Recommendations of Third Meeting of Institutes For Marriage and Family and Bioethics Centres

by Institutes For Marriage And Family And Bioethics Centres

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Five years ago Pope John Paul II offered the world the Encyclical Evangelium vitae, prepared during the International Year of the Family. In this highly important document, the Pope emphasizes the supreme value of life and the importance of the family, the "sanctuary of life". He thus encourages all Christians to proclaim the "Gospel of life" (Evangelium vitae, n. 6) to the world with ever-greater commitment: the acceptance of life and its protection from the moment of conception to natural death.

On this fifth anniversary the Third Meeting of Higher Institutes for Studies on Marriage and the Family and Bioethics Centres was an opportunity to examine the essential and fundamental aspects of the Encyclical. It was also an appropriate occasion for exchanging opinions and experiences, contrasting and comparing the differences in structure, formation and research. In the present context the various problem areas regarding human life have become especially urgent.

At the end of their work, the participants thought it appropriate to summarize the principal conclusions of this Third Meeting. The First Meeting took place from 21 to 23 November 1993, and the Second from 5 to 7 October 1995.

We, the directors or delegates of Higher Institutes for Studies on Marriage and the Family and Bioethics Centres, meeting in Rome at the invitation of the Pontifical Council for the Family, in collaboration with the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health-Care Workers and the Pontifical Academy for Life, make the following recommendations:

1. The connection between human life, marriage and the family was addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective emerging from the centra) question of respect for life and its anthropological and ethical implications. Marriage and the family are the natural place par excellence where human life begins, develops and is accepted, and is therefore the first place for its personal development and socialization. Marriage, the family and the ethics of human life are interwoven and closely connected. This bond poses a special challenge to bioethics.

2. The rapid changes affecting society and its mores are a source of concern to our institutes and our centres. The human person is often regarded not as a subject but as a mere object. An inadequate anthropology tends at the same time to dissociate physical and spiritual needs, as though no profound unity existed between them. Consequently, there is often a pragmatic, utilitarian and hedonistic approach, facilitated by relativism and subjectivism, towards respect for human life, marriage and the family. The shortcomings of an anthropology which has no real ontological basis are often apparent. This approach does not correspond to the human being's deep longing for goodness and truth, emphasized by John Paul II in his Encyclicals Veritatis splendor (1993) and Fides et ratio (1998).

3. Human life begins and develops according to the Creator's plan in the context of the family based on marriage. From different standpoints, our institutions recognize marriage as a natural structure for interpersonal self-giving, oriented per se to the transmission of human life and to its care, love and initial socialization. Marriage is therefore a primary common good for humanity. The delicate bioethical questions about human life in the context of marriage and the family are rooted in the rational and social structure itself of the human person. Anthropological dialogue and the seeking of consensus in the rational search for moral truth must be based on respect for human life, the intrinsic requirement of human work and the recognition of marriage as a natural institution. An ethic inspired by a correct idea of the anthropological meaning of human life, the solid ontological foundation for a dialogue on natural rights, is an excellent platform for dialogue, meeting and consensus.

4. Failure to reflect adequately on these foundations frequently leads to ethical problems about human life and the family being addressed from an excessively consensual viewpoint with no reference to the truth. Thus truth, goodness and justice are seen as matters of discussion and personal choice, subject to negotiation and majority opinion. The universal moral truth accessible to man is not recognized as a stable, objective criterion of fundamental ethical principles and judgments. Consensus degenerates at times into the predominance of majority decision.

5. Given the pluralistic context of contemporary society and the need to make the influence of Christian thought felt in the ethical, juridical and political field, it is necessary to be deeply involved in discussions on the problems regarding human life, marriage and the family. Dialogue on this issue with all people of good will should be based on an adequate anthropology which can discern that ethical "grammar" written on the human heart by the Creator.¹ This will be the right platform for promoting and defending the dignity of human life and the natural rights of every human person, from the moment of conception to natural death.

6. Philosophical and theological anthropology therefore converge on the very heart of our formation programmes: the emphasis on the priority of being over thinking, an understanding of the person as a spiritual and corporal subject, and as the end of all work, never the means to a further end.² Man's subjectivity is not limited to his conscience and freedom, but embraces the whole person in his unity of body and spirit.

Both the institutes for studies on marriage and the family and the bioethics centres greatly benefit from a complete, systematic multidisciplinary interrelationship with the ethical problems of the person, marriage and the family, in which theological and philosophical knowledge is suitably integrated. Jesus Christ, who "revealed his Father and himself by deeds and words" (Dei Verbum, n. 17), is the ultimate key for an interpretation of reality that permits a unified understanding of our disciplines. It is only in the light of the mystery of the incarnate Word that the mystery of man truly becomes clear (cf. Gaudium et spes, n. 22). A correct integration of the theological and philosophical aspects with the particular sciences will avoid both a rationalism that excludes theological knowledge as well as a fideistic ontologism unable to respect the proper autonomy of human knowledge. The family institutes and bioethics centres recommend an ever deeper study of the rich teachings in the documents of the Church's Magisterium, especially the doctrine on the anthropology of the person, the dignity of life, marriage and the family, and their corresponding ethical implications.

7. In the last 25 years in some countries with a Western culture, marriage and the family, the cradle of human life, have been the object of a strange ideological convergence in the transformation of family law. The two clearest examples of this transformation are abortion laws and the liberalization of the grounds for divorce. Current family policies have been influenced by a series of tendencies: the most radical feminist attitude, the growing technical control of human fertility, the presence of women in the workplace, the organized, militant forms of homosexuality, the phenomenon of the single-parent family praised as such, "de facto unions", the considerable decline in the fertility rate in Western countries with the consequent ageing of the population. The result of all this is the apparent paradox of a sort of legal "neutrality" towards marriage together with a particular evolution of the law. Influenced by politics, the law has now changed its objective: no longer the protection and promotion of marriage and the family, but only and exclusively the individual aspects of the person. This social and ideological context discourages young people from forming their own families, although they think of it as the principal social institution.

8. The absence of an anthropology with an adequate ontological basis allows for the ideological promotion of ambiguous and equivocal terminology, which is then introduced into legal documents with the resulting semantic confusion and disdain for social values. For example, there is talk of "family models", "pre-embryos", "reproductive project", "embryo reduction" "reproductive health", "assisted suicide", "procreative rights", "undignified life", "assisted procreation", "wrongful life", "quality of life" "sexual freedom" and "dignified death" in an incorrect and inappropriate way for ethics, on the basis of various implicit ideological notions. It is also necessary to take into account the serious omission or frequently ambiguous or equivocal use of such basic terms as "marriage" or "family", even in international documents.

We recommend that careful attention be paid to the semantic aspect in this effort to be effectively involved in the realms of reflection and decision, in order to avoid errors about the meaning of the terms used and to counter the undue exclusion, in national and international texts, of terms for important realities such as "marriage", "conjugal love" or "procreation", in decisions with particular social significance. Institutes for studies on marriage and the family and bioethical centres can make a great contribution to creating a climate that is sensitive and favourable to human life in those structures with legal responsibilities. Their contribution in their own sphere, by articulating the fundamental rights of the person and the family as presented by the Holy See in the Charter of the Rights of the Family, are exceptionally valuable.

9. Sexuality tends to be presented as a mere practical option, rather than as a dimension of the human person's life with its unitive and procreative meanings (Encyclical Humanae vitae, n. 12). In practice, sexual activity is not regarded as a self-giving of persons whose institutionalized expression is marriage, but is thought of more as an option among different possibilities of sexual behaviour. This erroneous conception of sexuality and male-female complementarity is very often expressed in educational programmes that are based solely on undifferentiated information and not on training the individual in virtue and self-giving. It must be remembered that the right formation of sexual desire involves the unification in the child of partial impulses, which make it possible to surpass certain stages in the development of the personality. Lack of attention or indifference to disordered passions, or their encouragement, in these temporary stages of personality development can lead to later problems of sexual identity. Hence the importance of sensitive attention to the educational aspects of sexuality, both in the private and public spheres.

The formation of sexual identity can be seriously compromised by particular applications of a certain militant ideological attitude to sexual "gender", which, ignoring the mutual complementarity of man and woman, the fruit of the Creator's wisdom, which is ordered to mutual self-giving and the procreation of children, tends mistakenly to reduce marriage to just another form of sexual behaviour. According to this attitude, marriage is merely a culturally conditioned model of behaviour, which appeared in a certain historical period but today is falling into disuse because of an "inevitable" evolution in mores. We therefore recommend that special attention be paid to the fact that the ethics of sexuality presupposes a profound reflection on the truth about the human person and on the nature of marriage as the cradle of life and the basic cell of all human society.

10. The recent incorporation of women into social life is an historical event of great importance in the progressive historical consciousness of the implications of human dignity. The complementary difference between man and woman is certainly a treasure for humanity. In this regard, the contribution of the feminine perspective to anthropology, bioethics and the sciences of marriage and the family can only be to the advantage of the human being. The efforts to involve men more and more in fully and concretely participating at the different levels (psychological, social, moral and juridical) in women's motherhood, in the specifically masculine form of fatherhood, are part of the process of advancing women's dignity. Thus fatherhood and motherhood acquire greater importance in the historical dynamics of the awareness of the meaning of parenthood and the "genealogy of the person",³ so that the child can be seen as the incarnated fruit of human love, the gift of God's creative action in intimate cooperation with husband and wife.

11. It must be reaffirmed that we are in favour of human life. Human life is a precious good which is born within an institution, marriage, whose very vocation is oriented to life and is fulfilled in the family. This same orientation to life belongs to the mutual sexual complementarity of man and woman expressed in the language of the body. For this reason, everything that is opposed to human life, destroys it, injures it or binders it is evil. Our studies and investigations cannot overlook this fact. When viewed from the perspective of a sound anthropology that takes into account the human person's great capacities and resources, his genius in seeking new solutions, the unfathomable goodness manifested in God the Creator's plan for human life, the demographic problems related to fatherhood and motherhood are a stimulus for reflection and research. The situation (emerging in recent years, although predicted decades ago by various authors) of declining fertility in some developed countries of the West is not unrelated to the senseless attitude of some institutions in these countries towards the lack of true family policies worthy of the name. Our institutions can and must play a guiding role vis-a-vis official institutions and the media (through bold and timely initiatives), by promoting the social values of human life in the current demographic situation.

12. We note that the number of married couples who have discovered the natural methods of birth control are constantly increasing in the Third World and in the developed West. We must, however, express regret over the extent to which the contraceptive mentality has spread, especially where resources are not scarce. The ethical decision for periodic continence must be based on a calm, objective moral judgment, founded on moral principles that respect the truth about the human person, the dignity of women, the dignity of unborn human life and the unitive and procreative meanings of marital sexuality. In this regard our institutions can also help in overcoming the selfishness and lack of generosity present more or less unconsciously in an anti-life mentality, intensified by a "culture of death". The recent advances in the natural methods, which have made them very effective, and their ever greater impact in the educational realm (medical and nursing schools, etc.) allow us, in the middle-term, to see hopeful progress in the culture of life.

13. The close connection between bioethical issues and the sciences of marriage and the family, which is emerging with ever greater clarity at these meetings, prompts us to recommend to our institutions a greater knowledge and mutual relations. It is advisable for the higher institutes and centres to be present in other formational contexts (universities, faculties, study centres) and in the social communications media, in order to increase awareness and information (especially among professionals) about problems concerning the close bond between life and the family.

14. We share an ethic that gives preference to the weakest persons, the unborn child, the disabled, the elderly and the terminally ill. We have learned this from Christ, who revealed the full dignity of the little ones, society's outcasts and those who are suffering. Lastly, we recommend that all institutes for studies on marriage and the family and all bioethics centres remember that research on human life cannot ignore the perspective of solidarity and communion, nor can it be separated from a coherent and unified vision of the person, marriage and the family.

Endnotes

1 John Paul II, Address to the UN General Assembly, 5 October 1995.

2 John Paul II, Gratissimam sane (Letter to Families), 2 February 1994, n. 12.

3 John Paul II Gratissimam sane (Letter to Families), 2 February, 1994, n. 9.

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