The Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Msgr. Jean Laffite, was the guest speaker at the Italian Confederation of Centers for the Natural Regulation of Fertility, in Verona, on September 27th, 2013; he spoke on the theme: “Human love in God's plan.” «
We increasingly see the advance and spread of an anti-family and anti-humanity mentality, including in the current political developments, in Italy and throughout Europe, that are threatening the human, family and naturally Christians values, on which society must base itself, if it wants to grow and improve»,the inviting organizers said.
Msgr. Jean Laffitte observed: «Over the past decade, in particular, Christian thought, transmitted primarily through the teachings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has deepened the theological, spiritual and anthropology dimension of human love». In a cultural context of anthropological disorientation, the inability to «give clear answers to fundamental questions of existence, such as the question of love», in which «a narrowing view of marriage and the family prevails» that makes «highlighting God's plan for love human all the more imperative, the Catholic Church is doing today what no other institution can».
«Qualifying Western society today as ‘permissive’ is a cliché», the Secretary says. «In fact, if we consider morality, sexuality and marriage, we find ourselves in the presence of a permissive society, in other words, a society in which subjective or partial, and ethically unverified, values are exalted. Among these are absolutist individual freedom, well-being under its hedonistic form (that is, the search for the greatest pleasure possible), liberation from moral constraints and, in the domain of the affections, immediate emotion, emotional well-being and individual physical desire as the building blocks of love».
The physical dimension of love should not be neglected. «Traditionally, the respect for one’s own body and for those of others has been considered, until recent times, an attitude both virtuous and worthy of esteem». However, in the post-modern, relativistic and individualistic society, the culture of the body, of human relations and «also of family values are relativized: the bond between the family and marriage, including the structural and founding tie is being destroyed; a mutual commitment between the bride and groom that no longer engages them for the future in an absolute way; the exercise of the sexual capacity, which loses the sense of its own riches, when it no longer expresses the irrevocable, unique and exclusive gift of the spouses and when the children are no longer the fruit of the couple’s love; and even the concept of human life, which has become the subject of individual claims and often the satisfaction of a subjective desire for a child». In this context, «the insistence of the Church's teaching on the natural character of human love and the family institution responds to the urgent need to safeguard the fundamental basis of society». Indeed, as John Paul II taught, «There is no family without the foundation in the truth of conjugal love».
For Msgr. Laffitte, John Paul II Wednesday Catechesis on human love constitute «the most original and substantial contribution of his Magisterium in matters of marriage and the family». The ‘constants’ of his magisterial interventions are: «the bond between the love of a man and a woman with the creation of every human being in the image of God, and the understanding of the conjugal union in all its dimensions cannot be separated from one another: union and procreation, and the truth of conjugal love, which engages the interiority of a man and a woman, in the gift of self, of conjugal chastity and virginal chastity, the bond between body and sacrament, in an analogy between the man-woman relation and the relationship between Christ and the Church».
«Because it is urgent to address the legislative developments that are all going towards the privatization of family ties, their social and political relevance, to which Pope Francis gives much importance, this should certainly be the subject of deepening discussions in the coming months. The family is called to become what it is!», Msgr. Laffitte concluded.
