On the occasion of the Council meeting of the Pontifical Institute “John Paul II” for Studies on Marriage and Family, Emanuela Bambara made an exclusive interview for the Pontifical Council for the Family with Msgr. Giancarlo Petrini, Bishop of the Brazilian Diocese of Camaçari, President of the Commission of Life and the Family of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference and Director of the Brazilian Section of the Institute, in San Salvador of Bahia.
1) Your Excellency, with respect to the protection of the family and children, Brazil is experiencing a contradictory situation. On the one hand, it is among the first countries in the world to have recognized the rights of children, to the point of approving, in 1990, the first national Statutes of children and adolescents; yet, on the other hand, the country is now at the forefront of legislative reforms that weaken the family and the rights of the child. How do you explain this?
Brazil’s situation is indeed paradoxical, and this is also confirmed by a survey recently published in some national newspapers, which indicates that as many as 98% of the respondents said that the family is, for the Brazilians, the greatest value and the most important asset of life. The family is everything, but the family is nothing if everything is considered a family, as the latest laws assert. Beyond the laws, rulings of some judges have even recognized unions of “three” people. The culture of the family, in Brazil, moves on this horizon, which represents a challenge and, at the same time, an opportunity for the Catholic Church to witness to the Christian conception of beauty of the family. Today, the pastoral ministry of the family must adapt to the new social reality. We understand that it is especially important to communicate the Christian experience of the family as an explosion of joy and love, in the example of the Trinity and, therefore, as a gift. Our pastoral effort aims both to understand and participate in the mystery of the indissoluble union between a man and a woman that fully accomplishes the man and the woman in their specific masculinity and femininity, in communion with one another and through mutual self-giving. The number of spiritual “offers” in the modern world, including many options of “fashionable” unions of love, that certain laws are likely to turn into the dominant models, wins over what best agrees with the human heart: the desire for happiness. What wins is the satisfying love that is renewed every day through giving and lasts a lifetime.
2) What is the experience of the Pontifical Institute “John Paul II” in this Latin American country?
We are aware that the Christian family is not the most obvious choice for a couple's life, but a conscious and free choice, for which reasons need to be given that are not just rational motives and rules, but are transmitted especially by visible testimony of the joy and the mystery of the Christian marriage. The cultural and social context is an obstacle to family life because of so many daily problems, labor and economic difficulties, and, at the same time, the presence of various forms of union that are fragile because they are based only on love, feelings without commitment, and lack mutual responsibility. Feelings, however, are precarious. The militants of the single rule of love found the couple's relationship and marriage exclusively on emotions and, therefore, believe that it’s possible to have multiple families in the course of a lifetime, in the name of this alleged “right to love.” This is the last stage of evolution. Some people have such a naïve experience of love and go from enthusiasm to despair when they see that affection doesn’t last, if it isn’t lived in a higher horizon but rather in kind of drunkenness. Our task is to help especially young people to find the right way of the heart, to meet and grow in reciprocity as well as openness to life, by discovering and experiencing the joy and beauty of faith, which is the right way for every time and each context.
