FAMILIARIS

CONSORTIO

(THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY IN THE

MODERN WORLD)
 APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO
OF POPE
JOHN PAUL II
TO THE EPISCOPATE
TO THE CLERGY AND TO THE FAITHFUL
OF THE WHOLE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON THE ROLE
OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY IN THE MODERN
WORLD
• Written in 1981 to address the question of the human
family and marriage.
• Serves as summary of the Church’s teachings on the
nature and the role of the Christian family and the
Sacrament of marriage.
FAMILY

• Founded and given life by love, is a community of

persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children,
of relatives. It’s first task is to live with fidelity the
reality of communion in a constant effort to develop
an authentic community of persons.
• Share something about your
family
PART THREE

• THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY

FAMILY, BECOME WHAT YOU ARE

• 17. The family finds in the plan of God the Creator and
Redeemer not only its identity, what it is, but also its mission,
what it can and should do. The role that God calls the family to
perform in history derives from what the family is; its role
represents the dynamic and existential development of what it is.
Each family finds within itself a summons that cannot be
ignored, and that specifies both its dignity and its responsibility:
family, become what you are.
• Every particular task of the family is an expressive and concrete
actuation of that fundamental mission. We must therefore go deeper
into the unique riches of the family's mission and probe its contents,
which are both manifold and unified.
• Thus, with love as its point of departure and making constant
reference to it, the recent Synod emphasized four general tasks for
the family:
Four General Tasks of Family:
1) forming a community of persons;
2) serving life;
3) participating in the development of society;
4) sharing in the life and mission of the Church.
1. FORMING A COMMUNITY OF PERSONS

• Love as the Principle and Power of Communion

• 18. The family, which is founded and given life by love, is a

community of persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children, of
relatives. Its first task is to live with fidelity the reality of communion
in a constant effort to develop an authentic community of persons.
• The inner principle of that task, its permanent power
and its final goal is love: without love the family is not
a community of persons and, in the same way, without
love the family cannot live, grow and perfect itself as a
community of persons.
• The love between husband and wife and, in a derivatory and broader way,
the love between members of the same family-between parents and
children, brothers and sisters and relatives and members of the household-
is given life and sustenance by an unceasing inner dynamism leading the
family to ever deeper and more intense communion, which is the

foundation and soul of the community of marriage and the family.

THE INDIVISIBLE UNITY OF CONJUGAL
COMMUNION

• 19. The first communion is the one which is established and

which develops between husband and wife: by virtue of the
covenant of married life, the man and woman "are no longer
two but one flesh"[46] and they are called to grow continually
in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their
marriage promise of total mutual self-giving.
• This conjugal communion sinks its roots in the natural
complementarity that exists between man and woman, and is
nurtured through the personal willingness of the spouses to
share their entire life-project, what they have and what they are:
for this reason such communion is the fruit and the sign of a
profoundly human need.
AN INDISSOLUBLE COMMUNION

• 20. Conjugal communion is characterized not only by its unity

but also by its indissolubility: "As a mutual gift of two persons,
this intimate union, as well as the good of children, imposes
total fidelity on the spouses and argues for an unbreakable
oneness between them."[49]
• The gift of the sacrament is at the same time a vocation and
commandment for the Christian spouses, that they may remain
faithful to each other forever, beyond every trial and difficulty,
in generous obedience to the holy will of the Lord: "What
therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."[55]
THE BROADER COMMUNION OF THE FAMILY

• 21. Conjugal communion constitutes the foundation on which is

built the broader communion of the family, of parents and
children, of brothers and sisters with each other, of relatives and
other members of the household.
THE RIGHTS AND ROLE OF WOMEN

• In this perspective the Synod devoted special attention to

women, to their rights and role within the family and society. In
the same perspective are also to be considered men as husbands
and fathers, and likewise children and the elderly.
• God then manifests the dignity of women in the highest form
possible, by assuming human flesh from the Virgin Mary, whom
the Church honors as the Mother of God, calling her the new
Eve and presenting her as the model of redeemed woman.
WOMEN AND SOCIETY

• 23. Without intending to deal with all the various aspects of the
vast and complex theme of the relationships between women
and society, and limiting these remarks to a few essential points,
one cannot but observe that in the specific area of family life a
widespread social and cultural tradition has considered women's
role to be exclusively that of wife and mother, without adequate
access to public functions which have generally been reserved
for men.
• Furthermore, the mentality which honors women more for their
work outside the home than for their work within the family
must be overcome. This requires that men should truly esteem
and love women with total respect for their personal dignity, and
that society should create and develop conditions favoring work
in the home.
OFFENSES AGAINST WOMEN'S DIGNITY

•24. Unfortunately the Christian message about the dignity

of women is contradicted by that persistent mentality which
considers the human being not as a person but as a thing, as
an object of trade, at the service of selfish interest and mere
pleasure: the first victims of this mentality are women.
OFFENSES AGAINST WOMEN'S DIGNITY

•This mentality produces very bitter fruits, such as contempt

for men and for women, slavery, oppression of the weak,
pornography, prostitution-especially in an organized form-and
all those various forms of discrimination that exist in the
fields of education, employment, wages, etc.
MEN AS HUSBANDS AND FATHERS

• 25. Within the conjugal and family communion-community, the

man is called upon to live his gift and role as husband and father.
• Love for his wife as mother of their children and
love for the children themselves are for the man the
natural way of understanding and fulfilling his own
fatherhood.
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN

• 26. In the family, which is a community of persons, special

attention must be devoted to the children by developing a
profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great
respect and generous concern for their rights. This is true for
every child, but it becomes all the more urgent the smaller the
child is and the more it is in need of everything, when it is
sick, suffering or handicapped.
• Acceptance, love, esteem, many-sided and united material,
emotional, educational and spiritual concern for every child that
comes into this world should always constitute a distinctive, essential
characteristic of all Christians, in particular of the Christian family:
thus children, while they are able to grow "in wisdom and in stature,
and in favor with God and man,"[77] offer their own precious
contribution to building up the family community and even to the
sanctification of their parents.[78]
THE ELDERLY IN THE FAMILY

• 27. There are cultures which manifest a unique veneration and

great love for the elderly: far from being outcasts from the family
or merely tolerated as a useless burden, they continue to be
present and to take an active and responsible part in family life,
though having to respect the autonomy of the new family; above
all they carry out the important mission of being a witness to the
past and a source of wisdom for the young and for the future.
2. SERVING LIFE
OBJECTIVES:

• Worship: understand Church’s teaching on life and to give praise to God

through acts of prayer and love for the gift of life;
• Morals: understand the role of the members of the Church in promoting
the gift of life;
• Doctrine: understand the meaning of Responsible Parenthood and the
Natural Family Planning Methods.
What’s your reactions/comments on the RH
LAW?
What’s the great difference between the
Artificial Means of Birth Control from the
Natural Family Planning Methods?
• Artificial means of birth control: IUD, PILLS, CONDOM, DEPO-PROVERA, TUBAL
LIGATION, VASECTOMY etc.
• They TOTALLY PROMOTE THE CULTURE OF DEATH.
• Homologous artificial insemination and fertilization are less reprehensible yet morally
unacceptable.
• LIFE IS SACRED!
• Human life is sacred because it is created by God and is meant for an
everlasting relationship with God. God is the Lord of life from
beginning to end. {CCC, 2258}
 Exodus 20:13 You shall not kill.

No one has the right to destroy an innocent

being.
THE CHURCH STANDS FOR LIFE

The Church condemns as a grave offense against

human dignity and justice all those activities of
governments or other public authorities which
attempt to limit in any way the freedom of couples in
deciding about children.
• Thus the fundamental task of the family is to serve
life, to actualize in history the original blessing of
the Creator-that of transmitting by procreation the
divine image from person to person.[81]
REGULATION OF BIRTHS {CCC, 2368-2369}

• Concerning the regulation of births, couples may wish

for a just reason to space the birth of children. This
desire must not come from selfishness but must
conform to the generosity appropriate with responsible
parenthood.
• Responsible Parenthood means that couples should
bring into the world generously only the children whom
they can raise up as good human beings. The decision
on the number of children rests solely on the parents
with form Christian conscience.
• Hence the Church advocates only the Natural Family
Planning Methods rejecting all other artificial means of
contraception and the contraceptive mentality that
selfishly avoids offspring because of refusing
responsibility for children. (PCPII, 584;CFC 1923).
• The following are Natural Family Planning
Methods that are accepted by the Church:
Rhythm or Calendar, Basal Body
Temperature, and Breastfeeding.
REFLECTION:

• 1. How do you define responsible parenthood in the

context of your family?
• 2. What factors do you consider when making decisions
about family planning in the future?
REFLECTION:

• 1. How has your family played a role in shaping your values and beliefs?
• 2. How do you contribute to the well-being and growth of your family?
• Reflect on the lessons learned from your that you carry into your interactions with others
in the broader community.
•1. The Transmission of Life
•Cooperators in the Love of God the Creator
•28. With the creation of man and woman in His own image and likeness,
God crowns and brings to perfection the work of His hands: He calls them to
a special sharing in His love and in His power as Creator and Father,
through their free and responsible cooperation in transmitting the gift of
human life: "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'"[80]
THE CHURCH'S TEACHING AND NORM,
ALWAYS OLD YET ALWAYS NEW

• Precisely because the love of husband and wife is a

unique participation in the mystery of life and of the
love of God Himself, the Church knows that she has
received the special mission of guarding and protecting
the lofty dignity of marriage and the most serious
responsibility of the transmission of human life.
THE MORAL PROGRESS OF MARRIED PEOPLE

•34. It is always very important to have a right

notion of the moral order, its values and its
norms; and the importance is all the greater when
the difficulties in the way of respecting them
become more numerous and serious.
•2. Education
•The Right and Duty of Parents Regarding Education

• The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married

couples to participatein God's creative activity: by begetting in love and
for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation to
growth and development, parents by that very fact take on the task of
helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second
Vatican Council recalled, "since parents have conferred life on their
children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring.
Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost
educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that
scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it.
EDUCATING IN THE ESSENTIAL VALUES OF
HUMAN LIFE

• Even amid the difficulties of the work of education, difficulties

which are often greater today,parents must trustingly and
courageously train their children in the essential values of
human life. Children must grow up with a correct attitude of
freedom with regard to material goods, by adopting a simple
and austere life style and being fully convinced that "man is
more precious for what he is than for what he has."[100]
THE MISSION TO EDUCATE AND THE SACRAMENT
OF MARRIAGE

•38. For Christian parents the mission to educate, a mission rooted, as we have
said, in their participation in God's creating activity, has a new specific source in
the sacrament of marriage, which consecrates them for the strictly Christian
education of their children: that is to say, it calls upon them to share in the very
authority and love of God the Father and Christ the Shepherd, and in the
motherly love of the Church, and it enriches them with wisdom, counsel, fortitude
and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to help the children in their
growth as human beings and as Christians.
FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE CHURCH

• 39. The mission to educate demands that Christian parents should present to
their children all the topics that are necessary for the gradual maturing of their
personality from a Christian and ecclesial point of view. They will therefore follow
the educational lines mentioned above, taking care to show their children the
depths of significance to which the faith and love of Jesus Christ can lead.
Furthermore, their awareness that the Lord is entrusting to them the growth of a
child of God, a brother or sister of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a member of
the Church, will support Christian parents in their task of strengthening the gift of
divine grace in their children's souls.
3. PARTICIPATING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY
THE FAMILY AS THE FIRST AND VITAL CELL OF SOCIETY

42."Since the Creator of all things has established the conjugal partnership as the
beginning and basis of human society," the family is "the first and vital cell of
society."[105]
•The family has vital and organic links with society, since it is its foundation and
nourishes it continually through its role of service to life: it is from the family that
citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of
the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and
development of society itself.
FAMILY LIFE AS AN EXPERIENCE OF COMMUNION
AND SHARING

42.The very experience of communion and sharing

that should characterize the family's daily life
represents its first and fundamental contribution to
society.
• The fostering of authentic and mature communion
between persons within the family is the first and
irreplaceable school of social life, and example and
stimulus for the broader community relationships
marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love.
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ROLE

•44. The social role of the family certainly cannot stop short at procreation
and education, even if this constitutes its primary and irreplaceable form of
expression.

• Families therefore, either singly or in association, can and should devote

themselves to manifold social service activities, especially in favor of the
poor, or at any rate for the benefit of all people and situations that cannot
be reached by the public authorities' welfare organization
THE CHARTER OF FAMILY RIGHTS

The Church openly and strongly defends the rights of the

family against the intolerable usurpations of society and the
State. In particular, the Synod Fathers mentioned the
following rights of the family:
- the right to exist and progress as a family, that is to say, the right of every human being, even if
he or she is poor, to found a family and to have adequate means to support it;
- the right to exercise its responsibility regarding the transmission of life and to educate children;
family life;
- the right to the intimacy of conjugal and family life;
- the right to the stability of the bond and of the institution of marriage;
- the right to believe in and profess one's faith and to propagate it;
- the right to bring up children in accordance with the family's own traditions and religious and
cultural values, with the necessary instruments, means and institutions;
- the right, especially of the poor and the sick, to obtain physical, social, political and economic
security;
- the right to housing suitable for living family life in a proper way;
- the right to expression and to representation, either directly or through associations, before the
economic, social and cultural public authorities and lower authorities;
- the right to form associations with other families and institutions, in order to fulfill the family's
role suitably and expeditiously;
- the right to protect minors by adequate institutions and legislation from harmful drugs,
pornography, alcoholism, etc.;
- the right to wholesome recreation of a kind that also fosters family values;
- the right of the elderly to a worthy life and a worthy death;
- the right to emigrate as a family in search of a better life. [112]
4. SHARING IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH

• The Family, Within the Mystery of the Church

• 49. Among the fundamental tasks of the

Christian family is its ecclesial task: the family
is placed at the service of the building up of the
Kingdom of God in history by participating in
the life and mission of the Church.
THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A BELIEVING
AND EVANGELIZING COMMUNITY

•Faith as the Discovery and Admiring Awareness of God's Plan for the
Family

•51. As a sharer in the life and mission of the Church, which listens to
the word of God with reverence and proclaims it confidently,[120] the
Christian family fulfills its prophetic role by welcoming and announcing
the word of God: it thus becomes more and more each day a believing
and evangelizing community.
• The very preparation for Christian marriage is itself a
journey of faith. It is a special opportunity for the engaged to
rediscover and deepen the faith received in Baptism and
nourished by their Christian upbringing. In this way they
come to recognize and freely accept their vocation to follow
Christ and to serve the Kingdom of God in the married state.
• Thus, the little domestic Church, like the greater
Church, needs to be constantly and intensely
evangelized: hence its duty regarding permanent
education in the faith.
THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY'S MINISTRY OF
EVANGELIZATION

•52. To the extent in which the Christian family accepts the Gospel and matures in
faith, it becomes an evangelizing community. Let us listen again to Paul VI: "The
family, like the Church, ought to be a place where the Gospel is transmitted and
from which the Gospel radiates. In a family which is conscious of this mission, all
the members evangelize and are evangelized. The parents not only communicate
the Gospel to their children, but from their children they can themselves receive the
same Gospel as deeply lived by them. And such a family becomes the evangelizer
of many other families, and of the neighborhood of which it forms part."[123]
ECCLESIAL SERVICE

•53. The ministry of evangelization carried out by Christian parents is original and
irreplaceable. It assumes the characteristics typical of family life itself, which should
be interwoven with love, simplicity, practicality and daily witness.[127]
• The parents' ministry of evangelization and catechesis ought to play a
part in their children's lives also during adolescence and youth, when
the children, as often happens, challenge or even reject the Christian
faith received in earlier years. Just as in the Church the work of
evangelization can never be separated from the sufferings of the
apostle, so in the Christian family parents must face with courage and
great interior serenity the difficulties that their ministry of
evangelization sometimes encounters in their own children.
2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY IN
DIALOGUE WITH GOD

•The Church's Sanctuary in the Home

55.The proclamation of the Gospel and its acceptance in faith reach

their fullness in thecelebration of the sacraments. The Church
which is a believing and evangelizing community is also a priestly
people invested with the dignity and sharing in the power of Christ
the High Priest of the New and Eternal Covenant.[137]
2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY AS A COMMUNITY IN
DIALOGUE WITH GOD

•The Christian family too is part of this priestly people which is

the Church. By means of the sacrament of marriage, in which it
is rooted and from which it draws its nourishment, the Christian
family is continuously vivified by the Lord Jesus and called and
engaged by Him in a dialogue with God through the sacraments,
through the offering of one's life, and through prayer.
MARRIAGE AS A SACRAMENT OF MUTUAL
SANCTIFICATION AND AN ACT OF WORSHIP

55.The sacrament of marriage is the specific source and original means of

sanctification for
•Christian married couples and families. It takes up again and makes
specific the sanctifying grace of Baptism. By virtue of the mystery of the
death and Resurrection of Christ, of which the spouses are made part in a
new way by marriage, conjugal love is purified and made holy: "This love
the Lord has judged worthy of special gifts, healing, perfecting and exalting
gifts of grace and of charity."[138]
MARRIAGE AND THE EUCHARIST

• The Christian family's sanctifying role is

grounded in Baptism and has its highest
expression in the Eucharist, to which
Christian marriage is intimately connected
THE SACRAMENT OF CONVERSION AND
RECONCILIATION

57.An essential and permanent part of the Christian family's

sanctifying role consists in acceptingthe call to conversion that the
Gospel addresses to all Christians, who do not always remain
faithful to the "newness" of the Baptism that constitutes them
"saints." The Christian family too is sometimes unfaithful to the law
of baptismal grace and holiness proclaimed anew in the sacrament
of marriage.
FAMILY PRAYER

• The Church prays for the Christian family and educates the family to
live in generous accord with the priestly gift and role received from
Christ the High Priest. In effect, the baptismal priesthood of the
faithful, exercised in the sacrament of marriage, constitutes the
basis of a priestly vocation and mission for the spouses and family
by which their daily lives are transformed into "spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."[149]
EDUCATORS IN PRAYER

57.By reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have the specific
responsibility ofeducating their children in prayer, introducing them to gradual
discovery of the mystery of God and to personal dialogue with Him: "It is
particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and the office of the
sacrament of Matrimony, that from the earliest years children should be taught,
according to the faith received in Baptism, to have a knowledge of God, to
worship Him and to love their neighbor."[151]
PRAYER AND LIFE

57.It should never be forgotten that prayer constitutes an essential part of Christian
life,understood in its fullness and centrality. Indeed, prayer is an important part
of our very humanity: it is "the first expression of man's inner truth, the first
condition for authentic freedom of spirit."[156]