those
who, through no fault of their own, have been
abandoned by their legitimate partner.
With firm confidence she believes that those
who have rejected the Lord's command and are
still living in this state will be able to obtain
from God the grace of conversion and salvation,
provided that they have persevered in prayer,
penance and charity.
85. 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
in what could be called, in the proper sense,
a family. Large sections of humanity live in
conditions of extreme poverty in which promiscuity,
lack of housing, the irregular nature and instability
of relationships and the extreme lack of education
make it impossible in practice to speak of a
true family. There are others who for various
reasons have been left alone in the world. And
yet for all of these people there exists a "good
news of the family."
On behalf of those living in extreme poverty
I have already spoken of the urgent need to
work courageously in order to find solutions
also at the political level, which will make
it possible to help them and to overcome this
inhuman condition of degradation.
It is a special task that faces the whole of
society, but in a special way the authorities,
by reason of their position and the responsibilities
flowing therefrom, and also families, which
must show great understanding and willingness
to help.
For those who have no natural family the doors
of the great family which is the 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]
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]
toward which history is journeying.
I entrust each family to him, to Mary and to
Joseph. To their hands and their hearts I offer
this exhortation: May it be they who present
it to you, venerable brothers and beloved sons
and daughters, and may it be they who open your
hearts to the light that the Gospel sheds on
every family.
I assure you all of my constant prayers and
I cordially impart the apostolic blessing to
each and every one of you, in the name of the
Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, Nov. 22, 1981,
the solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, universal
king, the fourth of the pontificate.
NOTES
1. Cf. Second Vatican Council, Gaudium
et Spes, 52.
2. Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the
Opening of the Sixth Synod of Bishops (Sept.
26, 1980), 2: AAS 72 (1980), 1008.
3. Cf. Gn. 1-2.
4. Cf. Eph. 5.
5. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS, 47;
Pope John Paul II, Letter Appropinquat Iam (Aug.
15, 1980), 1: AAS 72 (1980), 791.
6. Cf. Mt. 19:4.
7. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS, 47.
8. Cf. John Paul II, Address to Council
of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops
(Feb. 23, 1980): Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo
II,) III, I (1980), 472-476.
9. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS, 4.
10. Cf. Second Vatican Council, Lumen
Gentium, 12.
11. Cf. I Jn. 2:20.
12. Second Vatican Council, LG, 35.
13. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LG,
12; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae, 2: AAS 65 (1973),
398-400.
14. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LG,
12; Dei Verbum, 10.
15. Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the
Opening of the Sixth Synod of Bishops, 3.
16. Cf. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei,
XIV, 28; CSEL 40, II, 56-57.
17. GS, 15.
18. Cf. Eph. 3:8; Second Vatican Council,
GS, 44; Ad Gentes, 15,22.
19. Cf. Mt. 19:4-6.
20. Cf. Gn. 1:26-27.
21. 1 Jn. 4:8.
22. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
12.
23. Cf. Ibid., 48.
24. Cf. e.g., Hos. 2:21; Jer. 3:6-13;
Is. 54.
25. Ez. 16:25.
26. Cf. Hos. 3.
27. Cf. Gn. 2:24; Mt. 19:5.
28. Cf. Eph. 5:32-33
29. Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, II, VIII,
6-8: CCL, I, 393.
30. Cf. Council of Trent, Session XXIV,
Canon 1: I.D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova
et Amplissima Collectio,33,149-150.
31. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
48.
32. John Paul II, Address to the delegates
of the Centre de Liaison des Equipes de Recherche
(Nov. 3, 1979), 3: Insegnamenti II, 2 (1979),
1038.
33. Ibid., 4; loc. cit., 1032. 34. Cf.
Second Vatican Council, GS, 50.
34. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
50.
35. Cf. Gn. 2:24.
36. Eph. 3:15.
37. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
78.
38. St. John Chrysostom, Virginity,
X: PG 48:540.
39. Cf. Mt. 22:30.
40. Cf. 1 Cor. 7:32-35.
41. Second Vatican Council, Perfectae
Caritatis, 12.
42. Cf. Pius XII, Encyclical Sacra Virginitas,
II: AAS 46 (1954), 174ff.
43. Cf. John Paul II, Letter Novo Incipiente
(April 8, 1979), 9: AAS 71 (1979), 410-411.
44. Second Vatican Council, GS, 48.
45. Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, 10:
AAS 71 (1979), 274.
46. Mt. 19:6; cf. Gn. 2:24.
47. Cf. John Paul II, Address to Married
People at Kinshasa (May 3, 1980) 4: AAS 72 (1980),
426-427.
48. GS, 49; cf. John Paul II, Address
at Kinshasa 4: loc. cit.
49. Second Vatican Council, GS, 48.
50. Cf Eph 5:25.
51. Mt. 19:8.
52. Rv. 3:14.
53. Cf. 2Cor. 1:20.
54. Cf. Jn. 13:1.
55. Mt. 19:6.
56. Rom. 8:29.
57. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae,
II-II, q. 14, art. 2, ad 4.
58. Second Vatican Council, LG, 11;
cf. Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11.
59. Second Vatican Council, GS, 52.
60. Cf. Eph. 6:1-4; Col. 3:20-21.
61. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
48.
62. Jn. 17:21.
63. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
24.
64. Gn. 1:27.
65. Gal. 3:26, 28
66. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Laborem
Exercens, 19: AAS 73 (1981), 625.
67. Gn. 2:18.
68. Gn. 2:23.
69. St. Ambrose, Exameron, V 7, 19:
CSEL 32, I, 154.
70. Paul VI, Encyclical Humanae Vitae,
9: AAS 60 (1968), 486.
71. Cf. Eph. 5:25.
72. Cf. John Paul II, Homily to the
Faithful of Terni (March 19, 1981), 3-5: AAS.
73. (1981), 268-271. 73. Cf. Eph. 3:15.
74. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
52.
75. Lk. 18:16; cf. Mt. 19:14; Mk. 18:16.
76. John Paul II, Address to the General
Assembly of the United Nations (Oct. 2, 1979),
21: AAS 71(1979), 1159.
77. Lk. 2:52.
78. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
48.
79. John Paul II, Address to the Participants
in the International Forum on Active Aging (Sept.
5, 1980), 5: Insegnamenti, III, 2 (1980), 539.
80. Gn. 1:28.
81. Cf. Gn. 5:1-3.
82. Second Vatican Council, GS, 50.
83. Propositio 21. Section 11 of the
encyclical Humanae Vitae ends with the statement:
"The church, calling people back to the
observance of the norms of the natural law,
as interpreted by her constant doctrine, teaches
that each and every marriage act must remain
open to the transmission of life (ut quilibet
matrimonii usus ad vitam humanam procreandam
per se destinatus permaneat)": AAS 60 (1968),
488.
84. Cf. 2 Cor. 1:19; Rv. 3:14.
85. Cf. The sixth Synod of Bishops'
Message to Christian Families in the Modern
World (Oct. 24, 1980), 5.
86. GS, 51.
87. Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 7: AAS
60 (1968), 485.
88. Ibid., 12: loc. cit., 488-489.
89. Ibid., 14: loc. cit., 490.
90. Ibid., 13: loc. cit.,m 489.
91. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GS,
51.
92. Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 29: AAS
60 (1968), 501.
93. Cf. Ibid., 25: loc. cit., 498-499.
94. Ibid., 21: loc. cit., 496.
95. John Paul II, Homily at the Close
of the Sixth Synod of Bishops (Oct. 25, 1980),
8: AAS 72 (1980), 1083.
96. Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Humanae
Vitae, 28: AAS 60 (1968), 501.
97. Cf. John Paul II, Address to the
Delegates of the Centre de Liaison des Equipes
de Recherche (Nov. 3, 1979), 9: Insegnamenti,
II, 2 (1979), 1035; and cf. Address to the Participants
in the First Congress for the Family of Africa
and Europe (Jan. 15, 1981): L'Osservatore Romano,
Jan. 16, 1981.
98. Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 25: AAS
60 (1968), 499.
99. Gravissimum Educationis, 3.
100. Second Vatican Council, GS, 35.
101. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra
Gentiles, IV, 58.
102. GE, 2.
103. Apostolic exhortation Evangelii
Nuntiandi, 71: AAS 68 (1976), 60-61.
104. Cf. Second Vatican Council, GE,
3.
105. Second Vatican Council, AA, 11.
106. GS, 52.
107. Cf. Second Vatican Council, AA,
11.
108. Rom. 12:13.
109. Mt. 10:42.
110. Cf. GS, 30.
111. Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis
Humanae, 5.
112. Cf propositio 42.
113. Second Vatican Council, LG, 31.
114. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LG,
11; AA, II; Pope John Paul II, Homily for the
Opening of the Sixth Synod of Bishops (Sept.
26, 1980), 3:AAS 72 (1980) 1008.
115. Second Vatican Council, LG, 11.
116. Cf. Ibid., 41.
117. Acts 4:32.
118. Cf. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 9.
119. GS, 48.
120. Cf. Second Vatican Council, DV,
1.
121. Rom. 16:26.
122. Cf. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 25.
123. Evangelii Nuntiandi, 71.
124. Cf. Address to the Third General
Assembly of the Bishops of Latin America (Jan.
28, 1979), IV A: AAS 71(1979), 204.
125. Second Vatican Council, LG, 35.
126. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation
Catechesi Tradendae, 68: AAS 71 (1979), 1334.
127. Cf. Ibid., 36: loc. cit., 1308.
128. Cf. 1 Cor. 12:4-6; Eph. 4:12-13.
129. Mk. 16:15.
130. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LG,
11.
131. Acts 1:8.
132. Cf.l Pt.3:1-2.
133. Second Vatican Council, LG, 35;
cf. AA, 11.
134. Cf. Acts 18; Rom. 16:3-4.
135. Cf. Second Vatican Council, AG,
39.
136. Second Vatican Council, AA, 30.
137. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LG,
10.
138. Second Vatican Council, GS, 49.
139. Ibid., 48.
140. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LG,
41.
141. Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum
Concilium, 59.
142. Cf. 1 Pt. 2:5; Second Vatican Council,
LG, 34.
143. Second Vatican Council, LG, 34.
144. SC, 78.
145. Cf. Jn. 19:34.
146. Section 25: AAS 60 (1968), 499.
147. Eph. 2:4.
148. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Dives
in Misericordia, 13: AAS 72 (1980)[1218]-1219.
149. 1 Pt. 2:5.
150. Mt. 18:19-20.
151. Second Vatican Council, GE, 3;
cf. Pope John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae,
36: AAS 71 (1979), 1308.
152. General Audience Address,Aug. 11,
1976:Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, XIV (1976),640.
153. Cf. SC, 12.
154. Cf. Institutio Generalis de Liturgia
Horarum, 27.
155. Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation
Marialis Cultus, 52, 54: AAS 66 (1974), 160-161.
156. John Paul II, Address at the Mentorella
Shrine (Oct. 29, 1978): Insegnamenti, I (1978),
78-79.
157. Cf. Second Vatican Council, AA,
4.
158. Cf. John Paul I, Address to the
Bishops of the 12th Pastoral Region of the United
States (Sept. 21, 1978): AAS, 70 (1978), 767.
159. Rom. 8:2.
160. Rom. 5:5.
161. Cf. Mk. 10:45.
162. Second Vatican Council, LG, 36.
163. AA, 8.
164. Cf. Synod of Bishops' Message to
Christian Families (Oct. 24, 1980),12.
165. Cf. John Paul II, Address to the
Third General Assembly of the Bishops of Latin
America (Jan. 28, 1979), IV A: AAS 71(1979),
204.
166. Cf. Second Vatican Council, SC,
10.
167. Cf. Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium,
17.
168. Cf. Second Vatican Council, SC,
59.
169. Second Vatican Council, PC, 12.
170. John Paul II, Address to the Confederation
of Family Advisory Bureaus of Christian Inspiration
(Nov. 29, 1980), 3-4: Insegnamenti III, 2 (1980),
1453-1454.
171. Paul VI, Message for the Third
Social Communications Day (April 7,1969): AAS
61 (1969), 455.
172. John Paul II, Message for the 1980
World Social Communications Day (May 1, 1980):
Insegnamenti III, 1 (1980), 1042.
173. John Paul II, Message for the 1981
World Social Communications Day (May 10, 1981),
5: L'Osservatore Romano, May 22, 1981.
174. Ibid.
175. Paul VI, Message for the Third
Social Communications Day: AAS 61 (1969), 456.
176. Ibid.
177. John Paul II, Message for the 1980
World Social Communications Day, loc. sit.,
1044.
178. Cf. Paul VI, Motu Proprio Matrimonia
Mixta, 4-5: AAS 62 (1970), 257-259; John Paul
II, Address to the Participants in the Plenary
Meeting of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian
Unity (Nov. 13, 1981): L'Osservatore Romano,
Nov. 14,1981.
179. Instruction In Quibus Rerum Circumstantiis
(June 15, 1972): AAS 64 (1972), 518-525; Note
of Oct. 17, 1973; AAS 65 (1973), 616-619.
180. John Paul II, Homily at the Close
of the Sixth Synod of Bishops, 7 (Oct. 25, 1980):
AAS 72 (1980), 1082.
181. Mt. 11:28.
182. John Paul II, Letter Appropinquat
Iam (Aug. 15, 1980), 1: AAS 72 (1980), 791.
183. The Roman Missal, Preface of Christ
the King.
