Marriage, Eucharist and Social Doctrine of the Church
In marriage, the family is founded and therefore the society
Author: Stefano Fontana | Source: Analysis and Topicality
In marriage, the family is founded and therefore the society
Marriage, Eucharist and Social Doctrine of the Church
If the sense of the value of the sacraments is weakened in the Church and, in particular, the relationship between marriage and the eucharist, the social and political commitment of Christians loses sight of their last foundation
Between the Sacraments of Marriage and the Eucharist on the one hand and the Social Doctrine of the Church on the other, there is a narrow band. The relationship may seem strange if it is considered that the first area concerns the sacramental life of the Church and the second, on the other hand, the commitment in society and politics. However, the two dimensions are not alien to each other because all the effort of Christians to build the world according to God's plan and the salvation of man has his theological motivation and the support of grace precisely in the eucharistic sacrament and in all the sacraments, from which comes the regeneration that, later, translates into the transformation of social relations. This is why it can be said that if the sense of value of the sacraments is weakened in the Church and, in particular, the relationship between marriage and eucharist, the social and political commitment of Christians also loses sight of its ultimate foundation and its authentic meaning, thus reducing to simple social action of solidarity.
In the marriage, the family is founded and in this, the society is founded. And, on the contrary, without marriage, there is neither family nor society, but a set of individual relations distinctly intertwined and without any order. Marriage is a natural order. However, nature does not manage to fully provide itself and it decays when it loses contact with the supernatural. The same thing happens to the marriage that, being also of natural order and having in this order its autonomous dignity it does not manage to remain faithful to itself without the elevation to the state of grace. This does not happen only with marriage, but with the whole natural order. Empirical proof of this is given by the decline in civil marriages after the estrangement of religious marriage as a social practice. If nature were to suffice itself, reducing or eliminating religious marriage, civil marriage, which is of the natural order, should remain steadfast. But this is not the case: civil marriage also deteriorates, as we can see.
In the marriage, the family is founded and, consequently, society. Only in the marriage between man and woman, one finds the complimentary reception according to an order in which it is founded, successively, any other social relation which wants to arise according to an order, and not following some subjective desires. Without marriage, there is no "sociality", no society, no social order. There is no "sociality" because at the origin of society there must be a relationship not as a sum of two individuals, but as an integrative complementarity and this happens only between man and woman. There is no society because only the complementary heterosexual couple is naturally generating a new life. There is no social order because, unlike the heterosexual couple open to the life that with this manifests a "plan" on it, the simple sum of individuals does not reveal any order with a purpose, but a mere juxtaposition.
If marriage is eliminated, there is little left of society. If it does not evidence an order, as in the Christian view according to which the creative act of God extends also to the foundations of social life, public moral norms lose their foundation and everything is contextualized. Non-negotiable principles are lost and, with them, any objective and absolute moral norms.
Marriage needs the sacrament of Marriage; it needs it also socially and politically. The doctrine of faith has always regarded adultery as a sin and a grave moral act that cannot be justified. Adultery belongs to the "bad Intrinsece". In this way, the Church has also protected marriage as a social institution and, with it, the whole society and its order. If it was eliminated, if adultery was converted not in an objective situation of sin, but in a situation to be assessed on a case-by-case, if the interpretation of the situation were attributed only to individual consciousness and if it were possible for the divorcee to be fuel to marry and that coexist more uxorious acceded to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, then that protection would be eliminated and the consequences would be negative both at social and political level and, above all, at the level of application of the Social Doctrine of the Church.
The Sacrament of the Eucharist has a social and, indirectly, the political foundation of great importance. A minor theological consideration on the part of the Church would have a worrying effect on the commitment of Catholics in the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is the true foundation of communion among men. Charity, queen of all social virtues, has in the Sacrifice of the Altar its last food. No human and social virtue, such as justice, so important for the Social Doctrine of the Church, could be sustained by its forces. Any decay of the supernatural dimension implies a cost in the natural dimension. In the Sacrifice of the Altar, dead and resurrected Christ fulfills a new creation, including the re-creation of the human coexistence that originates in the marriage. By marriage and the eucharist, therefore, supernatural energies are passed to the commitment in society in the light of the Social Doctrine of the Church.
The admission of the divorced who have remarried to the Eucharist, even according to the logic of the case by case, and therefore without formally damaging the Doctrine, but pampering her with a deformed pastoral, would cause many difficulties in the commitment of the cathólic In their defense and promotion of the family, and to embody in society the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church