Cathy Molloy outlines why the family is so important for giving children the security and acceptance they need to develop and its importance in building up a civilisation of love.
Walking along a beach recently, I found myself alongside a family group whose tiniest member was learning to walk. Safely between the helping hands of his parents, his older sister running ahead, encouraging him, the little boy was determined to go it alone which he did for about three paces!
When he fell flat on his face into a small puddle, and was about to unleash screams of either fear or frustration, his father silently and calmly reached out to him. I will never forget the transformation as the tiny boy took the hand and looked up. Completely reassured, he continued on his way and, with a palpable inner confidence, made it with another ten paces before falling again. This time he didn’t even consider screaming, and the whole family delighted in his achievement as he got himself up and set off again.
Security and acceptance
His mother was completely engrossed and overjoyed, the little ‘big’ sister jumped up and down with excitement, and the smiling father followed him at a protective distance.
It was such a simple and yet very moving reminder of a basic truth of being human. We all share a fundamental need for love and security, for encouragement and help with our development. We need acceptance in failure as well as in success, and this need is in us in infancy and throughout our lives.
Sadly, in Ireland today there are five thousand children who are presently being cared for apart from their families. This happens for a variety of reasons, often because the family simply doesn’t have the support needed to function adequately.
Irreplaceable institution
Recently, Pope Benedict XVI attended the 5th World Meeting of Families, in Valencia, Spain. The meeting focused on family and its irreplaceable role in society, an issue to which the Church attaches great importance. Such meetings are steadily gathering momentum in the Church calendar.
‘The family is an intermediate institution between individuals and society, and nothing can completely take its place’: this was Pope Benedict’s central message. It is in the family that we receive our first formative ideas about truth and goodness, learn what it means to love and to be loved, what it means to be a person. In this, the family makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to society.
The social teaching of the Church holds the Christian vision of marriage and family as central to human well-being. It consistently promotes the family as the place where the need for love and security is best met and urges that everything should be done to protect it. The Church also teaches the duty of society to support families whose basic needs cannot be met through their own resources.
Family and society
The family is the ‘first and vital cell of society’, with inviolable rights based on human nature. An important point is that the family does not exist for society or for the State but that society and the State exist for the family.
In the relationship between the State and the family, the principle of subsidiarity should be observed. This means that the State should not take away from the family any tasks it can accomplish well by itself. However, the State and society have also a duty in solidarity to support families and to assist them with whatever is necessary for the family to fulfil its responsibilities.
In his exhortation, Familiaris Consortio (1981), the late Pope John Paul II responded to societal and cultural changes affecting the family in the modern world. He was primarily concerned with the rate of divorce and family breakdown, but also with the pressures brought to bear by war and poverty. He took issue with ideologies and systems that took over the role in education proper to the family.
This Apostolic Exhortation, dealing entirely with the family and its role in society and in the Church, shows a new urgency about the care and protection of the family. John Paul sets out a Charter of the Rights of the Family and places particular emphasis on the rights of children:
‘In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous concern for their rights’ (26).
Respect
The older generations in the family have a special role to play. Elders are urged to continue to take an active and responsible part in family life while respecting the autonomy of the new family. Love and respect for older people and their wisdom are to be fostered in the young.
John Paul II teaches the equal responsibility and dignity of women with men in the family and the importance of the role of women outside and inside the home. He calls on society to ensure that women do not have to work outside the home for reasons of economic survival. Work in the home should be recognized as a service devoted to the quality of life, something to be valued.
The Church has always emphasized the role of parents as the primary educators of their children. John Paul stresses that for the integral education of the children, the role of the father and the mother are equally necessary.
The family is a community of persons and the first and fundamental school of social living. The communion and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home provide the most concrete and effective teaching. This enables the responsible and fruitful participation of the children in the wider society.
Impediments
There are many reasons why families are unable to be the loving communion of persons so important for the good of society. There is the issue of homelessness, while the cost of housing is a constant threat to the wellbeing of families, and sometimes even to the right of young people to found a family.
The situation of refugees throughout the world is a growing concern as the number of refugees and migrant workers increases. Catholic social teaching challenges the international community to solidarity with refugees and insists that the reunification of refugee families be promoted.
Catholic social teaching challenges all systems that work against the well-being of the family, and the reasonable enjoyment of family life. It calls on families themselves – and all Catholics – to play their part in acting in support of families near and far.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (February 2007), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
