Catholic Social Teaching - The Family
Putting the family into Catholic Social Teaching is unusual. Is not Catholic Social Teaching about relieving poverty, looking and solving injustice, having a loud voice on immigration and giving to the Third World? So why should I start with the Family.
My reply is that no unit of Society in Western Culture has been so ignored in recent times that the very foundation of love and justice - the Family. We all know it, we all see it, and we turn away. We see young people growing up feeling unhappy because they were deprived of a father and sometimes a mother. OK, too bad they just have to get on with their lives, we will help them in their education if we can, and we will make sure that none of their uncles or new 'Dads' are pedophiles, and we will put them in care and if 70 per cent of the girls end up in prostitution or are abused by gangs we will look the other way, or blame Tommy Robinson. We will do anything except look at their venerability and realise that what they needed was not social therapy but a strong loving family. Many children not in such extreme situations still hurt from knowing that their natural father did not want them. But we keep looking the other way. And we excuse ourselves on the grounds that this is just what society is. Some 'Christians' will even go as far as accepting they can do nothing and so almost encourage the breakdown of society by giving out condoms and contraceptives. It is they say the common sense way.
But where did Jesus Christ stand on such things? Well that is seldom asked by many Christians who mumble about updating the laws of the Church to help it fit into the new circumstances? In other words accept contraception for the young, accept divorce, accept adultery, and accept anti-family practices like abortion. We know that Jesus was firmly against divorce and we know he was firmly against adultery But come on does what He said two thousand years ago really apply to the 'better educated' people of today?
Let us examine the building block of society. Matthew 19 "Have you not read that from the beginning God made them Male and Female and this is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife and the two become one flesh. They are no longer two therefore but one flesh. What God has joined together let not man divide"
In the eyes of God the Creator therefore he is dealing with a unity when through his power and their co-operation a child is conceived. And the Father and Mother are one flesh in that child. The child is flesh of the father and flesh of the mother and both have a responsibility for his or her very being.
God intended every child to have a Father and a Mother. This is why divorce is so wrong. A father has a role to provide for and protect his wife and children. A mother has a role to clothe and feed the child and be there for the child when it is young and vulnerable. They both have a duty to love one another and a child growing in that loving environment of the family will learn to love and reach out to love others. The children will grow secure and safe and be ready to be a good parent when the time comes for them to leave the family.
"No, no," some will cry you are too simplistic, you are talking about the ideal,. Look at the real world and show compassion like we do" But I am looking at the world and it is one terrible mess. It is not the world that Jesus died on the Cross for and we have lost our love for Him
Catholics who follow Christ must be just that - Catholics who follow Christ. They must not make excuses for breaking the rules and believe they are just as good as anyone else when they do - they are not. The acceptance of adultery and divorce has led on to worse evils than just the destruction of childrens' morals. They have led to women in situations where they even kill the innocent babies that God created. then they demand that others accept the values of society. God help us!!
My reply is that no unit of Society in Western Culture has been so ignored in recent times that the very foundation of love and justice - the Family. We all know it, we all see it, and we turn away. We see young people growing up feeling unhappy because they were deprived of a father and sometimes a mother. OK, too bad they just have to get on with their lives, we will help them in their education if we can, and we will make sure that none of their uncles or new 'Dads' are pedophiles, and we will put them in care and if 70 per cent of the girls end up in prostitution or are abused by gangs we will look the other way, or blame Tommy Robinson. We will do anything except look at their venerability and realise that what they needed was not social therapy but a strong loving family. Many children not in such extreme situations still hurt from knowing that their natural father did not want them. But we keep looking the other way. And we excuse ourselves on the grounds that this is just what society is. Some 'Christians' will even go as far as accepting they can do nothing and so almost encourage the breakdown of society by giving out condoms and contraceptives. It is they say the common sense way.
But where did Jesus Christ stand on such things? Well that is seldom asked by many Christians who mumble about updating the laws of the Church to help it fit into the new circumstances? In other words accept contraception for the young, accept divorce, accept adultery, and accept anti-family practices like abortion. We know that Jesus was firmly against divorce and we know he was firmly against adultery But come on does what He said two thousand years ago really apply to the 'better educated' people of today?
Let us examine the building block of society. Matthew 19 "Have you not read that from the beginning God made them Male and Female and this is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife and the two become one flesh. They are no longer two therefore but one flesh. What God has joined together let not man divide"
In the eyes of God the Creator therefore he is dealing with a unity when through his power and their co-operation a child is conceived. And the Father and Mother are one flesh in that child. The child is flesh of the father and flesh of the mother and both have a responsibility for his or her very being.
God intended every child to have a Father and a Mother. This is why divorce is so wrong. A father has a role to provide for and protect his wife and children. A mother has a role to clothe and feed the child and be there for the child when it is young and vulnerable. They both have a duty to love one another and a child growing in that loving environment of the family will learn to love and reach out to love others. The children will grow secure and safe and be ready to be a good parent when the time comes for them to leave the family.
"No, no," some will cry you are too simplistic, you are talking about the ideal,. Look at the real world and show compassion like we do" But I am looking at the world and it is one terrible mess. It is not the world that Jesus died on the Cross for and we have lost our love for Him
Catholics who follow Christ must be just that - Catholics who follow Christ. They must not make excuses for breaking the rules and believe they are just as good as anyone else when they do - they are not. The acceptance of adultery and divorce has led on to worse evils than just the destruction of childrens' morals. They have led to women in situations where they even kill the innocent babies that God created. then they demand that others accept the values of society. God help us!!
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