Benedict XVI on Anthropological Foundation of the Family (Part 1)
ROME, JUNE 9, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address
Benedict XVI delivered Monday in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, at
the opening of the Ecclesial Congress of the Diocese of Rome. The theme
of the congress was "Family and Christian Community: Formation of the
Person and Transmission of the Faith." Part 2 will appear Friday.
* * *
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
I was very pleased to accept the invitation to open this diocesan
congress with a reflection, above all because it gives me the
possibility to meet with you, to have direct contact, and also because
it enables me to help you reflect further on the meaning and objective
of the pastoral program being followed by the Church of Rome.
I affectionately greet each of you bishops, priests, men and women
religious, and in particular you, the laity and families, who
consciously assume these tasks of Christian commitment and testimony
which have their roots in the sacrament of baptism and, for those who
are married, in that of marriage. My heartfelt thanks to the cardinal
vicar and to the spouses Luca and Adriana Pasquale, for the words they
addressed to me in your name.
This congress, and the pastoral year to which it will offer guidelines,
constitute a new stage in the endeavor the Church has begun, based on
the diocesan synod, with the citizen mission so cherished by our
beloved Pope John Paul II, in preparation for the Great Jubilee of the
Year 2000. In that mission all the realities of our dioceses --
parishes, religious communities, associations and movements --
mobilized not only on the occasion of a mission to the people of Rome,
but to be themselves "people of God on mission," putting into practice
the wise expression of John Paul II: "Parish, look for yourself and
find yourself outside yourself"; that is, in places where people live.
In this way, in the course of the citizen mission, many thousands of
Christians of Rome, in the main laymen, became missionaries and took
the word of faith in the first place to families of the diverse
neighborhoods of the city and later to various workplaces, hospitals,
schools and universities, and realms of culture and free time.
After the Holy Year, my beloved predecessor requested that you not
interrupt this endeavor, and that you not disperse the apostolic
energies awakened and the fruits of grace that were gathered. Because
of this, since the year 2001, the fundamental pastoral orientation of
the diocese has been to establish the mission permanently,
characterizing in a more-determined missionary way the life and
activities of the parishes and of each of the other ecclesial
realities. First of all I want to tell you that I wish to confirm this
option fully: It is ever more necessary and has no alternatives, in a
social and cultural context in which multiple forces act that tend to
distance us from the faith and Christian life.
For two years now, the missionary commitment of the Church of Rome has
concentrated above all on the family, not only because this fundamental
human reality is subjected today to multiple difficulties and threats,
and therefore is in particular need of being evangelized and supported
concretely, but also because Christian families constitute a decisive
resource for education in the faith, the building of the Church as
communion and its capacity of missionary presence in the most varied
situations of life, as well as to leaven in a Christian sense the
culture and social structures.
We will also continue with these guidelines in the forthcoming pastoral
year and for this reason the theme of our congress is "Family and
Christian Community: Formation of the Person and Transmission of the
Faith." The assumption with which one must begin to understand the
mission of the family in the Christian community and its endeavors of
formation of the person and transmission of the faith, continues to be
always the meaning that marriage and the family have in the plan of
God, Creator and Savior. This will be therefore the essence of my
reflection this afternoon, referring to the teaching of the apostolic
exhortation "Familiaris Consortio" (Part 2, Nos. 12-16).
Anthropological foundation of the family
Marriage and the family are not a casual sociological construct, fruit
of particular historical and economic situations. On the contrary, the
question of the right relationship between man and woman sinks its
roots in the most profound essence of the human being, and can only
find its answer in the latter. It cannot be separated from the always
ancient and always new question of man about himself: Who am I? And
this question, in turn, cannot be separated from the question about
God: Does God exist? And, who is God? What is his face really like? The
Bible's answer to these two questions is unitary and consequential: Man
is created in the image of God, and God himself is love. For this
reason, the vocation to love is what makes man the authentic image of
God: He becomes like God in the measure that he becomes someone who
loves.
>From this fundamental bond between God and man another is derived: The
indissoluble bond between spirit and body. Man is, in fact, soul that
expresses itself in the body and [the] body that is vivified by an
immortal spirit. Also, the body of man and of woman has, therefore, so
to speak, a theological character, it is not simply body, and what is
biological in man is not only biological, but an expression and
fulfillment of our humanity. In this way, human sexuality is not next
to our being person, but belongs to it. Only when sexuality is
integrated in the person does it succeed in giving itself meaning.
In this way, from the two bonds, that of man with God and -- in man --
that of the body with the spirit, arises a third bond: the one that
exists between person and institution. The totality of man includes the
dimension of time, and man's "yes" goes beyond the present moment: In
his totality, the "yes" means "always," it constitutes the area of
fidelity. Only in his interior can this faith grow which gives a future
and allows the children, fruit of love, to believe in man and in his
future in difficult times.
The freedom of the "yes" appears therefore as freedom capable of
assuming what is definitive: The highest expression of freedom is not
therefore the pursuit of pleasure, without ever arriving at a genuine
decision. Seemingly this permanent openness appears to be the
realization of freedom, but it is not true: The true expression of
freedom is, on the contrary, the capacity to decide for a definitive
gift, in which freedom, by surrendering itself, finds itself fully
again.
Concretely, the personal and reciprocal "yes" of man and woman opens
space for the future, for the authentic humanity of each one, and at
the same time is destined to the gift of a new life. For this reason,
this personal "yes" must necessarily be a "yes" that is also publicly
responsible, with which the spouses assume the public responsibility of
faithfulness, which also guarantees the future for the community. None
of us belongs exclusively to himself: Therefore, each one is called to
assume in his deepest self his own public responsibility. Marriage, as
an institution, is not therefore an undue interference of society or of
the authorities, an imposition from outside in the most private reality
of life; it is on the contrary an intrinsic exigency of the pact of
conjugal love and of the depth of the human person.
The different present forms of the dissolution of marriage, as well as
free unions and "trial marriage," including the pseudo-marriage between
persons of the same sex, are on the contrary expressions of an anarchic
freedom that appears erroneously as man's authentic liberation. A
pseudo-freedom like this is based on a trivialization of the body,
which inevitably includes the trivialization of man.
Its assumption is that man can make of himself what he likes: Thus his
body becomes something secondary, which can be manipulated from the
human point of view, which can be used as one pleases. Libertinism,
which appears as discovery of the body and its value, is in reality a
dualism that makes the body contemptible, leaving it so to speak
outside the authentic being and dignity of the person.