The
fragmentation of the family is one of the great tragedies of the
20th century. As Pope St. John Paul II emphasized so eloquently in Familiaris Consortio, the
family is the first society, and as such is the building block of the
wider society (In the words of the Second Vatican Council, the family is
“the first and vital cell of society"). If the family is weak, then so
is the whole social structure. As the late pope famously said in a
homily in Australia in 1986, “As the family goes, so goes the nation,
and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
If
what Pope St. John Paul II said is true, then a great deal of the evils
we are now experiencing in the culture must be traceable to the evils
affecting the family. And if this is true, then one of the most urgent
tasks facing us is the restoration of the family.
If, however, we are going to restore health to the family...
