Levi-Strauss,
a French anthropologist and ethnologist, writes: “Society belongs to the realm
of culture while the family is the emanation, on the social level, of those
natural requirements without which there could be no society and indeed no
mankind”. The importance and centrality of the
family with regard to society and culture is repeatedly emphasized by the great
writers of every century. The
Sacred Scriptures and teachings of the Church also underlined this aspect. As
the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “family is the original
cell of social life” and
it is the first human society. It is “the natural community in which human social
nature is experienced, (and) makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to
the good of society”. As
Pope John Paul II correctly remarked in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, the future of the
societies, both civil and religious, passes through families.
It is
through families that societies develop and prosper. It is in families that the
values and traditions of societies are shaped and transmitted to the next
generations. Consequently, any disintegration or dissolution of families strikes
a deathblow to the fabric of the society and roots of civilization. Under the
impact of a rapid cultural change, tremendous changes have occurred in all
spheres. They have their own repercussions in the institution of family
throughout the world. Pope Francis has convened an Extraordinary General
Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2014 to discuss the theme ‘Pastoral
challenges to the family in the context of new evangelisation’. This Synodal
Assembly was dedicated in a special way to marriage and family, their vocation
and mission in the Church and in society; to the challenges of marriage, of
family life, of the education of children; and the role of the family in the
life of the Church. Here in this article we attempt to make a careful study on
the role of Catholic families in the contemporary society. For this purpose, we
may concentrate on reaffirming the teachings of the Magisterium and the Popes,
regarding the role of the Catholic families. On the basis of these teachings, we
would like to present in a ‘five dimensional task’ of Catholic families, for
them to become ‘what they are’.
1 Family as Communion of Love
Marriage is “the rock on which family is built”. The
first and basic moral criterion for the family today and of every age is that the family must be rooted in the marriage of
one man and one woman”. This fact is clearly affirmed by the teachings of
the Church through the ages. It is a reality that enables the husband and wife
to give to one another the unique and special kind of love that we call spousal
or conjugal love, one quite different from other kinds of human love, as it is
first of all exclusive. Gaudium et Spes
describes conjugal love as a love that is human, total, faithful, exclusive
until death and fecund and fertile. So we
can say that the first task of a Catholic family is to live with fidelity the
reality of communion in a constant effort to develop authentic community of
persons. The inner principle of this communion is love. God has established the
family basically as an intimate community of life and love. When this love
takes sacramental intensity husband and wife would ‘transcarnate’ into one
flesh.
1.1 Strengthen Marital Fidelity
The husband
and wife in their marital life are “called to grow continually in their
communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual
self-giving”.
Marital fidelity, as David M. Thomas notes, is “a quality of marital love which
persists through the lifetime of the marriage, in this sense, fidelity is a
disposition in each marital partner in freely choosing the other, day after
day, as the primary person with whom one walks on the journey of life”. The
good of fidelity requires that spouses be faithful to each other. The teachings
of the Church on marriage make it clear, how lifelong marital fidelity is
important for the couples. Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, in his book Love and Responsibility writes: “One who
truly loves does not then withdraw love, but loves all the more, loves in full
consciousness of the other’s shortcomings and faults, without in the least
approving of them. For the person as such never loses his/her essential value.
The emotion which attaches to the value of the person is loyal”.
The liberal
media regularly portray infidelity as some kind of romantic adventure and often
attempt to justify and even encourage it. Adultery can be also mental
unfaithfulness. In the present society many consider adultery as very normal.
Contemporary literature, music, films etc. reflect these changes in the
thinking pattern of the society. In this context, Catholic spouses have an
explicit role to be exemplary in fidelity in their marital relationship.
1.2 Marriage as a Lifelong Relationship
The rate of
divorce or breakups of marital relationships is growing in the society. The basic reason for this phenomenon is
mainly an absence of commitment, love and faith on the part of one or both
spouses. God is the author of marriage and family and He made the rules
governing this sacred institution. Chief among these rules is the fact that
marriage is indissoluble; that is, it is unbreakable. It lasts until the death
of one of the partners. When disagreements, which are inevitable, arise in
their relationship, many couples quickly resort to threats of ‘walking out’. In
former days marriages were held in greater respect. When couples had some
disputes and arguments the idea of separation and divorce was not the first
resort. Disagreements and problems were usually worked out. Today, instead, in
many cases the first resort they seek is a break-up of the marital relation and
this tendency is growing. Among couples who do not actually break up, there are
many cases of them living together very unhappily, which pose another very
serious problem. They are merely ‘sticking it out’ because of the children or
because their parents would be upset or because of the social pressure. Even
though this problem is not as bad as an actual break-up, it is a sign that the
marriage is in trouble.
In the
present society, there is a common phenomenon where the husband and wife work
outside the home. Sometimes their work-hours are on different shifts, so that
they hardly see each other. As a result, there is little time for the couple to
do things together or to communicate in depth. Formerly, when the society was
largely agricultural, husbands and wives worked together in the farm and they
were never far away from each other. In order to counter effectively these
challenges that affect families adversely, there are very effective means such
as the Holy Eucharist, family prayer, meditation of the Word of God, and
reception of sacraments. It is by taking
part in the Eucharist that the couples can renew their love and unity.
2 Family as the Sanctuary of Life
Another
important mission of a Catholic family is serving life, wherein transmission
of life comes first. It is a fundamental task of the family to serve life, to
bring to fulfilment in history the original blessing of God, to transmit by
procreation the divine image from person to person. Thus, there is an urgent
need today to develop an authentic philosophy of life and to discover and to
co-operate with God’s design of transmission of life in history. Pope John Paul
II, in his Encyclical Evangelium Vitae
reminds us: “Within the ‘people of life and the people for life’, the family
has a decisive responsibility. This responsibility flows from its very nature
as a community of life and love, founded upon marriage, and from its mission to
‘guard, reveal and communicate love’. Here it is a matter of God’s own love, of
which parents are co-workers and as they were interpreters when they transmit
life and raise it according to his fatherly plan”. From
these words of Pope John Paul II, it is clear that the family has a special
role to play throughout the life of its members, from birth to death. It is
truly ‘the sanctuary of life’: the place in which life, the gift of God, can be
properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is
exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human
growth.
2.1 Responsible Parenthood
By its very
nature, conjugal love “requires in husband and wife an awareness of their
mission of responsible parenthood”. In
order to live conjugal love properly, spouses must properly understand and
embrace the various elements of responsible parenthood. Children are the
treasure and the future of the families and the society. Yet many consider
children as nuisances and obstacles to their freedom. Fundamentally,
responsible parenthood signifies a great awareness and an acceptance of the
spouses’ role as collaborators with God in the transmission of life and
recognition of the manner in which God has chosen to accomplish this sacred
task. “The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband
and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves,
towards the family, and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values”. In
order to fulfil the requirements of responsible parenthood, spouses must
recognize the personal nature of sexuality and proceed on the basis of a
freedom that is not wholly autonomous. To accomplish the mission of responsible
parenthood, spouses “must necessarily recognize the insurmountable limits to
the possibility of man’s dominion over his own body and its functions; limits
which no man, whether a private individual or one invested with authority, may
licitly surpass”.
In this
context, parents should regard as their proper mission, the task of
transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted.
They should realize that they are thereby co-operators with the love of God the
Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love. Thus they will
fulfil their task with human and Christian responsibility and with docile
reverence toward God they will make decisions by common counsel and effort. In
these decisions, they should thoughtfully take into account both their own
welfare and that of their children, those already born and those which the
future may bring. In making these decisions they need to consider both the
material and the spiritual conditions of the times as well as of their state in
life. They should also consult the interests of the family group, of the
society, and of the Church herself.
Today there
is a tendency to make other people prey for satisfying our desires and
pleasures. In such a situation children become a hindrance to a life of
pleasure. Many do not even recognise the
grave problems this tendency creates in families. In pursuit of their selfish
joys, even those who can afford to bring up children do not want them. Those
who have the means should come forward to have more children and bring them up.
Responsible fatherhood and motherhood demands this. At the same time this does
not mean that one should engage in the procreative activity without any sense
of responsibility. Parents, considering their physical, economic, social and
psychological conditions, should exercise responsible parenthood and decide
prudently and generously to have more children. At the same time for serious
reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, they can decide not to have
additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.
2.2 Respect the Dignity of Life
Pope John
Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium
Vitae, makes an obvious invitation to the families to generate a ‘new
culture of human life’ and remain the ‘sanctuary of life’ for the building of
an authentic civilization of truth and love. It
is precisely the ‘seeds of death’ which exist in contemporary civilisation that
the Pope denounced courageously. He genuinely wanted to eradicate all those
factors present in contemporary culture, a multitude of evils that attacks the
dignity of human life. A ‘culture of death’, i.e., aggression towards the
dignity of life, especially to feeble lives, is a very much diffuse in modern
society.
Enactment of
pro-abortion laws and the introduction of new technologies for sex-selective
abortion have facilitated to increase the availability of abortions.
Consequently the number of abortions has gone up at an alarming rate. The
killing of an unborn child is an extreme manifestation of selfishness and a
radical contradiction in the familial communion of persons. When the partners
in marriage truly make a self-donation to one another, i.e., when they love one
another, they are open to life. A rejection of life is a rejection of love. On
the other hand, the giving and acceptance of new life is the most profound
realization of the familial communion of persons. For the Catholic families ‘to
become what they are’, they should guarantee respecting the life of the unborn
child and its protection from any of these threats.
2.3 Care for the Elderly
It is a
commandment of God to honour father and mother (Exodus 20, 12). As St. Paul
writes, it is the first responsibility of children to show godliness at home
and repay their parents by taking care of them. This is something that pleases
God very much (1 Timothy 5: 3 ˗ 4). The way in which older people are cared for
varies greatly among cultures and is changing rapidly. Traditionally, elder
care has been the responsibility of family members and was provided within the
extended family home. In many modern societies elder care is now being provided
by state or charitable institutions. The reasons for this change include
decreasing family size, increasing number of nuclear families, the greater life
expectancy of elderly people, the geographical dispersion of families, and the
tendency for women to be educated and work outside the home. The Catholic
Church has always shown a great concern for the elderly, not only in giving
assistance and charity, but in recognizing and fostering the intrinsic value of
the older persons also. So we can say that, considering the present day
situation, the Catholic families have a great responsibility “to give older
people scope for personal development and participation, and provide them with
forms of social assistance and health-care consonant with their needs and
responding to the need of the human person to live with dignity, in justice and
freedom”.
3 Family as the Heart of Evangelization
Jesus Christ
fulfils His teaching office not only through the official hierarchy of the
Church, but also through the laity, through whom “the power of the Gospel might
shine forth in their daily social and family life”. The
sacrament of marriage makes the spouses ‘missionaries in the true and proper
sense of love and life’ and gives them the task of ‘defending and spreading the
faith, a task that has its roots in baptism and confirmation’. This
evangelizing mission is carried out first in the family itself.
The family
is the privileged place for evangelization, and plays a vital role in the
formation and development of faith in children.[21]
Catholic families are called to share their faith with their children and with
others. Parents, by their words and examples, are the first educators of faith
to their children. It is their right and duty to communicate faith to their
children. Learning about the Catholic faith cannot be accomplished solely by a
series of classes taught in a class room; it must be lived and also reinforced
by strong testimony. This reality should be found within the Christian family
setting. A family’s desire to participate fully in the life of the Church
community will provide an enriching faith experience for the entire family and
for society. Thus “the family remains the primary community for the
transmission of the Christian faith”.[22]
3.1 Evangelization within the Family
Teachings of
the Catholic Church remind us that a Christian family is the cradle of faith
where one can gradually accumulate and build up a relationship with one’s
Creator. Thus, the family becomes the primary school of faith and parents
become its first teachers.
Through the catechesis of the Church this seed of faith grows to maturity. From
the moment of birth the child’s faith life depends on the faith life of the
family, especially of its parents.
Parents
transmit their faith first of all by presenting their children before the
community for baptism. In doing so, they accept the responsibility of training
them in the practise of the faith, bringing them up to keep God’s commandments.
The family is the foundation for transmitting faith from generation to
generation and parents hold a privileged role and responsibility in family
life. Parents teach most effectively by example; they should actively seek
growth in adult faith and in the life of the parish community and work for
peace and justice in the world. Catholic parents should promote their faith and
become communities of faith to their growing children. They should do this by
proclaiming the Gospel to their children, teaching them by example, patiently
instructing them to live according to moral values, learning about the
Christian faith as adults, passing on the knowledge of faith and tradition,
being responsible to religious education requirements, subscribing to Catholic
literature and providing parental affection and support, which are the primary
sources for the children’s continued growth in the faith. If families were to
promote an atmosphere of faith and love, this would become the source of
vocations to religious and priestly life.
Family
prayer is one of the important devotional practices of the Catholics families.
But this practice is disappearing gradually from Catholic families today. In
this situation Catholic families should find special time for prayer in the family,
in which all the members of the family take part. This gives an opportunity for
the children to grow in a life of prayer, and as a result, a religious
atmosphere is prevalent in family life. During these occasions parents should
be a model for their children, as it helps them to participate actively in
devotional practises. Parents should exercise the mission of faith formation to
their children by promoting morning and evening prayers, prayers before meals,
participating in Holy Mass together, discussing readings and homilies before
and after mass, celebrating Sundays and feast days in a genuine manner. Thus,
Catholic families can provide a valuable faith formation to their children.
3.2 Family as Evangelizer in the Society
Families are
called to be evangelizers, ‘messengers of good news’, in society. A family that
lives the values of Christ is like a lamp on a lamp stand, radiating the light
of life and love around it and like a city on the top of the mountain which
cannot be hidden (Cf. Matthew 5: 14). According to Soares Prabhu, this
witnessing through authentic life is the most important means of
evangelization, as he says: “The ultimate basis of Church’s mission is the
witness of its community of life and praxis. It is through its fidelity to the
Christian dharma, with its anti-greed
and anti-pride that church remains ‘salt’ that has not lost its saltiness and
light that has not been hidden under a bushel”.[24]
For this purpose, Catholic families have to resist the erosion of values
prevalent in the society. They have to wage war against the culture of death
and culture of greed. Hence the family must be constantly evangelized, giving
it clear vision and power to lead an authentic Christian life. The family has
the mission to form a community of persons whose proper way of existing and
living together is communion. As Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi exhorts, “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”.[25]
Such families can become true evangelizers of many other families in the
society, especially of the neighbourhood of which they are part. In this way
they slowly help to build up of the Kingdom of God in society. Thus fulfils the
invitation of Pope John Paul II, ‘family, become what you are’. In the
multi-religious context of India, this role of the family has a greater
importance. Younger generation listens more willingly to witnesses than to
teachers, and if one does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.
4 Family as the First School of Moral Formation
Family, by
its natural right, is the first school of moral formation for children. When
the parents beget a child, they have a right to bring that child to the
fulfilment of its potentials. It is only their continued co-operation with God
in the ongoing creation of that child that enables them to do this.
Parents are
the first and most important educators of their children because ‘they are
parents’.[26]
They are teachers in the sense that they must be the best catechesis for their
children. In such a manner, the family becomes the source and cradle of moral
formation.[27]
In such families children become the source of grace, models of obedience,
innocence and exemplars to their parents. Parents influence the children’s
morality by being the persons they are, how they act, how they relate to the
children, what they say, how and what they teach and what behaviour and
achievement they expect from the children. So the parent’s role as teacher is
decisive in helping children develop and mature. If the parents are aware of
their duty to educate their child, they will make every effort to encourage
good formal education.
Parents
teach their children in the family in two ways. Firstly they intentionally
instruct their children in what they want them to learn. The second way is by
the example of their lives. The parent’s values about life are expressed
through daily activities in relations with others and friends and children
unconsciously absorb these attitudes. Parents are indeed the first and the most
influential teachers of their children, whether they choose to be or not.
4.1 Formation of a Moral Conscience
In our
society, Catholic families should become a source of ethical formation to their
children on the basis of gospel values. The parents’ love finds its fullest
expression in the task of educating their children. Parents, through their
love, promote the values of kindness, goodness, service and the like. Since the
family is the primary unit of society, the educative influence of the home on
the children is much greater than that of any other group. This will definitely
help them to prepare their children to live a full and harmonious life by
giving them the knowledge and skills to develop satisfying and stable
relationships and a system of values with the correct priorities. In the midst of
various problems faced by the families in the cultural and moral spheres,
families provide opportunities for their children to practise the principles of
justice, compassion, values and sharing. It is principally through the
education of children that the parents prepare their children to withstand the
continual onslaught of a culture which distorts the meaning of the very value
of human life itself. One of the great problems faced by the world today is
that many people appear to have a diminishing sense of morality or sense of
sin.
In this
context, the first priority of Catholic families should be that of fostering
values and forming the moral conscience of their children. If they regard
status, profession and wealth before looking to moral values, the result will
be that they may obtain these but at the cost of losing their children. Through
this formation, they inculcate a hierarchy of moral values and a sound
formation of conscience, which promotes integrity and dignity of the human
person. In the formation of conscience, parents must inform the children of the
importance of moral principles, and lead them to make moral judgments and to
exercise their freedom with responsibility. Formation in moral life is not
simply information about moral values, but it should lead to transformation of
children’s ideas about moral life. This will help them to form their own moral
life in an integral manner in the future. No one is born with this power of
reasoning, but it is learnt through relationships with others, especially with
parents who are the basic formators of moral life.
4.2 Sex Education in the Family
The
teachings of the Catholic Church also emphasise the vital role of parents as
the first sex educators of their children. The
Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, by the Pontifical Council for the
Family, reads: “Among the many difficulties parents encounter today, despite
different social contexts, one certainly stands out: giving children an
adequate preparation for adult life, particularly with regard to education in
the true meaning of sexuality”. It
is the duty of the parents to give them a positive and prudent sex education.
The family is, in fact, the most excellent environment in which we can give
formation in the field of sexual matters to the children. The family setting is
the ‘preferential place’ to give children clear and delicate sex education
appropriately adapted to the age, maturity and sense of decency of each child.[29]
In giving authentic sexual education, parents must be aware of the socio-cultural
situation of the place in which their children have to grow and interact. In
doing so, they must respect the traditional cultures and practices, which are
not contrary to the Catholic morality.
In our
society, it is a Herculean task for parents to give positive sex-education to
their children. The young generation is experiencing various kinds of problems
related to sexuality either because of their ignorance or due to poor formation
on the question of sex. The area which affects most children is that of the
sexual awakening at puberty, with all its psychological implications for both
boys and girls. Many children are not given the opportunity to obtain a fuller
understanding of sex either in the family or at school. Therefore, the best way
to do this is to give them an enlightened, affectionate family education.[31]
Today, children get information about sex from the media and from friends
rather than from their parents. The messages they receive are full of
inconsistencies and falsehood. In this situation parents have to cultivate an
open and free atmosphere in the family in order to share matters like puberty
changes, the sensitive area of sexuality and relationships between boys and
girls.
4.5 Formation in the prudent
use of Media
In the last
50 years, the influence of media has grown exponentially with the advance of
technology; first there was the telegraph, then the radio, newspaper,
magazines, television and now the internet and mobile phones. We live in a
society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the
right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment,
health-care, education, personal relationships, travelling and anything else
that we have to do. From the time we get up in the morning until we rest at
night, we are assailed by media messages that inform us, entertain us, persuade
us and set the agenda for us.
Children
today are exposed to the media from a very young age and they are surprisingly
well informed even when they are still very young. However, they are not yet
capable of evaluating or prioritising what they have learned. Often enough,
they do not have the critical ability needed to distinguish between what is
good and bad. They have not acquired the necessary religious and moral criteria
that will enable them to remain objective and independent when faced with the
prevailing attitudes and habits of society. Concepts such as truth, beauty and
goodness have become so vague that young people do not know where to turn to
find help. Sometimes even when they are able to hold on to certain values, they
do not have the capacity to develop these values into a way of life; all too
often they are more inclined to go their own way, accepting whatever is popular
at the moment.
Family life
today may be deeply affected by television and computers, which have taken over
the control of our family rooms. They mesmerise our homes and control thinking
patterns in subtle ways that influence our children. The problem arises when
the parents have no time to guide their children in using them in a creative
manner. In the extreme, children are not brought up by their parents but by
televisions and computers. Now, people all over the world are
able to communicate with each other with the aids such as Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, Blogs etc., creating a borderless era of Information
Technology. Children and youth are found to be yielding to what is called ‘net
addiction’ both in the home and at school or college. Some students become
overly accustomed to endless hours of chatting, listening to music, even
watching pornographic sites. Now school children have mobile phones and even middle class
families have a computer set and internet connection at home. Mobile phones and
social networking sites are misused for organised crimes and spreading sex
video clips. The tremendous influence of the media on individuals and society
makes parental guidance inevitable. So, the parents have a great responsibility
in helping the children to make the best use of the media. Parents should have
control over children regarding what programmes they are watching and how much
time they are using to watch television and sit before a computer. It is also
good that parents and children watch television programmes together and parents
have a control on the computer programmes and games they use.
Parents have
the great responsibility of training the conscience of their children to
express calm and objective judgements which will then guide them in the choice
or rejection of programmes and equipments available. They have to make a
conscious and reasonable judgement on whether the use of a particular equipment
or programme is necessary or useful or not. They have to practice moderation
and discipline in their approach to media. They should help the children to
evaluate the theme and find out the positive values of the use of media.
Pope John
Paul II, in his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia, says: “The negative aspects of the media and
entertainment industries are threatening traditional values, and in particular
the sacredness of marriage and the stability of the family”.[32]
So, parents ought to have a positive control over the media in their families.
This positive control will also be a valuable assistance in gradually preparing
their children to take their place in society. At the same time, they should
also make literature and magazines available which promote Catholic values in
their families.
5 Family as the Nucleus and Source of Social Good
The family
is in fact a community of persons whose proper way of existing and living
together is communion: communio personarum. Therefore, the family is the
first and fundamental school of social living. Families are not simply oriented
toward their own good; instead they are called to participate in the
development of society, for “far from being closed in on itself, the family is
by its nature and vocation open to other families and to society and undertakes
its social role”.[33]
This means that families have a distinct and fundamental social and political
role to play in society.
5.1 Family as Agent of Socialization
Family is an
agent of socialization. Sankar Rao, an Indian Sociologist, observes: “The
family guarantees not only biological continuity of the human race but also the
cultural continuity of the society of which it is a part. It transmits ideas
and ideologies, folkways and modes, customs and traditions, beliefs and values
from one generation to the next”. When
a child is born into a family, it is not aware of anything including itself.
Slowly the child becomes aware of its surroundings and other persons around.
He/she becomes a part of the family. The family then leads him more and more
out of the home and introduces him to the larger society. In this process of
socialization, the individual internalizes the norms of the group and a
distinct ‘self’ unique to the individual emerges. The family makes the child
aware of the values, the morals, beliefs and ideals of the society. It prepares
its children for participation in the life of the larger world and acquaints
them with a larger culture. It is the chief agency, which prepares the new
generation for life in the community and conditions it emotionally. It lays
down the basic plan of the personality. Indeed, it shapes the personality of
the child. Family is a mechanism for disciplining the child culturally; in
short, it transforms the infant to a civilized adult. Pope
John Paul II observes that “the fostering of authentic and mature communion
between persons within the family is the first and irreplaceable school of
social life”.
According to him, “family is the origin and the most effective means for humanizing
and personalizing society”.
5.5.2 Involvement in Social and Political Issues
The
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notes: “In today’s democratic
societies, in a climate of true freedom, everyone is made a participant in
directing the body politic. Such societies call for new and fuller forms of
participation in public life by Christian and non-Christian citizens alike”. The
social role of the family certainly cannot be limited to procreation and
education of children. They can and should devote themselves to manifold social
service activities, especially in favour of the poor and the marginalised and
they also have to involve actively in the political affairs. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,
“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”. In
particular, there is an ever greater importance in our society for charity in
all its forms, opening the door of one’s home and still more of one’s heart to
the pleas of one’s brothers and sisters. So, in a special way, the Christian
family is called upon to practice charity and therefore, imitating Christ’s
example and sharing in His love, to welcome the brother or sister in need.
The social
role of families must also find expression 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 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.
5.5.3 Respect and Care for the Environment
According to
the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
“the seventh commandment forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of one’s
neighbour and wronging him in any way with respect to his goods. It commands
justice and charity in the care of earthly goods and the fruits of men’s
labour”.[43]
Thus for the sake of the common good, this commandment requires respect for the
universal destination of goods and enjoin respect for the integrity of
creation. The whole of creation is by nature destined for the common good of
past, present and future humanity. So, we have a great responsibility to
respect nature and be careful in the use of the mineral, vegetable and animal
resources of the universe. Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living
beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the
quality of life of his neighbour, including generations to come; it requires a
respect for the integrity of creation.[44]
Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person extends also to the
rest of creation. It was the Creator’s will that we should communicate with
nature as an intelligent and noble master and guardian and not as a heedless
exploiter and destroyer.[45]
Our society
faces environmental crisis of large proportions. Environmental damage is
directly threatening the quality of life and reducing its resources. Any
exploitation of nature amounts to sins against God. We
have to begin this education within the family. We have a responsibility not
only to ourselves, but also to future human generations, to the hundreds of billions
of people who have not yet been born, who have a right to be, who deserve a
world at least as beautiful as ours, whose genes are now in our custody and no
one else’s. And we will have a responsibility to nonhuman generations as well,
to the myriad species who, like ourselves, add to the divine life.
Conclusion
Family, the
first and vital cell of the society, is changing everywhere and is meeting with
various challenges. It is in this context, we argue that Catholic families have
an important role in society and thereby they are called to set a luminous
example in order to lead people ‘amidst the encircling gloom’ to build up a
culture of life and love. The presence of the Catholic family itself had an
edifying effect on society.
At the World
Meeting of Families in 2003 in Manila, the emphasis was on the ‘Christian
Family as the Good News for the Third Millennium’. The
message which it wanted to communicate was that in renewing the Church and in
rebuilding the society, the Catholic family has an essential role to play. In
fact the Catholic families have been, in the course of the centuries, bearers
of the gospel message in the world. By the presence of an ‘intimate community
of life and love’ abiding by Christian moral law, it has been a light in the surrounding
darkness of anarchy in marital relations and family life. As Familiaris Consortio points out, a
united, joyful Catholic family loudly proclaims the Christian virtues and the
hope of a life to come. This is an original and irreplaceable ministry of the
family. And this is essentially an ecclesial service. This
mission of the family is essential and urgent in today’s world. In the vastly
secularized environment, it is hard to live a Christian life, but we have to
take up this challenge and show the world that the Christian pattern of life is
truly inspiring and needed for the world. The Catholic family can reach out to
other Christians and the members of other religions through a life of dialogue.
Thus, the Catholic families are indeed one of the most effective bearers of the
good news today.
Claude
Lévi-Strauss, “Family”, in Man, Culture
and Society, Harry L. Shapiro (ed.), Oxford University Press, London, 1956,
284.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church, 2207.
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the
Church, 213.
