22. Family and Society
15. Christian Concept of the Family
The conjugal community is established on the consent of the spouses. Marriage and family are ordained to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. The love of the spouses and the procreation of children establish among the members of the family personal relationships and primary responsibilities.
A man and a woman united in marriage, with their children, form a family. This disposition is prior to any acknowledgment by the public authority.
When God created man and woman, he instituted the human family and gave it its fundamental constitution. Its members are persons who are equal in dignity. There is a diversity of responsibilities, duties, and rights within the family, for the common good of its members and society.1
15a) Divine Origin of the Family
The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of the ecclesial communion, and for this reason, it can and should be called “the domestic Church.”2
A Christian family is a communion of persons, and a reflection and image of the communion of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The family’s procreative and educational activities are a reflection of God’s creative work.3
God has wanted to establish the family as the basic cell of the social organism. The value and permanence of this institution are thus beyond the reach of human laws and decisions. The latter must facilitate the fulfillment of the task that God has entrusted to the family.
Let it be repeated as an immutable and inviolable fundamental doctrine that matrimony was not instituted or restored by man but by God; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ Our Lord by Whom nature was redeemed, and hence these laws cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary pact even of the spouses themselves.4
For a Christian marriage is not just a social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a real supernatural calling.5
Among the properties that God assigned to marriage since its origin, the most important are unity, indissolubility, and openness to fertility.
Christian doctrine thus opposes any attempt to reduce the family institution to a mere remedy for concupiscence, which is a result of original sin.6 That would imply a false spiritualism of human nature as it came out of the hands of God. For even before the first fall, God had wanted to cut short man’s original solitude and give him a mate: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gn 2:18). This shows that the family is the natural environment in which the spouses build up their Christian life and practice the virtues. Through the Sacrament of Marriage, God grants the spouses the graces they need to become saints in their union and in the cares and chores of family life. Christ himself wanted to be born and to spend most of his earthly life in the family of Nazareth, giving us an ever-valid example.
15b) The Most Natural and Necessary Community
It follows from the above that the family is the “primary vital cell of society.”7
Hence, civil progress must take into account the needs of the family; what is more, laws and public policies must protect and perfect it more and more.8 The family is the linchpin that builds up and consolidates the common good itself. Civic virtues are acquired in the family. Life within the family is the initiation to life in society. The family’s vitality is the vitality of the whole society.
The family cannot be replaced in this task of bringing up children to be truly human. Everything must be done in order that the family should not be replaced. That is necessary not only for the “private” good of every person, but also for the common good of every society, nation, and State of any continent. The family is placed at the very center of the common good in its various dimensions, precisely because man is conceived and born in it.9
15c) The Family Is Prior to the State
Since no institution takes precedence over the family, the state cannot claim rights over it either. On the contrary, the state is bound to respect and protect the rights and duties of the family, which are the original and primary rights. The dispositions of state authorities should never interfere with the life and responsibility of family members for the fulfillment of their own ends. In this field, too, the principle of subsidiarity must be applied. Society, and more specifically the state, must acknowledge that “every family … is a society with its own basic rights.”10 Thus, the state has the serious obligation of observing the principle of subsidiarity in its relationship with the family:
By virtue of this principle, the State cannot and must not take away from families the functions that they can just as well perform on their own or in free associations; instead it must positively favor and encourage as far as possible responsible initiative by families. In the conviction that the good of the family is an indispensable and essential value of the civil community, the public authorities must do everything possible to ensure that families have all those aids—economic, social, educational, political and cultural assistance—that they need in order to face all their responsibilities in a human way.11
15d) The Essential Element of the Human Community
The true dimension of social welfare and progress is reached when social virtues are fostered in the family. The Second Vatican Council could thus say that the family is a “school for human enrichment.”12
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 relationships marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love.13
The different kinds of attacks against the ends of the family, besides opposing the plan of God, seriously harm the whole of society. Nevertheless, by themselves, they cannot undermine the solid position of the family as the basic institution of society, in spite of the difficulties that are brought by changes in the world.
However, this happy picture of the dignity of these partnerships is not reflected everywhere, but is overshadowed by polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love, and similar blemishes; furthermore, married love is too often dishonored by selfishness, hedonism, and unlawful contraceptive practices. Besides, the economic, social, psychological, and civil climate of today has a severely disturbing effect on family life.… And yet the strength and vigor of the institution of marriage and family shines forth time and again: for despite the hardships flowing from the profoundly changing conditions of society today, the true nature of marriage and of the family is revealed in one way or another.14
16. Basic and Inalienable Rights of the Family
16a) The Right to Subsistence and Life
The family is entitled to its own subsistence and life. This implies that the state has the duty to help the family attain the basic resources it needs to carry out its proper tasks. Besides material help, the family needs a non-hostile moral environment.
Everyone, therefore, who exercises an influence in the community and in social groups should devote himself effectively to the welfare of marriage and the family. Civil authority should consider it a sacred duty to acknowledge the true nature of marriage and of the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard public morality and promote domestic prosperity.15
16b) The Right to Fulfill its Mission
(1) Procreation
Every family has the primary and inviolable right of procreating new lives. No reason—eugenic or demographic—can justify attacking unborn life or preventing conception through sterilization and similar practices.
Every human being—and also the child in his mother’s womb—has a right to life, which comes directly from God, not from his parents, nor from any sort of human society or authority. Therefore, no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic, or moral indication can claim or show any valid title to take a deliberate direct measure for its destruction, whether it be sought as an end or as a means to some other end—which perhaps, in itself, is not in any way unlawful.16
It is the parents, and not the public authorities, who are responsible for the transmission of life and the education of children. Parents have the right to demand from public authorities the legal dispositions that will facilitate the exercise of such responsibilities. The Church is well aware of the frequent violations of this right, which plague our world:
Thus the Church condemns as a grave offense against human dignity and justice all those activities of governments or other public authorities that 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.17
Besides natural life, the newborn child should receive supernatural life as soon as possible. This is all the more urgent if his life is in danger. In that case, Baptism should be administered even before birth; otherwise, the life of grace cannot take root in his soul.
If we consider that charity towards our neighbor demands that we assist him in case of need; and that this obligation is all the more serious and urgent the greater the good to be obtained or the evil to be avoided, and the less able the person in need is to save or help himself; then, we will easily understand the great importance of seeing to the Baptism of a child deprived of any use of reason, who is in great danger or facing imminent death.… What a great mercy, what a beautiful mercy, is that of securing for the soul of the child—between the threshold of life he has just crossed and the threshold of death he is about to cross—the entrance to glorious, beatifying eternity!18
This right to life applies equally—particularly, we could even say—to handicapped and retarded persons. Their spiritual souls have been created directly by God to enjoy him, as any other soul.
(2) The education of children
The upbringing of children is the natural continuation of procreation, since children need material and spiritual care until they reach maturity. Parents are the first and main educators of their children. This mission must be recognized, and parents must receive the necessary assistance. Pope John Paul II has stressed the irreplaceable catechesis that Christian families are called to provide. Parents may delegate to schools the cultural instruction and the religious and moral formation of their children, but this does not relieve them of their mission and responsibility.19 It follows that parents have the primary right to choose the type of education that is imparted in schools.
Since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring.
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.20
16c) The Right to Adequate Financial Support
Salaries must correspond to family needs. Large families should receive a proportionate retribution, so that the weaker members—or even the breadwinners—are not overworked in order to support the family.
In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family.… It is an intolerable abuse, and to be abolished at all cost, for mothers on account of the father’s low wage to be forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the home to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, especially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made [so] that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately.21
16d) The Right to Protection and Assistance
The possibility of having a family property that children can inherit is very advantageous for the stability of the family. This property is acquired by economizing and saving. The state must thus adopt policies that foster family initiative.
It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten; and similarly, it is natural that he should wish that his children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his personality, should be provided by him with all that is needful to enable them to keep themselves decently from want and misery amid the uncertainties of this mortal life. Now, in no other way can a father effect this except by the ownership of productive property, which he can transmit to his children by inheritance.22
Nevertheless, it is spiritual goods that best unite the family: faith and all the human and supernatural virtues that are practiced in the home. Thus, the family becomes a focus of evangelization, a “domestic Church.” This mission must be fostered, not suppressed. “The family is thus, as the Synodal Fathers recalled, the place of origin and the most effective means for humanizing and personalizing society: it makes an original contribution in depth to building up the world, by making possible a life that is properly speaking human, in particular by guarding and transmitting virtues and values.”23
The Church encourages all forms of assistance to the family: from housing development, subsidies, and allowances, to fostering family values through the media.
The duties of the political community toward the family can be summarized thus:
· To assure individuals of the freedom to found a home, have children, and educate them according to their own religious and morals convictions
· To protect the stability of the conjugal bond and the family institution
· To assure freedom to profess one’s faith, transmit it, and educate the children in it with the necessary means and institutions
· To recognize the rights to private property, freedom of initiative, work, housing, and emigration
· To assure the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family subsidies, according to the laws of the country
· To protect public security and hygiene, especially regarding the dangers of drugs, pornography, and alcohol abuse
· To recognize the family’s right to form associations together with other families and to be thus represented before the civil authorities24
17. Duties of the Family
17a) Transmitting Life
Conjugal union is by nature ordained to procreation. Man must not separate the two ends of marriage, which are naturally bound together. In the use of his procreative power, man is not the supreme master, but a mere collaborator of God, the Creator and absolute master of all life. Man must, thus, obey the objective norms that the Author of nature has built into it.
When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, it is not enough to take only the good intention and the evaluation of motives into account; the objective criteria must be used, criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human action, criteria which respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; all this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is seriously practiced.25
This does not mean that the mutual help and companionship—the secondary aspect of the purpose of marriage—is reduced to a mere instrumental means. Although still ordained to procreation, which is the primordial aspect of the purpose of marriage, it retains its intrinsic value. This can be appreciated more in the case of childless couples. The conjugal union is a form of interpersonal communion that is instituted by God:
But marriage is not merely for the procreation of children: its nature as an indissoluble compact between two people and the good of the children demand that the mutual love of the partners be properly shown, that it should grow and mature. Even in cases where despite the intense desire of the spouses there are no children, marriage still retains its character of being a whole manner and communion of life and preserves its value and indissolubility.26
Because of the indissoluble union of the two aspects of the purpose of marriage, the Church opposes artificial insemination and artificial contraception. Both subvert the natural order.
(1) Artificial insemination
God has established that procreation be the fruit of the love of the spouses within legitimate marriage.
Every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state.27
In view of the genetic experiments that have been performed in recent years, test-tube fertilization (fertilization in vitro with embryo transfer, FIVET) must be declared ethically unlawful because:
· it implies a high risk of abortion;
· the practice of freezing and storing an embryo as if it were an object, interrupting the natural development of life, violates the dignity that is enjoyed by a human being from the very moment of conception;
· in all cases, it dissociates the two aspects of the human act, union and procreation, since procreation is sought separately from the conjugal relation.
In what concerns artificial fecundation there is not merely room for extreme caution, but it must absolutely be avoided. By speaking this way, we do not necessarily forbid the use of artificial means whose sole purpose is either to facilitate the natural act or to assist the natural act, placed normally, in attaining its purpose.… Artificial fertilization oversteps the limits of the right acquired by the parents through the marriage contract, to wit: the right to fully exercise their natural sexual power by naturally performing the conjugal act.… We must likewise say that artificial fertilization violates natural law, and is against the law and morals.28
These techniques of artificial reproduction, which would seem to be at the service of life and which are frequently used with this intention, actually open the door to new threats against life. Apart from the fact that they are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act, these techniques have a high rate of failure: not just failure in relation to fertilization but with regard to the subsequent development of the embryo, which is exposed to the risk of death, generally within a very short space of time. Furthermore, the number of embryos produced is often greater than that needed for implantation in the woman’s womb, and these so-called “spare embryos” are then destroyed or used for research which, under the pretext of scientific or medical progress, in fact reduces human life to the level of simple “biological material” to be freely disposed of.29
“On the subject of the experiments in artificial human fecundation in vitro, let it suffice for us to observe that they must be rejected as immoral and absolutely illicit.”30 The same doctrine has been repeated by later popes, including John Paul II, and, among others, by the episcopal conferences of England, Australia, and Canada.
(2) Contraception
In the opposite sense, that is, excluding the generative process, the Church rejects any artificial intervention. “Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has affirmed on various occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action, which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.”31
Any conjugal act must be open to the transmission of life. Contraception is thus always illicit, even when it is used as a means for some good purpose:
Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater one or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may come from it—in other words, to intend positively something that intrinsically contradicts the moral order, and that must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse that is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.32
The use of the woman’s infertile period, however, can be admitted as a lawful option for birth control. This is acceptable only within the framework of responsible parenthood—that is, when there are “serious reasons” for spacing pregnancies. In such cases, responsible parenthood is exercised through the control of instinctive tendencies by reason and will.
But if we attend to relevant physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, those are considered to exercise responsible parenthood who prudently and generously decide to have a large family, or who, for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law, choose to have no more children for the time being or even for an indeterminate period.33
The Church commends parents who are willing to bring up a large family with sacrifice and generosity:
Among the married couples who thus fulfill their God-given mission, special mention should be made of those who after prudent reflection and common decision courageously undertake the proper upbringing of a large number of children.34
17b) The Education of Children
The transmission of life is not limited to the physical sphere; it continues through education. Taking as a model the mutual self-surrender of the spouses, education should aim at developing self-giving in the relations between the members of the family. All the virtues acquired in the family environment have repercussion on the diverse social spheres.
The family is the first and fundamental school of social living; as a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in the relationships between brothers and sisters and the different generations living together in the family. And the communion and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in the wider horizon of society.35
There is no need to repeat that parents should guide the instruction that is received at school. Education is not a spontaneous growth, nor is it a one-sided task of feeding knowledge into the mind of the child. It is an active process of helping the whole person—intellect, will, and feelings—mature through the responsible exercise of freedom. Being a process of integral formation, education must include the fundamental aspect of religious development.
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.36
17c) Indivisible Conjugal Community
Love is the foundation of the conjugal society, and love dictates the characteristics of that society as a total and exclusive community. The spouses do not give each other something external to themselves, or only a parcel of their activity; they share all that they are and have. It is, strictly, an interpersonal community (i.e., person-to-person, not body-to-body) that admits of no restrictions in what is shared with the other party. Neither is a conjugal community of more than two persons possible. This explains its characteristics of totality and exclusivity.
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.37
The Sacrament of Marriage is not an extrinsic addition to the natural bond; it is the same bond, but assumed and purified by the order of grace, and transformed into an image of the indivisible union between Christ and his Church.
17d) Care for Children and the Aged
As in other social spheres, concern for the most needy is accorded a special place. The family should live in such a manner that its members learn to care for and take responsibility toward the young ones and the aged, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor.38 The Church sets her Master as model of how to welcome children:
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” (Lk 2:52), offer their own precious contribution to building up the family community and even to the sanctification of their parents.39
Old people, on the other hand, should not be left out of the family. They are in a privileged position to transmit wisdom and to bridge the generational gap:
To proclaim the mission of the elderly and thereby to promote their special role in the human family is a task of great importance.… Old age is able to enrich the world through prayer and counsel, its presence enriches the home; its immense capacity for evangelization by word and example, and by activities eminently adapted to the talents of the elderly is a force for the Church of God yet to be thoroughly understood or adequately utilized.40
17e) Duties of the Children
Divine paternity is the source of human paternity, and thus the foundation of the honor that is due to parents.41 The respect of children, both the young and old, for their parents (cf. Prv 1:8; Tb 4:3–4) is fostered by the natural affection that is born of the family bond that unites them. This respect (filial piety) is demanded by divine precept (cf. Ex 20:12) and is based on gratitude toward those who have given us the gift of life and care for us with love and effort.
Filial respect is expressed by true docility and obedience (cf. Prv 6:20–22; 13:1). As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family (cf. Col 3:20; Eph 6:1). Children should also obey the reasonable directions of their teachers and all to whom their parents have entrusted them. But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, he must not do so.
As they grow up, children should continue to respect their parents. Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children, but not so respect, which is always owed to them.
The fourth commandment reminds grown children of their responsibilities toward their parents. As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress (cf. Mk 7:10–12; Sir 3:2–6; 3:12–13, 16).
Filial respect promotes harmony in all of family life, including relationships between brothers and sisters.
For Christians, a special gratitude is due to those from whom they have received the gift of faith, the grace of Baptism, and life in the Church. These may include parents, grandparents, other members of the family, pastors, catechists, and other teachers or friends (cf. 2 Tm 1:5).
18. Marriage and Civil Law
18a) Duties of the State toward Marriage
First of all, the state must recognize the citizen’s right to form a family, and protect it through appropriate laws and assistance. It must also recognize and protect the right to attain the natural purposes that define the family. “The rights of parents to procreate and educate children in the family must be safeguarded.”42 In this regard, the Church advises that the families themselves, through the appropriate public action, secure from the state the laws and institutions that will protect their rights and duties.43 The duties of the state in this field can be summarized in the principle of subsidiarity, as was explained above.
The Church has brought to the consideration of public authorities—and of the families themselves—the inalienable rights of the family. We must point out, besides the fundamental rights mentioned above, others that are necessary consequences of these:
· The right to decent housing
· The right to free speech and to representation before the different public authorities, both as individual families and through free associations
· The right to have minors protected from alcoholism, drug addiction, pornography, or harmful medicines
· The right to leisure and privacy
· The right to migrate as a family to seek better living conditions44
18b) Divorce
Indissolubility is a property of every true marriage. It corresponds to God’s original plan for man: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mt 19:6; cf. Lk 16:18). It is not a demand of the sacrament alone. It follows from the very nature of the conjugal bond, exclusive and unconditional for as long as the spouses are alive.
These words of Christ refer to every kind of marriage, even that which is natural and legitimate only; for, as has already been observed, that indissolubility by which the loosening of the bond is once and for all removed from the whim of the parties and from every secular power, is a property of every true marriage.45
Indissolubility is required both for the mutual self-giving of the spouses and for the welfare of the children. These two principles are the foundation of another requirement of marriage: fidelity. No civil law has the power to break the bond, which God has established as indissoluble by its own nature.
Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving of the couple, and being required by the good of 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.46
18c) Women and Housekeeping
Like any other work, the work of housewives in their homes must be duly recognized and protected by law. The equal dignity of both spouses requires that the complementary tasks performed by breadwinner and housekeeper be granted the same recognition. Women have the same right as men to occupy professional and public positions. But they also have the right to seek that the typically feminine work they carry out in their homes be recognized as professional work. This means that wives should not be forced to seek work outside the house to support their families.
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.47
The proper appreciation of women’s role in the home will result in measures like the family wage, which takes into account the needs of the whole family, or direct subsidies to mothers:
Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration that will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future. Such remuneration can be given either through what is called a family wage—that is, a single salary given to the head of the family for his work, sufficient for the needs of the family without the other spouse having to take up gainful employment outside the home—or through other social measures such as family allowances or grants to mothers devoting themselves exclusively to their families. These grants should correspond to the actual needs, that is, to the number of dependents for as long as they are not in a position to assume proper responsibility for their own lives.48
St. Josemaría Escrivá tirelessly preached that the time that is devoted to one’s family is extremely pleasing to God, as well as an inexcusable obligation. He stressed the typically feminine values that women can contribute to the family and to society at large:
The attention she gives to her family will always be a woman’s greatest dignity. In the care she takes of her husband and children or, to put it in more general terms, in her work of creating a warm and formative atmosphere around her, a woman fulfills the most indispensable part of her mission. And so it follows that she can achieve her personal perfection there.… What I have just said does not go against her participating in other aspects of social life including politics. In these spheres, too, women can offer a valuable personal contribution, without neglecting their special feminine qualities. They will do this to the extent in which they are humanly and professionally equipped.49
Footnotes:
1. Cf. CCC, 2201–2233.
2. Cf. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 21; LG, 11.
3. Cf. CCC, 2204–2206.
4. Pius XI, Enc. Casti Connubii, 3.
5. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, 23.
6. Cf. Joseph Hoeffner, Fundamentals of Christian Sociology, 57.
7. AA, 11.
8. Cf. Pius XII, Address, June 1, 1941; GS, 48.
9. John Paul II, General Audience, Jan. 3, 1979.
10. DH, 5.
11. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 45.
12. GS, 52.
13. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 43.
14. GS, 47.
15. Ibid., 52.
16. Pius XII, Address, Nov. 27, 1951.
17. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 30.
18. Pius XII, Address, Nov. 27, 1951.
19. Cf. Teodoro López, ed., Juan Pablo II a las Familias (Pamplona, Spain: EUNSA, 1980), 33ff.
20. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 36.
21. Pius XI, Enc. Quadragesimo Anno, 71.
22. Leo XIII, Enc. Rerum Novarum, 9.
23. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 43; cf. CCC, 2209–2211.
24. Cf. CCC, 2211; John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 46.
25. GS, 51.
26. Ibid., 50.
27. Pius XI, Enc. Casti Connubii, 7; cf. CCC, 2376–2379.
28. Pius XII, Address to the Fourth International Congress of Catholic Doctors, Sep. 29, 1949.
29. John Paul II, Enc. Evangelium Vitae, 14.
30. Pius XII, Address to the World Congress on Sterility and Fecundity, May 19, 1956; cf. Thomas J. O’Donnell, S.J., Medicine and Christian Morality (New York: Society of St. Paul), 263–270.
31. Paul VI, Enc. Humanae Vitae, 14; cf. CCC, 2370.
32. Paul VI, Enc. Humanae Vitae, 14.
33. Ibid., 10.
34. GS, 50.
35. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 37.
36. Ibid., 39.
37. Ibid., 19.
38. Cf. CCC, 2208.
39. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 26.
40. John Paul II, Address to the International Forum on Active Aging, Sep. 5, 1980.
41. Cf. CCC, 2214–2220.
42. GS, 52.
43. Cf. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 44.
44. Cf. John Paul II, Charter of the Rights of the Family, Oct. 22, 1983; Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 46; CCC, 2207–2211.
45. Pius XI, Enc. Casti Connubii, 33.
46. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 20.
47. Ibid., 23; cf. CCC, 2384–2386.
48. John Paul II, Enc. Laborem Exercens, 19.
49. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá, 87.
The conjugal community is established on the consent of the spouses. Marriage and family are ordained to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. The love of the spouses and the procreation of children establish among the members of the family personal relationships and primary responsibilities.
A man and a woman united in marriage, with their children, form a family. This disposition is prior to any acknowledgment by the public authority.
When God created man and woman, he instituted the human family and gave it its fundamental constitution. Its members are persons who are equal in dignity. There is a diversity of responsibilities, duties, and rights within the family, for the common good of its members and society.1
15a) Divine Origin of the Family
The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of the ecclesial communion, and for this reason, it can and should be called “the domestic Church.”2
A Christian family is a communion of persons, and a reflection and image of the communion of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The family’s procreative and educational activities are a reflection of God’s creative work.3
God has wanted to establish the family as the basic cell of the social organism. The value and permanence of this institution are thus beyond the reach of human laws and decisions. The latter must facilitate the fulfillment of the task that God has entrusted to the family.
Let it be repeated as an immutable and inviolable fundamental doctrine that matrimony was not instituted or restored by man but by God; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ Our Lord by Whom nature was redeemed, and hence these laws cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary pact even of the spouses themselves.4
For a Christian marriage is not just a social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a real supernatural calling.5
Among the properties that God assigned to marriage since its origin, the most important are unity, indissolubility, and openness to fertility.
Christian doctrine thus opposes any attempt to reduce the family institution to a mere remedy for concupiscence, which is a result of original sin.6 That would imply a false spiritualism of human nature as it came out of the hands of God. For even before the first fall, God had wanted to cut short man’s original solitude and give him a mate: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gn 2:18). This shows that the family is the natural environment in which the spouses build up their Christian life and practice the virtues. Through the Sacrament of Marriage, God grants the spouses the graces they need to become saints in their union and in the cares and chores of family life. Christ himself wanted to be born and to spend most of his earthly life in the family of Nazareth, giving us an ever-valid example.
15b) The Most Natural and Necessary Community
It follows from the above that the family is the “primary vital cell of society.”7
Hence, civil progress must take into account the needs of the family; what is more, laws and public policies must protect and perfect it more and more.8 The family is the linchpin that builds up and consolidates the common good itself. Civic virtues are acquired in the family. Life within the family is the initiation to life in society. The family’s vitality is the vitality of the whole society.
The family cannot be replaced in this task of bringing up children to be truly human. Everything must be done in order that the family should not be replaced. That is necessary not only for the “private” good of every person, but also for the common good of every society, nation, and State of any continent. The family is placed at the very center of the common good in its various dimensions, precisely because man is conceived and born in it.9
15c) The Family Is Prior to the State
Since no institution takes precedence over the family, the state cannot claim rights over it either. On the contrary, the state is bound to respect and protect the rights and duties of the family, which are the original and primary rights. The dispositions of state authorities should never interfere with the life and responsibility of family members for the fulfillment of their own ends. In this field, too, the principle of subsidiarity must be applied. Society, and more specifically the state, must acknowledge that “every family … is a society with its own basic rights.”10 Thus, the state has the serious obligation of observing the principle of subsidiarity in its relationship with the family:
By virtue of this principle, the State cannot and must not take away from families the functions that they can just as well perform on their own or in free associations; instead it must positively favor and encourage as far as possible responsible initiative by families. In the conviction that the good of the family is an indispensable and essential value of the civil community, the public authorities must do everything possible to ensure that families have all those aids—economic, social, educational, political and cultural assistance—that they need in order to face all their responsibilities in a human way.11
15d) The Essential Element of the Human Community
The true dimension of social welfare and progress is reached when social virtues are fostered in the family. The Second Vatican Council could thus say that the family is a “school for human enrichment.”12
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 relationships marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love.13
The different kinds of attacks against the ends of the family, besides opposing the plan of God, seriously harm the whole of society. Nevertheless, by themselves, they cannot undermine the solid position of the family as the basic institution of society, in spite of the difficulties that are brought by changes in the world.
However, this happy picture of the dignity of these partnerships is not reflected everywhere, but is overshadowed by polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love, and similar blemishes; furthermore, married love is too often dishonored by selfishness, hedonism, and unlawful contraceptive practices. Besides, the economic, social, psychological, and civil climate of today has a severely disturbing effect on family life.… And yet the strength and vigor of the institution of marriage and family shines forth time and again: for despite the hardships flowing from the profoundly changing conditions of society today, the true nature of marriage and of the family is revealed in one way or another.14
16. Basic and Inalienable Rights of the Family
16a) The Right to Subsistence and Life
The family is entitled to its own subsistence and life. This implies that the state has the duty to help the family attain the basic resources it needs to carry out its proper tasks. Besides material help, the family needs a non-hostile moral environment.
Everyone, therefore, who exercises an influence in the community and in social groups should devote himself effectively to the welfare of marriage and the family. Civil authority should consider it a sacred duty to acknowledge the true nature of marriage and of the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard public morality and promote domestic prosperity.15
16b) The Right to Fulfill its Mission
(1) Procreation
Every family has the primary and inviolable right of procreating new lives. No reason—eugenic or demographic—can justify attacking unborn life or preventing conception through sterilization and similar practices.
Every human being—and also the child in his mother’s womb—has a right to life, which comes directly from God, not from his parents, nor from any sort of human society or authority. Therefore, no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic, or moral indication can claim or show any valid title to take a deliberate direct measure for its destruction, whether it be sought as an end or as a means to some other end—which perhaps, in itself, is not in any way unlawful.16
It is the parents, and not the public authorities, who are responsible for the transmission of life and the education of children. Parents have the right to demand from public authorities the legal dispositions that will facilitate the exercise of such responsibilities. The Church is well aware of the frequent violations of this right, which plague our world:
Thus the Church condemns as a grave offense against human dignity and justice all those activities of governments or other public authorities that 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.17
Besides natural life, the newborn child should receive supernatural life as soon as possible. This is all the more urgent if his life is in danger. In that case, Baptism should be administered even before birth; otherwise, the life of grace cannot take root in his soul.
If we consider that charity towards our neighbor demands that we assist him in case of need; and that this obligation is all the more serious and urgent the greater the good to be obtained or the evil to be avoided, and the less able the person in need is to save or help himself; then, we will easily understand the great importance of seeing to the Baptism of a child deprived of any use of reason, who is in great danger or facing imminent death.… What a great mercy, what a beautiful mercy, is that of securing for the soul of the child—between the threshold of life he has just crossed and the threshold of death he is about to cross—the entrance to glorious, beatifying eternity!18
This right to life applies equally—particularly, we could even say—to handicapped and retarded persons. Their spiritual souls have been created directly by God to enjoy him, as any other soul.
(2) The education of children
The upbringing of children is the natural continuation of procreation, since children need material and spiritual care until they reach maturity. Parents are the first and main educators of their children. This mission must be recognized, and parents must receive the necessary assistance. Pope John Paul II has stressed the irreplaceable catechesis that Christian families are called to provide. Parents may delegate to schools the cultural instruction and the religious and moral formation of their children, but this does not relieve them of their mission and responsibility.19 It follows that parents have the primary right to choose the type of education that is imparted in schools.
Since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring.
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.20
16c) The Right to Adequate Financial Support
Salaries must correspond to family needs. Large families should receive a proportionate retribution, so that the weaker members—or even the breadwinners—are not overworked in order to support the family.
In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family.… It is an intolerable abuse, and to be abolished at all cost, for mothers on account of the father’s low wage to be forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the home to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, especially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made [so] that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately.21
16d) The Right to Protection and Assistance
The possibility of having a family property that children can inherit is very advantageous for the stability of the family. This property is acquired by economizing and saving. The state must thus adopt policies that foster family initiative.
It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten; and similarly, it is natural that he should wish that his children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his personality, should be provided by him with all that is needful to enable them to keep themselves decently from want and misery amid the uncertainties of this mortal life. Now, in no other way can a father effect this except by the ownership of productive property, which he can transmit to his children by inheritance.22
Nevertheless, it is spiritual goods that best unite the family: faith and all the human and supernatural virtues that are practiced in the home. Thus, the family becomes a focus of evangelization, a “domestic Church.” This mission must be fostered, not suppressed. “The family is thus, as the Synodal Fathers recalled, the place of origin and the most effective means for humanizing and personalizing society: it makes an original contribution in depth to building up the world, by making possible a life that is properly speaking human, in particular by guarding and transmitting virtues and values.”23
The Church encourages all forms of assistance to the family: from housing development, subsidies, and allowances, to fostering family values through the media.
The duties of the political community toward the family can be summarized thus:
· To assure individuals of the freedom to found a home, have children, and educate them according to their own religious and morals convictions
· To protect the stability of the conjugal bond and the family institution
· To assure freedom to profess one’s faith, transmit it, and educate the children in it with the necessary means and institutions
· To recognize the rights to private property, freedom of initiative, work, housing, and emigration
· To assure the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family subsidies, according to the laws of the country
· To protect public security and hygiene, especially regarding the dangers of drugs, pornography, and alcohol abuse
· To recognize the family’s right to form associations together with other families and to be thus represented before the civil authorities24
17. Duties of the Family
17a) Transmitting Life
Conjugal union is by nature ordained to procreation. Man must not separate the two ends of marriage, which are naturally bound together. In the use of his procreative power, man is not the supreme master, but a mere collaborator of God, the Creator and absolute master of all life. Man must, thus, obey the objective norms that the Author of nature has built into it.
When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, it is not enough to take only the good intention and the evaluation of motives into account; the objective criteria must be used, criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human action, criteria which respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; all this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is seriously practiced.25
This does not mean that the mutual help and companionship—the secondary aspect of the purpose of marriage—is reduced to a mere instrumental means. Although still ordained to procreation, which is the primordial aspect of the purpose of marriage, it retains its intrinsic value. This can be appreciated more in the case of childless couples. The conjugal union is a form of interpersonal communion that is instituted by God:
But marriage is not merely for the procreation of children: its nature as an indissoluble compact between two people and the good of the children demand that the mutual love of the partners be properly shown, that it should grow and mature. Even in cases where despite the intense desire of the spouses there are no children, marriage still retains its character of being a whole manner and communion of life and preserves its value and indissolubility.26
Because of the indissoluble union of the two aspects of the purpose of marriage, the Church opposes artificial insemination and artificial contraception. Both subvert the natural order.
(1) Artificial insemination
God has established that procreation be the fruit of the love of the spouses within legitimate marriage.
Every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state.27
In view of the genetic experiments that have been performed in recent years, test-tube fertilization (fertilization in vitro with embryo transfer, FIVET) must be declared ethically unlawful because:
· it implies a high risk of abortion;
· the practice of freezing and storing an embryo as if it were an object, interrupting the natural development of life, violates the dignity that is enjoyed by a human being from the very moment of conception;
· in all cases, it dissociates the two aspects of the human act, union and procreation, since procreation is sought separately from the conjugal relation.
In what concerns artificial fecundation there is not merely room for extreme caution, but it must absolutely be avoided. By speaking this way, we do not necessarily forbid the use of artificial means whose sole purpose is either to facilitate the natural act or to assist the natural act, placed normally, in attaining its purpose.… Artificial fertilization oversteps the limits of the right acquired by the parents through the marriage contract, to wit: the right to fully exercise their natural sexual power by naturally performing the conjugal act.… We must likewise say that artificial fertilization violates natural law, and is against the law and morals.28
These techniques of artificial reproduction, which would seem to be at the service of life and which are frequently used with this intention, actually open the door to new threats against life. Apart from the fact that they are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act, these techniques have a high rate of failure: not just failure in relation to fertilization but with regard to the subsequent development of the embryo, which is exposed to the risk of death, generally within a very short space of time. Furthermore, the number of embryos produced is often greater than that needed for implantation in the woman’s womb, and these so-called “spare embryos” are then destroyed or used for research which, under the pretext of scientific or medical progress, in fact reduces human life to the level of simple “biological material” to be freely disposed of.29
“On the subject of the experiments in artificial human fecundation in vitro, let it suffice for us to observe that they must be rejected as immoral and absolutely illicit.”30 The same doctrine has been repeated by later popes, including John Paul II, and, among others, by the episcopal conferences of England, Australia, and Canada.
(2) Contraception
In the opposite sense, that is, excluding the generative process, the Church rejects any artificial intervention. “Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has affirmed on various occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action, which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.”31
Any conjugal act must be open to the transmission of life. Contraception is thus always illicit, even when it is used as a means for some good purpose:
Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater one or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may come from it—in other words, to intend positively something that intrinsically contradicts the moral order, and that must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse that is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.32
The use of the woman’s infertile period, however, can be admitted as a lawful option for birth control. This is acceptable only within the framework of responsible parenthood—that is, when there are “serious reasons” for spacing pregnancies. In such cases, responsible parenthood is exercised through the control of instinctive tendencies by reason and will.
But if we attend to relevant physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, those are considered to exercise responsible parenthood who prudently and generously decide to have a large family, or who, for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law, choose to have no more children for the time being or even for an indeterminate period.33
The Church commends parents who are willing to bring up a large family with sacrifice and generosity:
Among the married couples who thus fulfill their God-given mission, special mention should be made of those who after prudent reflection and common decision courageously undertake the proper upbringing of a large number of children.34
17b) The Education of Children
The transmission of life is not limited to the physical sphere; it continues through education. Taking as a model the mutual self-surrender of the spouses, education should aim at developing self-giving in the relations between the members of the family. All the virtues acquired in the family environment have repercussion on the diverse social spheres.
The family is the first and fundamental school of social living; as a community of love, it finds in self-giving the law that guides it and makes it grow. The self-giving that inspires the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in the relationships between brothers and sisters and the different generations living together in the family. And the communion and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in the wider horizon of society.35
There is no need to repeat that parents should guide the instruction that is received at school. Education is not a spontaneous growth, nor is it a one-sided task of feeding knowledge into the mind of the child. It is an active process of helping the whole person—intellect, will, and feelings—mature through the responsible exercise of freedom. Being a process of integral formation, education must include the fundamental aspect of religious development.
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.36
17c) Indivisible Conjugal Community
Love is the foundation of the conjugal society, and love dictates the characteristics of that society as a total and exclusive community. The spouses do not give each other something external to themselves, or only a parcel of their activity; they share all that they are and have. It is, strictly, an interpersonal community (i.e., person-to-person, not body-to-body) that admits of no restrictions in what is shared with the other party. Neither is a conjugal community of more than two persons possible. This explains its characteristics of totality and exclusivity.
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.37
The Sacrament of Marriage is not an extrinsic addition to the natural bond; it is the same bond, but assumed and purified by the order of grace, and transformed into an image of the indivisible union between Christ and his Church.
17d) Care for Children and the Aged
As in other social spheres, concern for the most needy is accorded a special place. The family should live in such a manner that its members learn to care for and take responsibility toward the young ones and the aged, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor.38 The Church sets her Master as model of how to welcome children:
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” (Lk 2:52), offer their own precious contribution to building up the family community and even to the sanctification of their parents.39
Old people, on the other hand, should not be left out of the family. They are in a privileged position to transmit wisdom and to bridge the generational gap:
To proclaim the mission of the elderly and thereby to promote their special role in the human family is a task of great importance.… Old age is able to enrich the world through prayer and counsel, its presence enriches the home; its immense capacity for evangelization by word and example, and by activities eminently adapted to the talents of the elderly is a force for the Church of God yet to be thoroughly understood or adequately utilized.40
17e) Duties of the Children
Divine paternity is the source of human paternity, and thus the foundation of the honor that is due to parents.41 The respect of children, both the young and old, for their parents (cf. Prv 1:8; Tb 4:3–4) is fostered by the natural affection that is born of the family bond that unites them. This respect (filial piety) is demanded by divine precept (cf. Ex 20:12) and is based on gratitude toward those who have given us the gift of life and care for us with love and effort.
Filial respect is expressed by true docility and obedience (cf. Prv 6:20–22; 13:1). As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family (cf. Col 3:20; Eph 6:1). Children should also obey the reasonable directions of their teachers and all to whom their parents have entrusted them. But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, he must not do so.
As they grow up, children should continue to respect their parents. Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children, but not so respect, which is always owed to them.
The fourth commandment reminds grown children of their responsibilities toward their parents. As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress (cf. Mk 7:10–12; Sir 3:2–6; 3:12–13, 16).
Filial respect promotes harmony in all of family life, including relationships between brothers and sisters.
For Christians, a special gratitude is due to those from whom they have received the gift of faith, the grace of Baptism, and life in the Church. These may include parents, grandparents, other members of the family, pastors, catechists, and other teachers or friends (cf. 2 Tm 1:5).
18. Marriage and Civil Law
18a) Duties of the State toward Marriage
First of all, the state must recognize the citizen’s right to form a family, and protect it through appropriate laws and assistance. It must also recognize and protect the right to attain the natural purposes that define the family. “The rights of parents to procreate and educate children in the family must be safeguarded.”42 In this regard, the Church advises that the families themselves, through the appropriate public action, secure from the state the laws and institutions that will protect their rights and duties.43 The duties of the state in this field can be summarized in the principle of subsidiarity, as was explained above.
The Church has brought to the consideration of public authorities—and of the families themselves—the inalienable rights of the family. We must point out, besides the fundamental rights mentioned above, others that are necessary consequences of these:
· The right to decent housing
· The right to free speech and to representation before the different public authorities, both as individual families and through free associations
· The right to have minors protected from alcoholism, drug addiction, pornography, or harmful medicines
· The right to leisure and privacy
· The right to migrate as a family to seek better living conditions44
18b) Divorce
Indissolubility is a property of every true marriage. It corresponds to God’s original plan for man: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mt 19:6; cf. Lk 16:18). It is not a demand of the sacrament alone. It follows from the very nature of the conjugal bond, exclusive and unconditional for as long as the spouses are alive.
These words of Christ refer to every kind of marriage, even that which is natural and legitimate only; for, as has already been observed, that indissolubility by which the loosening of the bond is once and for all removed from the whim of the parties and from every secular power, is a property of every true marriage.45
Indissolubility is required both for the mutual self-giving of the spouses and for the welfare of the children. These two principles are the foundation of another requirement of marriage: fidelity. No civil law has the power to break the bond, which God has established as indissoluble by its own nature.
Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving of the couple, and being required by the good of 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.46
18c) Women and Housekeeping
Like any other work, the work of housewives in their homes must be duly recognized and protected by law. The equal dignity of both spouses requires that the complementary tasks performed by breadwinner and housekeeper be granted the same recognition. Women have the same right as men to occupy professional and public positions. But they also have the right to seek that the typically feminine work they carry out in their homes be recognized as professional work. This means that wives should not be forced to seek work outside the house to support their families.
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.47
The proper appreciation of women’s role in the home will result in measures like the family wage, which takes into account the needs of the whole family, or direct subsidies to mothers:
Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration that will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future. Such remuneration can be given either through what is called a family wage—that is, a single salary given to the head of the family for his work, sufficient for the needs of the family without the other spouse having to take up gainful employment outside the home—or through other social measures such as family allowances or grants to mothers devoting themselves exclusively to their families. These grants should correspond to the actual needs, that is, to the number of dependents for as long as they are not in a position to assume proper responsibility for their own lives.48
St. Josemaría Escrivá tirelessly preached that the time that is devoted to one’s family is extremely pleasing to God, as well as an inexcusable obligation. He stressed the typically feminine values that women can contribute to the family and to society at large:
The attention she gives to her family will always be a woman’s greatest dignity. In the care she takes of her husband and children or, to put it in more general terms, in her work of creating a warm and formative atmosphere around her, a woman fulfills the most indispensable part of her mission. And so it follows that she can achieve her personal perfection there.… What I have just said does not go against her participating in other aspects of social life including politics. In these spheres, too, women can offer a valuable personal contribution, without neglecting their special feminine qualities. They will do this to the extent in which they are humanly and professionally equipped.49
Footnotes:
1. Cf. CCC, 2201–2233.
2. Cf. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 21; LG, 11.
3. Cf. CCC, 2204–2206.
4. Pius XI, Enc. Casti Connubii, 3.
5. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, 23.
6. Cf. Joseph Hoeffner, Fundamentals of Christian Sociology, 57.
7. AA, 11.
8. Cf. Pius XII, Address, June 1, 1941; GS, 48.
9. John Paul II, General Audience, Jan. 3, 1979.
10. DH, 5.
11. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 45.
12. GS, 52.
13. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 43.
14. GS, 47.
15. Ibid., 52.
16. Pius XII, Address, Nov. 27, 1951.
17. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 30.
18. Pius XII, Address, Nov. 27, 1951.
19. Cf. Teodoro López, ed., Juan Pablo II a las Familias (Pamplona, Spain: EUNSA, 1980), 33ff.
20. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 36.
21. Pius XI, Enc. Quadragesimo Anno, 71.
22. Leo XIII, Enc. Rerum Novarum, 9.
23. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 43; cf. CCC, 2209–2211.
24. Cf. CCC, 2211; John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 46.
25. GS, 51.
26. Ibid., 50.
27. Pius XI, Enc. Casti Connubii, 7; cf. CCC, 2376–2379.
28. Pius XII, Address to the Fourth International Congress of Catholic Doctors, Sep. 29, 1949.
29. John Paul II, Enc. Evangelium Vitae, 14.
30. Pius XII, Address to the World Congress on Sterility and Fecundity, May 19, 1956; cf. Thomas J. O’Donnell, S.J., Medicine and Christian Morality (New York: Society of St. Paul), 263–270.
31. Paul VI, Enc. Humanae Vitae, 14; cf. CCC, 2370.
32. Paul VI, Enc. Humanae Vitae, 14.
33. Ibid., 10.
34. GS, 50.
35. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 37.
36. Ibid., 39.
37. Ibid., 19.
38. Cf. CCC, 2208.
39. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 26.
40. John Paul II, Address to the International Forum on Active Aging, Sep. 5, 1980.
41. Cf. CCC, 2214–2220.
42. GS, 52.
43. Cf. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 44.
44. Cf. John Paul II, Charter of the Rights of the Family, Oct. 22, 1983; Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 46; CCC, 2207–2211.
45. Pius XI, Enc. Casti Connubii, 33.
46. John Paul II, Ap. Ex. Familiaris Consortio, 20.
47. Ibid., 23; cf. CCC, 2384–2386.
48. John Paul II, Enc. Laborem Exercens, 19.
49. St. Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations with Monsignor Escrivá, 87.