Marriage and Family
Cornerstones of the Culture
Catholic teachings on marriage and family life are divinely revealed and
intimately connected—and are ordered toward society’s greater good.
Dr. Robert Fastiggi
T
he Catholic Church recognizes the great importance of
marriage and the family because both are essential for
learning to love. In his meeting with families in the Philippines on January 16, 2015, Pope Francis said, “In the family
we learn how to love, to forgive, to be generous and open,
not closed and selfish. We learn to move beyond our needs,
to encounter others and share our lives with them.”
In the same meeting, the Holy Father
noted that marriage and the family are in
crisis today. “The family is also threatened
by growing efforts on the part of some to
redefine the very institution of marriage,
by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by the lack of openness to life.”
2
The words of Pope Francis provide a fitting context for raising the question: What
does the Church teach about marriage
and the family and why? In this regard,
it’s important to realize that the Catholic
Church did not create marriage and the
family. Both of them have existed from the
Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Fall 2015
very dawn of human history because they
correspond to human nature.
The Catholic Church, therefore, in her
teaching authority, or Magisterium, seeks to
uphold the authentic meaning of marriage
and the family as known by natural reason
(the natural law) and by divine revelation.
What Does Scripture Say?
Sacred Scripture upholds the beauty
and dignity of marriage and the family. In
the first two chapters of the Bible, Genesis
1-2, God wills man and woman to unite
as one flesh and to be fruitful and multiply. In the Old Testament, however, the
“divine pedagogy” on marriage is not yet
complete, though there are some wonderful testimonies of marital love and fidelity
in the books of Ruth, Tobit, and the Song
of Songs (Catechism of the Catholic Church
[CCC], 1610–1611).
Nevertheless, because of the Israelites’