Defend Marriage and Family

WE are still at the beginning of the new year. At this time, it’s good that we be reminded of having a clear vision of what we are supposed to achieve for this year.

I would say that one area we should be most interested in is that of marriage and the family. Sad to say, they are veritably under siege now. They need to be defended, protected. In fact, they need to be made vibrant and strong.

We cannot exaggerate the importance of these two basic natural institutions we have. They play the indispensable role of properly educating persons and developing our society.

Truly they stand at a very strategic and crucial point between a person and society. The health and vitality of marriage and the family, or the lack of these, certainly determine the kind of persons and society we will have.

The proper connection between the person and society—a linkage that involves education and other formative processes—is provided mainly by the family, based on a healthy marriage and supported by the school system and others.

As a theoretical principle, this I believe is well known. And yet in the reality of things, it would seem as if this truth is not only neglected nor ignored. It looks like it is often violated, and with impunity at that.

The observation, if not suspicion, is not without basis. There are already disturbing statistics indicating dark trends worldwide in marriage and the family. To mention one item, the number of broken, dysfunctional families is growing.

Also, the number of adults who are still immature emotionally disturbed, socially aloof, or plainly insane is rising. There’s a quiet march toward decadence. If nothing is done, we can expect the march to acquire force and speed in the near future.

But, sad to say, the factors that tend to undermine the health of these two fundamental institutions are still active and contagious. And hardly any organized effort is made to curb, neutralize or much less eliminate them.

Since the effort would generally be moral and spiritual in character, there’s the thinking that it should be done only, as in exclusively, by the Church. The government and other social entities feel quite exempt from the responsibility.

If anything at all, they just concern themselves with the material aspect of any problem in this area. As if moral problems, even when they assume public dimensions, are for the Church only to solve!

Consider the entertainment world. How many movies and shows play up the more exciting aspects of love affairs without making any meaningful connection to marriage and to family or to the ideal of a commitment?

The stars and celebrities themselves just do not act out these aberrations in films. They do them, even flaunt them, in the real world. And what is being done? Hardly anything.

Are we calling for censorship, for public condemnation? Not exactly. But certainly there’s a need to expose the distortions, fallacies, errors and danger that they generate.

There has to be more prompt reaction, consistent with our true dignity as persons and as children of God, a reaction that should be quite public too, and not kept in the confines of homes or churches or some circles of friends.

What is even more disturbing is that we know that in Congress there are bills already being prepared to legalize divorce and promote a very questionable idea of reproductive health.

These are rightly dubbed as anti-life, anti-marriage and anti-family bills. And they deserve to be junked. The public should closely monitor the course these bills are taking in our legislative body.