The Family - The Heart of
the Civilization of Love
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo
President of the Pontifical Council for the Family
1994
Keynote
Address of His Eminence Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, President
of the Pontifical Council for the Family to the tenth annual
conference of Women for Faith & Family on the International Year of
the Family, 1994.(This address appeared in the December 1994 issue
of VOICES)
Your Excellencies, Reverend Monsignori, Reverend Fathers, brothers
and sisters in Christ, it is a great joy for me to be able to come
to St. Louis to this tenth annual conference of Women for Faith and
Family.
First, I wish to put on record one aspect of this visit to St. Louis
which brings me great happiness, the opportunity of being once more
with Archbishop Justin Rigali, whom I have known so well for many
years, during his dedicated and untiring service of the Holy Father
in Rome.
Women for Faith and Family, this highly respected Catholic
organization, stands out for its calm and confident witness to the
Church's vision of the woman and the family in today's world. In
particular I thank Mrs. Helen Hitchcock for her courageous work for
the Church.
The subject of my paper is taken from the words of the Holy Father
Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Families: "the family is the
center and the heart of the civilization of love". Together, let us
explore what these fascinating words mean.
The Family in Society
You are all familiar with the Holy Father's words in Familiaris
Consortio 86, "The future of humanity passes by way of the family".
This short sentence sums up the irreplaceable relationship between
the family and society. This is a two-way relationship. The
achievements made by the family revert back to the good of society.
But when the family breaks down, the social fabric is broken and
endangered. On the other hand, anything that goes wrong in society
has negative repercussions on the family, and everything that
ensures the appropriately conceived good of society helps to fulfill
the mission of the family.
So we dare not, we must not, say that the family is something
indifferent, neutral or "private", something marginal in the overall
social context. Yet this is precisely the dangerous delusion of
those who, even in this Year of the Family, say that the family is
the basis of society and yet in fact deny or reduce its relationship
or set it aside in favor of individuals or anti-family pressure
groups.
This was one of the many problems at the United Nations Conference
on Population and Development, held in Cairo in September. Thanks be
to God, marriage and family find a place in the final document of
that Conference, due to the work of the Holy See and the other
nations, especially Islamic countries, who share our concerns for
life and the family.
However, the Holy Father draws us further into the social role of
the family when, in his Letter to Families 13, he recalls how the
expression "civilization of love" (which was coined, in fact, by
Pope Paul VI) "has entered the teaching of the Church and by now has
become familiar". In the same paragraphs of his letter, which has
enjoyed such an excellent reception within and beyond the Church,
the Pope observes that although the word "civilization" stresses a
political dimension of an individual's existence ("civilization" is
derived from "civis"-citizen). Therefore civilization has, in the
deepest sense, a properly "humanist" significance.
Civilization is made up of persons, it is built around citizens
relating to one another. To form the "civilization of love" a whole
complex and demanding process is required. A concrete example of
this, which guides us by its dramatic contrasts, is the struggle for
human life against abortion and euthanasia-a struggle which cannot
remain only political, but must at the same time embrace education
at all levels, pastoral care, prayer, witness, etc.-that is, a total
humanizing and hence civilizing process. Yet behind that struggle
for human life are certain presuppositions about the truth of the
human person and his innate value and dignity, whether we are
speaking of attempts to kill an unborn baby or an elderly woman in
hospital.
Therefore, to understand this civilization of love you have to go to
the truth about man, the truth about the family and only then to the
truth about society. Without these interrelated truths,
"civilization" is merely a superficial term which describes an
ordered or developed society, where people are polite to one
another.
The Truth About Man
If you have a false understanding of human nature, if you fail
to understand the human person, and build your whole civilization
upon that distortion, the results will be truly terrible. We have
seen this in the Nazi system, and more recently in the Communist
systems based on the Marxist doctrine of human nature.
Both those systems failed to understand man in relationship to God;
they either claimed God did not exist or they put man, the race or
the state in His place. But you cannot ignore the relationship of
the person to God.
Thus we build our Christian anthropology on the truth of creation:
man is made in the image and likeness of God. Man is God's creature
yet, at the same time, he represents God. Being an image of God is a
concrete reality that belongs to the human person. It is a reality
which has been received as a gift, a reality which reaches its most
noble projection in Jesus Christ, who is the perfect image of the
Father.
At the same time being an image of God is a mission, a vocation, a
task, something entrusted to each person so he can make it grow. In
that sense, the person is the architect of his own destiny, yet
entrusted with developing a divine plan which involves each person's
moral perfecting, his growth in being. This humanization leads to an
integral liberation, the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.
On this foundation of truth will emerge a very different kind of
society than that offered by the totalitarian ideologies I have
already mentioned. It will be a civilization of persons related to
God, who is the Source of love. But it will also be different from
the dominant Western secular liberal society around us today. Based
on individualism, on the assertion of an absolute autonomy which
ignores God, that society is producing a permissive and decadent
civilization of death The essence of that system can be distilled
into one deadly arrogant expression "pro-choice".
However, as an image of God, each person is called by God.
Responsible, free and personal collaboration is thus inherent in
God's own design, in his will for the good of the person. We are
called to grow in that good we have received from God, in a response
which is a grace-filled collaboration with Him.
But none of us lives alone. We are not islands. We are social
beings, made to relate to others in a communion of persons. The
first and foremost created communion of persons exists between a man
and a woman. Thus, at the very beginning of his discussion of "the
civilization of love" in his <Letter to Families>, 6, the Holy
Father underlines the truth of Genesis 1.27: "God created man in his
own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he
created them..." The Pope comments: "Human fatherhood and motherhood
... contain in an essential and unique way a' likeness' to God which
is the basis of the family as a community of human life, as a
community of persons united in love".
We are at the heart of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, in some way
"imaged" in the family, the first and fundamental expression of the
social nature of man (cf. Letter to Families, 7). Out of this flows
the created reality of marriage itself, the mutual gift of the "I"
and "thou" in a communion of persons and the procreation of
children. So the truth of the family is already inherent in the
truth of the person, created in the image and likeness of the Triune
God.
The Truth About the Family
I have already referred to false attitudes concerning the family
which emerged during this Year of the Family, even a mentality of
hostility to the family. To this we must calmly and confidently
respond with the truth about the family.
First, we must affirm strongly, at every level, that the family is
founded on marriage, that this communion of persons is the basis of
the family as a good willed by God himself. The Second Vatican
Council insisted that, amidst all changes and social
transformations, the identity of the family must be protected (Gaudium
et Spes, 48). We have to proclaim the good news that the family is
not a prison, but it is a good for husbands and wives, for children
and for society as a whole. It is the place where people can realize
their potential and find true freedom and happiness. The challenges
that have emerged in this Year of the Family should spur us on to
defend this truth.
First of all there is the claim that "no one can define the family".
You have all heard this by now, have you not? Behind it is not
merely confused thinking and social relativism; but also an
ideological attempt to undermine or destroy marriage by making it
equal to "free unions" and, as we recently saw in the Parliament of
Europe, even making homosexual relationships into a new kind of
"marriage" or "family".
All these challenges highlight the need to define the family as
always based on marriage between a man and a woman. On this there
can be no compromise, even at meetings and seminars where they try
to forbid the word "marriage", as has happened during the Year of
the Family.
At times you will hear people, even within the Church, say that our
insistence on marriage is not fair to single parents, especially to
women who have borne children outside of wedlock. In turn this leads
to sympathy for the corollary of never defining the family, summed
up in the familiar sentence, "There are many forms of the family
today."
At the level of merely describing phenomena it could be said that
"the family takes various forms today." There are small families,
large families, nuclear families, extended families. The different
social mores of peoples and tribes are expressed in a variety of
often complex family relationships. But this description of
phenomena must never be allowed to slide into ambiguity, so as to
destroy the truth that a binding marriage is always the source of
the family. Even when marriage has been broken by death, divorce or
separation, the reality and the identity of the family after that
disaster is derived from the marriage which established that family.
We must therefore insist that ambiguities such as "many forms of the
family" be strictly qualified with words such as "always based on
marriage between a man and a woman". Only then can we avoid falling
into the ideological trap which would make a "family" out of a
"household" consisting of two men and a cat, or an old lady and her
dogs, or young people sharing an apartment, or an unmarried couple
living together.
Recent Positive Developments
However, we should be encouraged in maintaining the truth of the
natural institution of the family by some recent developments.
At the Cairo Conference, the Islamic nations were offended by a
phrase inserted in the draft final document: "marriage and other
unions". They insisted that the words "other unions" be removed to
avoid any hint that "other unions", such as cohabitation or
homosexual relationships, could ever be equal to marriage.
More recently, in Rome, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious
Dialogue and the Pontifical Council for the Family convened a
meeting at which Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Jews, Sikhs, various
Native Religions and Christians discussed marriage and the family
today. Together they produced a final statement. Let me quote from
it, because it sends a strong message to those who deny the truth of
the family:
"The family is the basic unit of society. Marriage is the foundation
of the family. It exists to foster love between a man and a woman
and their mutual growth and spiritual fulfillment based on ethical,
moral and religious values, enabling procreation, nurturing and an
holistic development of children, safeguarding the sanctity of human
life in all its dimensions".
Remember that this statement was a consensus between representatives
of the world's major religions.
Thirdly, I recall my recent visit to the United Nations, when I
addressed the General Assembly at the session marking the Year of
the Family. I was greatly impressed by the strong pro-family
statements which came from various nations, indicating, let us hope,
a new positive tendency to value and support the rights of the
family, because that is what is at stake in society today. Let us
now turn to society.
The Truth About Society
In the light of the truth of the person and the truth of the
family we can come to understand the truth of society, which is that
society is based upon its natural, essential living cell, the family
(cf. Familiaris Consortio, 42). This is obvious once we reflect on
the structure of society, on how each of us entered society, and how
society is recreated again and again through family life. The family
is the essential basic community, the natural institution, which
carries out the tasks of socializing individuals and perpetuating
society.
Today, however, we are challenged by an atomized model of society.
This could be described as a collection of independent human beings
rattling around, at times colliding, running in and out of
"relationships", getting and consuming whatever they want, when they
want it. The law in this atomized society gradually becomes a social
contract to protect the individual's right to his or her total
liberty at all costs. But crime, vice, poverty personal and family
tragedies, intense human suffering and much loneliness and
unhappiness are the consequences of this attempt to build society on
a false anthropology which ignores the natural institution of the
family.
The social disaster which is developing in many nations is largely
the fruit of the liberal Western secularist ideology. Everything is
tolerated, so long as it does not interfere with the rights of the
individual and dominating concepts such as "privacy", "choice" and
"self-realization". But as a natural institution, the family enjoys
rights, set out in the Holy See's Charter of the Rights of the
Family. Let us therefore fight for those rights-and let us work for
laws and policies, economic and social, which protect and advance
the rights and duties of the family.
These rights of the family as a natural institution are not in
conflict with the rights of individuals, properly understood. The
members of the family first learn how to relate to one another as
members of society. Therefore it is disastrous either to privatize
the family, pretending that the state must never legislate on family
matters (as if the family did not exist!), or on the other hand to
let the state invade the family and take over its role and
functions.
The Church maintains a balance between these extremes by insisting
on the rights of this natural institution, its freedom and
responsibilities in society. But those two dangerous extremes are
not really opposed to one another, for what better excuse is there
to invade the family if you pretend it does not, as such, exist? The
question of ignoring parental rights when providing contraception or
abortion to adolescents is a typical example of this danger. Thanks
be to God, the Islamic nations, supported by the Holy See, succeeded
in affirming these rights in this context at Cairo.
Children and young people suffer when the selfish secularist
mentality strikes at the family. Women are the next victims,
especially poor women. The breakdown of families is accelerated
through the "plague of divorce" so easily gained today. Nearly
thirty years ago, the Second Vatican Council used that expression
"plague of divorce" in Gaudium et Spes, 47. How much worse the
situation is today!
The Church is deeply concerned about the suffering of women and
children and actively involved in meeting their needs. This year the
Pontifical Council for the Family brings to a conclusion a
three-year cycle of meetings and work on the rights and welfare of
the child. We held a meeting in Rome on the rights of the child, a
meeting in Bangkok on the exploitation of children through
prostitution and pornography, a meeting in Manila on child labor, a
meeting in Barcelona on adoption and finally, last July, a meeting
in Rio de Janeiro on street children. A book will be published
including the papers and findings of these meetings on the child.
Next year, we will continue our work for women, a task which we
already commenced this year when the wife and mother was the theme
of the plenary meeting of members of the Pontifical Council, made up
mainly of a group of thirty member couples chosen from all the
continents of the world. Now I wish to say something about women and
children in the context of the family, the heart of the civilization
of love.
Wives and Mothers-Bearers of the Civilization of Love
Mothers play a vital role in the process of civilizing their
children, and, even in some cases, their own husbands! Mothers,
wives, women of the Church, you are the bearers of the civilization
of love! The babe in your arms, the little ones who cling to you and
gather around you, these are called to be tomorrow's civilization of
love. That questioning child, the teenager seeking his or her
identity and asking for affirmation, they already stand on the
threshold of that civilization. But what will it be a civilization
of life and love or a civilization of death and hatred? The decision
is not only theirs to make tomorrow it is also largely yours to
make, here and now.
Meeting the vast multitudes of families crowded into St. Peter's
Square on October 9th, the largest single celebration of the whole
Year of the Family, the Holy Father John Paul II, said to the family
"You are 'gaudium et spes' --"joy and hope'!" But the Pope of the
Family challenges us with these encouraging words. He well
understands that the crucial direction that civilization will take
depends on parents more than anyone else in this world. Parents must
be the primary educators for a true civilization of love.
Education for Love
An important part of this task is educating your children for
love, teaching them to care for others; about love as self-giving,
according to the Gospel of Christ.
Each child has to be taught the values of self-sacrifice, and the
best school for this is a family based on marriage where husband and
wife put this into practice. Each child needs to learn to reverence
and welcome new life. This is only possible when the good news of
Humanae Vitae is lived, when love means openness to life, generous
cooperation with the Creator. Each child needs to become
self-disciplined, learned best from parents who practice periodic
continence, who moderate the use of luxuries avoiding the pitfalls
of consumerism, who use television with prudence. Moreover, each
child needs to become tender and compassionate towards others, and
that is so easy when he or she sees parents who cherish each other,
who communicate, who share their lives as "one flesh". This
education for love learned in the true "school of the virtues" is,
therefore, the key to resolving the problem of the misuse of human
sexuality. Often that is the root cause of marriage breakdown and
much personal suffering.
Today, amidst grave threats to purity, we need to educate our
children in the family very carefully in sexual matters. In
Familiaris Consortio, 37, Pope John Paul II teaches that, because
they are the primary educators, parents have the right and duty to
carry out this task, which especially builds up a strong
civilization of love. Never surrender that right and duty to others.
Try to carry it out responsibly, positively and wisely.
Towards Beijing
Next year, in Beijing, the United Nations will hold a great
international meeting on women. It is most important that this
meeting should give a voice to all the women of the world, not just
to Western pressure groups or certain ideological factions, but to
the silent majority of women, especially the wives and mothers.
These are the women who can find strength and liberation in their
femininity, in their maternity, in their conjugal love.
I hope that some of you will be at that meeting and that all of you
will take a concerned interest in it. Especially within the family,
women do play a key role in social and economic development. As
citizens, they are meant to play a major role in society. But let
them never be reduced to instruments of ideologies or political
programs. They are not engaged in perpetual conflict with men, nor
do they gain anything by seeking vengeance for crimes which weak or
corrupt men commit against them.
In the civilization of love, women are raised, through grace, above
hurts and human failures. They can be freed from the past. They are
called and gifted as persons created in the image of God, bearing
his mission to heal and build, working as partners with men. So
often, like Mary herself, they offer unique consolation and hope
amidst men's fears. So we must work and pray that, at Beijing in
1995, women who believe in the civilization of love will do
something beautiful for all women, men, and children-for the family.
The Role of Women
Let me therefore conclude by clarifying the particular
contribution women can make in building the civilization of love,
through the family. We have reflected on the humanizing role in
society which wives and mothers exercise through society's basic
living cell. But all women, by their very femininity play a special
civilizing role in society.
I stress femininity, which the Holy Father has developed in his
magnificent encyclical on women, Mulieris Dignitatem. Femininity
includes the subtlety, the wisdom, the sensitivity, the gentle
healing power of women. It is your strength, women of the
Church-your femininity. Do not let anyone take this gift from you.
It is so much stronger than sad attempts to imitate men, which often
degenerates into absorbing the worst male weaknesses and
imperfections.
Through your femininity you are called to play a deeper role in
society and in the Church. It is a civilizing, humanizing,
socializing role-which is your calling and mission as women, your
place in God's plan.
May he bless you as you take up this task once more.
