Marriage and family life is important to each and all of us. We all come out of families. We all have a mother, father, brothers, sisters /aunts, uncles, cousins, / grandparents, nephews, and nieces. Everyone has a family. Everyone wants a good, warm, and loving family, where people care for one another. If we don't have these relatives, we feel deprived.

A warm and loving family is God's plan for each of us. From the very beginning, when God created our first parents, Adam and Eve, God had a plan for marriage and family life. Male and female He made us, and thereby automatically made us social, mutually dependent, and complementary to each other. The most natural thing in the world is for a young man and woman to fall in love and begin to dream about their lives together as man and wife. When they are sufficiently mature and self-sufficient, a young couple marries and begins a new family. They regard their children as the visible, living fruit of their love. The deep love they hold for one another blossoms over into new members of the family... little Joey, little Susie. Gaudium et spes 51 reminds us that "human life and its transmission are realities whose meaning is not limited by the horizons of this life only. Their true worth and full meaning can be understood only in reference to man's eternal destiny.

Everyone loves a lover, and everyone enjoys being around a closely knit, loving family. As a priest, God asked me to remain single, and be available to His people in ways I could not as a married man. But I assure you, I need to be around families on a regular basis to soak up their love, and to enter into the fabric of their lives. We are all family people. This is simply the way God made us.

Catholic social teaching holds that marriage and family life is the basic unit of every society. A society is only as healthy, as stable, as energetic, and as imbued with moral values as its families. A nation can be strong even if it sustains crushing economic and political burdens, so long as its families are strong. Think of Poland before Solidarity was officially recognized. A nation can be crumbling away even if it has material wealth and political status, if its families are falling apart and riddled with moral decay. Think of 5th century Rome. Think of Berlin on the eve of the 2nd World War. (Remember The Cabaret?)

Healthy marriages and good, stable family life must be the concern of every civic minded person. The life of the nation depends upon its families. The life of the Church depends upon its families. This being the case, we can see why both the Church and the state must link arms in their efforts to promote healthy marriages and good family life.

Let's look briefly at how the Church views marriage and family life, and then how the state does this. A parish, or a congregation, is an extension of the family. It is our broader family. At Mass and the liturgies of the Church, each of us and our families are brought together to praise and worship god, and also to be nourished by God's Word and His eucharistic body and blood. We worship God as His people, as the family of God. We are nourished and motivated to live out the Christian life as a people bonded to Jesus and to one another. Through the various parish organizations, we are able to serve others, by building up their faith. Most of a parish's activities are geared to families. Much of a pastor's work is building family life.

The state knows that it relies upon healthy families as the source of its citizens. Well adjusted, civic-minded, energetic, and educated citizens are all products of good families. The government, or state, has a strong interest in the well-being of family life throughout the nation. The state exists for the family; the family does not exist for the state. The state must ensure that various services are available for all its families: good medical care from conception to coffin, good nutrition, adequate housing, education, police and fire protection, welfare for the needy, jobs and transportation. The state knows that its future citizens, who will accept positions of responsibility within society, are being prepared even now in their families. (That is where every person is given the love and care, the nurture and support, the education and maturation he needs to develop into the full rich person God meant him or her to become.) Take healthy families away, and the source of responsible citizens dries up.

Good marriages and healthy, happy families do not just happen automatically. They must be encouraged and protected from anything that destroys them. What are the dangers to marriage and family life today ?

Divorce cuts at the very heart of marriage. Why is it, whenever a society wants to become "liberalized" or "progressive," some people immediately attack safeguards against and restrictions on divorce? Marriage, as God designed it, it for keeps; it is indissoluble. Jesus teaches: "They are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mt 19:6). Marriage is a commitment to God and to a special person, a spouse, and this is for life. You cannot exhaust a marriage in 10 years; not in 25; not even after 50! It is a commitment, a way of life, a true human good which we can pursue more and more, and never exhaust it. It is the same way with other commitments: the priesthood and religious life. It is the same way with the single person called to a special form of service within the world. A society with 50 percent of its marriages going on the rocks is in serious trouble. Consider the emotional scars on the children of divorce. Look at the lack of stability and purpose on teenagers of divorce. The casual disregard for divorce in this country, and the serial polygamy seen on many soap operas, is demoralizing.

A second danger to marriage is adultery. Adultery strikes against the total fidelity which the marriage bond demands. Adultery creates havoc in a marriage. It is playing with dynamite. Nor is it justification for a divorce. It is a serious sin which must be rejected and repented of. (Some mistakenly claim that it opens a married person to greater creativity and integration. Follow the lives of such practitioners and judge the results for yourself. These theorists would not speculate wildly with their financial resources. Why, then, should they be so reckless about the good of their marriage?) Jesus teaches us: "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery" (Lk 16:18).

Abortion is a great evil and a serious offense against family life. It is the wanton and excruciatingly painful destruction of a human being, a completely innocent child. Through repetition we have numbed our consciences. Pro-abortion groups try to minimize the evil and make us callous to it. No one has a right to kill an unborn child. To claim such a right would be the same as to claim a right to exterminate anyone who poses an inconvenience to us.

Contraception, both in and out of marriage, is a serious danger to the well-being of marriage and family life. Why? It is a direct attack upon the life-giving dimension of the marital act. It is targeted against human fertility, a real human good, which it mistakenly perceives to be an evil. contraception, as predicted by Pope Paul VI, in his prophetic encyclical Humanae vitae, has disastrous consequences. There is a direct connection between contraception and abortion. If we are willing to contracept, then we grow accustomed to abortion, since the latter is now considered a "safety net" for unsuccessful contraception. Contraception depreciates sexuality into sensuality. It degenerates love into lust. Our fertility, a God-given gift, is now perceived by many to be a dreaded disease. All these are consequences of false interpretations of human sexuality. They all effect our marriages and the quality of family life. Consider all the teenage abortions, teenage parents, and single parent families.

Disregard for chastity, the virtue which regulates our powerful human passions, is a fifth danger for marriage. If our young people are not taught the true purpose of sex, that genital sex is an authentic statement only in marriage, and that our sexual passions are to be subordinated to the direction of our minds and will, then chastity becomes a meaningless word, and important dimension of our personhood is trivialized, our passions and appetites know no boundaries, and the unborn child pays for his parents' sins by being mercilessly aborted. Disregarding the virtue of chastity consigns us to becoming slaves of our passions. The Church loves the marital embrace, that is, authentic expressions of genital sex. She rejects all counterfeits. Pornography offends against chastity in that it stirs up the fires of human passion with no regard for the person of our attention, who is reduced to an object of our lust. Our sexuality is a majestic lion, not a domesticated poodle. It demands our respect and prudent guidance. Only the Church, appointed by God to be a reliable moral guide, can adequately teach the virtue of chastity to our youth.

Radical forms of feminism are another serious threat to marriage and family life. It decrees that children, creating a home and a family are demeaning to a mother and wife, and that self-fulfillment can only be found outside the home in a career. Mothers are the heart of a family. Tear the heart out, and what is left? Strong, vibrant, healthy families do not just happen. They require the nurturing, guidance, and character formation which only mothers can provide, with the help of their spouse. If children are not given the care and love they need, then they suffer. We must ask ourselves: what makes a woman happier - a happy and loving family around her, or a career downtown? In our society, mothers and wives are under-appreciated, while radical feminists are over-exposed by the media.

How do we promote good marriages, happy families, and healthy family life? The Church, the state, education, and the business community must all help here.

The Church is crucial here. She must explain the moral law, which is God's plan for marriage and family life. She does this from the pulpit and in diocesan newspapers, and especially in papal documents. She describes what the responsibilities of parenting are. She explains why the dangers to marriage and family life are to be avoided, and provides special helps to support good families. She prepares young couples for marriage. She provides religious education for children grades 1-12. She makes available Catholic schools from kindergarten to the university level, where faith truths and moral truths are part of the learning experience. She provides classes in Natural Family Planning, family counseling, and pastoral care, especially in the sacrament of reconciliation and forgiveness. She counteracts such contemporary trends as hedonism, abortion, euthanasia, and value-free sex education. Most importantly, she provides the sacraments, whereby every man, woman, and child can obtain the spiritual help they need to resist temptation, to pursue virtuous living, and to grow in the worship and praise of God.

The state helps by enacting legislation which is pro-family. It provides the material infrastructure which all civil life requires. It does not discriminate against large families, or penalize through tax structures parents of large families. It honors and makes possible parents' right to choose the kind of school their children will attend. It protects the rights of all its citizens, especially the weakest and the unborn. It does not make it financially advantageous for mothers not to marry, or for fathers to abandon their families. It establishes good standards for all levels of public education and for public health care.

Public education helps promote good marriages and family life by cooperating with parents and Churches in the moral and value formation of students. They help by discouraging anything which weakens the fabric of family life, e.g., teenage promiscuity, disrespect for legitimate authority, and a disregard for moral principles. All educators, in public and private schools, must recognize the primary role of parents in education and cooperate with their wishes and directives.

The business community advances healthy family life by its policy towards the families of its employees. Such policies affect maternity leaves, insurance for on-the-job accidents and unemployment, a family wage, and the like. A corporation can help families in an economically depressed area by creating useful jobs is these areas. Some industrialists provide incentives and scholarships to teenagers in drug-ridden ghettoes, giving them hope for a brighter future.

Pius XI, in his encyclical on Christian Marriage (Casti connubii, 1930), summarizes all that I have said. If we want to restore good order in marriage and family life, then it is necessary that everyone recall the divine plan and strive to conform to it. Since the greatest obstacle here is unbridled lust, and since we cannot control our passions unless we first subject ourselves to God, this is the approach we must take. We must first subject ourselves to God's will. Then, with the aid of divine grace, we shall be able to subject our passions and concupiscence to ourselves, to our mind's good judgment and to our wills. Everything else follows from this. PRAISE THE LORD!

Good documents for the Church's teaching about God's plan for marriage and family life are:

Pius XI's On Christian Marriage (Casti connubii, 1930);

Vatican II's The Church in the Modern World #47-52 (Gaudium et Spes, 1965), "The Dignity of Marriage and the Family";

Pope John Paul II's The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (Familiaris consortio, 1981).