From: kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Cath. Christianity 101 - JP II's letter "On the Family" - 2 (repost)
Date: 25 Jul 1992 19:57:39 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: skat.usc.edu


The following is a portion of Pope John Paul II's 1981 Apostolic
Exhortation "Familiaris Consortio" (On the Family).  The document
is organized in the following way:

     Introduction.
-->  Part 1. Bright Spots and Shadows for the Family Today.     
     Part 2. The Plan of God for Marriage and the Family.
     Part 3. The Role of the Christian Family.
          I. Forming a Community of Persons.
          II. Serving Life.
          III. Participating in the Development of Society.       
          IV. Sharing in the Life and Mission of the Church.     
     Part 4. Pastoral Care of the Family.
          I. Stages of Pastoral Care of the Family.
          II. Structures of Family Pastoral Care.
          III. Agents of the Pastoral Care of the Family.
          IV. Pastoral Care of the Family in Difficult Cases.     
     Conclusion.

Note: (-->) denotes which portion of the document is presented
herein.

In Christ,

Dennis
kriz@skat.usc.edu

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John Paul II's 1981 Apostolic Exhortation "On the Family" - Part 1


                            PART ONE
          BRIGHT SPOTS AND SHADOWS FOR THE FAMILY TODAY


4. The Need to Understand the Situation.
----------------------------------------

  Since God's plan for marriage and the family touches men and
women in the concreteness of their daily existence in specific
social and cultural situations, the church ought to apply herself
to understanding the situations within which marriage and the
family are lived today, in order to fulfill her task of serving
[8].  

  This understanding is therefore an inescapable requirement of the
work of evangelization.  It is, in fact, to the families of our
times that the church must bring the unchangeable and ever new
gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it is the families involved in the
present conditions of the world that are called to accept and to
live the plan of God that pertains to them.  Moreover, the call and
demands of the spirit resound in the very events of history, and so
the church can also be guided to a more profound understanding of
the inexhaustible mystery of marriage and the family by the
circumstances, the questions and the anxieties and hopes of the
young people, married couples and parents of today [9].

  To this ought to be added a further reflection of particular
importance at the present time.  Not infrequently ideas and
solutions which are very appealing, but which obscure in varying
degrees the truth and the dignity of the human person, are offered
to men and women of today in their sincere and deep search for a
response to the important daily problems that affect their married
and family life.  These views are often supported by the powerful
and pervasive organization of the means of social communication,
which subtly endangers freedom and the means of objective
judgement.

  Many are already aware of this danger to the human person and are
working for the truth.  The church, with her evangelical
discernment, joins with them, offering her own service to the
truth, to freedom and to the dignity of every man and every woman.


8. Evangelical Discernment.
---------------------------

  The discernment effected by the church becomes the offering of an
orientation in order that the entire truth and the full dignity of
marriage and the family may be preserved and realized.

  This discernment is accomplished through the sense of faith [10],
which is a gift that the Spirit gives to all the faithful [11], and
is therefore the work of the whole church according to the
diversity of the various gifts and charisms that, together with and
according to the responsibility proper to each one, work together
for a more profound understanding and activation of the word of
God.  The church, therefore, does not accomplish this discernment
only through the pastors, who teach in the name and with the power
of Christ, but also through the laity: Christ "made them his
witnesses and gave them understanding of the faith and the grace of
speech (Acts 2:17-18; Rv. 19:10), so that the power of the Gospel
might shine forth in their daily social and family life" [12].  The
laity, moreover, by reason of their particular vocation have the
specific role of interpreting the history of the world in the light
of Christ, inasmuch as they are called to illuminate and organize
temporal realities according to the plan of God, creator and
redeemer.

  The "supernatural sense of faith" [13], however, does not consist
solely or necessarily in the consensus of the faithful.  Following
Christ, the church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as
the majority opinion.  She listens to conscience and not to power,
and in this way she defends the poor and downtrodden.  The church
values sociological and statistical research when it proves helpful
in understanding the historical context in which pastoral action
has to be developed and when it leads to a better understanding of
the truth.  Such research alone, however, is not to be considered
in itself an expression of the sense of faith.

  Because it is the task of the apostolic ministry to ensure that
the church remains in the truth of Christ and to lead her ever more
deeply into that truth, the pastors must promote the sense of faith
in all the faithful, examine and authoratively judge the
genuineness of its expressions and educate the faithful in an ever
more mature evangelical discernment [14].

  Christian spouses and parents can and should offer their unique
and irreplaceable contribution to the elaboration of an authentic
evangelical discernment in the various situations and cultures in
which men and women live their marriage and their family life. 
They are qualified for this role by their charism or special gift,
the gift of the sacrament of matrimony [15].


6. The Situation of the Family in the World Today.
--------------------------------------------------

  The situation in which the family finds itself presents positive
and negative aspects: The first is a sign of the salvation of
Christ operating in the world; the second, a sign of the refusal
that man gives to the love of God.

  On the one hand, in fact, there is a more lively awareness of
personal freedom and greater attention to the quality of
interpersonal relationships in marriage, in promoting the dignity
of women, to responsible procreation, to the education of children. 
There is also an awareness of the need for the development of
interfamily relationships, for reciprocal spiritual and material
assistance, the rediscovery of the ecclesial mission proper to the
family and its responsibility for the building of a more just
society.  On the other hand, however, signs are not lacking of a
disturbing degradation of some fundamental values: a mistaken
theoretical and practical concept of the independence of the
spouses in relation to each other; serious misconceptions regarding
the relationship of authority between parents and children; the
concrete difficulties that the family itself experiences in the
transmission of values; the growing number of divorces; the scourge
of abortion; the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the
appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality.

  At the root of these negative phenomena there frequently lies a
corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom, conceived not
as a capacity for realizing the truth of God's plan for marriage
and the family, but as an autonomous power of self-affirmation,
often against others, for one's own selfish well-being.

  Worthy of our attention also is the fact in the countries of the
so-called Third World, families often lack both the means necessary
for survival, such as food, work, housing and medicine, and the
most elementary freedoms.  In the richer countries, on the
contrary, excessive prosperity and the consumer mentality,
paradoxically joined to a certain anguish and uncertainty about the
future, deprive married couples of the generosity and courage
needed for raising up new human life: Thus life is often perceived
not as a blessing but as a danger from which to defend oneself.

  The historical situation in which the family lives therefore
appears as an interplay of light and darkness.

  This shows that history is not simply a fixed progression toward
what is better, but rather an event of freedom, and even a struggle
between freedoms that are in mutual conflict, that is, according to
the wellknown expression of St. Augustine, a conflict between two
loves: the love of God to the point of disregarding self, and the
love of self to the point of disregarding God [16].

  It follows that only an education for love rooted in faith can
lead to the capacity of interpreting "the signs of the times,"
which are the historical expression of this twofold love.


7. The Influence of Circumstances on the Consciences of the  ------
-----------------------------------------------------
Faithful.
---------

  Living in such a world, under the pressures coming above all from
the mass media, the faithful do not always remain immune from the
obscuring of certain fundamental values, nor set themselves up as
the critical conscience of the family culture and as active agents
in the building of an authentic family humanism.

  Among the more troubling signs of this phenomenon, the synod
fathers stressed the following in particular: the spread of divorce
and of recourse to a new union, even on the part of the faithful;
the acceptance of purely civil marriage in contradiction of the
vocation of the baptized to "be married in the Lord"; the
celebration of the marriage sacrament without living faith, but for
other motives; the rejection of moral norms that guide and promote
human and Christian exercise of sexuality in marriage. 


8. Our Age Needs Wisdom.
------------------------

  The whole church is obliged to a deep reflection and commitment,
so that the new culture now emerging may be evangelized in depth,
true values acknowledged, the rights of men and women defended and
justice promoted in the very structures of society.  In this way
the "new humanism" will not distract people from their relationship
with God, but will lead them to it more fully.

  Science and its technical applications offer new and immense
possibilities in the construction of such a humanism.  Still, as a
consequence of political choices that decide the direction of
research and its applications, science is often used against its
original purpose, which is the advancement of the human person.

  It becomes necessary, therefore, on the part of all to recover an
awareness of the primacy of moral values, which are the values of
the human person as such.  The great task that has to be faced
today for the renewal of society is that of recapturing the
ultimate meaning of life and its fundamental values.  Only an
awareness of the primacy of these values enables man to use the
immense possibilities given him by science in such a way as to
bring about the true advancement of the human person in his or her
whole truth, in his or her freedom and dignity.  Science is called
to ally itself with wisdom.

  The following words of the Second Vatican Council can therefore
be applied to the problems of the family: "Our era needs such
wisdom more than bygone ages if the discoveries made by man are to
be further humanized.  For the future of the world stands in peril
unless wiser people are forthcoming" [17].

  The education of the moral conscience, which makes every human
being capable of judging and of discerning the proper ways to
achieve self-realization according to his or her original truth,
thus becomes a pressing requirement that cannot be renounced.

  Modern culture must be led to a more profoundly restored covenant
with divine wisdom.  Every man is given a share of such wisdom
through the creating action of God.  And it is only in faithfulness
to this covenant that the families of today will be in a position
to influence positively the building of a more just and fraternal
world.


9. Gradualness and Conversion.
------------------------------

  To the injustice originating from sin -- which has profoundly
penetrated the structures of today's world -- and often hindering
the family's full realization of itself and of its fundamental
rights, we must all set ourselves in opposition through a
conversion of mind and heart, following Christ crucified by denying
our own selfishness: Such a conversion cannot fail to have a
beneficial and renewing influence even on the structures of
society.

  What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while
requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence
to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which
leads us gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of
God and the demands of his definitive and absolute love in the
entire personal and social life of man.  Therefore an educational
growth process is necessary in order that individual believers,
families and peoples, even civilization itself, by beginning from
what they have already received of the mystery of Christ, may
patiently be led forward, arriving at a richer understanding and a
fuller integration of this mystery in their lives.


10. Inculturation.
------------------

  In conformity with her constant tradition, the church receives
from the various cultures everything that is able to express better
the unsearchable riches of Christ [18].  Only with the help of all
the cultures will it be possible for these riches to be manifested
ever more clearly and for the church to progress toward a daily,
more complete and profound awareness of the truth, which has
already been given to her in its entirety by the Lord.

  Holding fast to the two principles of the compatibility with the
Gospel of the various cultures to be taken up and of communion with
the universal church, there must be further study, particularly by
the episcopal conferences and the appropriate departments of the
Roman Curia, and greater pastoral diligence so that this
"inculturation" of the Christian faith may come about ever more
extensively in the context of marriage and the family as well as in
other fields.

  It is by means of "inculturation" that one proceeds toward the
full restoration of the covenant with the wisdom of God, which is
Christ himself.  The whole church will be enriched also by the
cultures which, though lacking technology, abound in human wisdom
and are enlivened by profound moral values.

  So that the goal of this journey might be clear and consequently
the way plainly indicated, the synod was right to begin by
considering in depth the original design of God for marriage and
the family: It "went back to the beginning," in deference to the
teaching of Christ [19].

--------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes: 

[8] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Council of the General
Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops (Feb. 23, 1980): INSEGNAMENTI
DI GIOVANNI PAOLO II,) III, 1 (1980), 472-476.

[9] Cf. Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES,  4.

[10] Cf. Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12.

[11] Cf. 1 Jn. 2:20.

[12] Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 35.

[13] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12; Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration MYSTERIUM ECCLESIAE, 2:
AAS 65 (1973), 398-400.

[14] Cf. Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM, 12; DEI VERBUM, 10.

[15] Cf. John Paul II, Homily for the Opening of the Sixth Synod of
Bishops, 3.

[16] Cf. St. Augustine, DE CIVITATE DEI, XIV, 28; CSEL 40, II, 56-
57.

[17] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 15.

[18] Cf. Eph. 3:8; Second Vatican Council, GAUDIUM ET SPES, 44; AD
GENTES, 15, 22.

[19] Cf. Mt. 19:4-6.

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