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FAMILY LAW PASTORAL LETTER Wednesday, January 25, 2006 Following recent changes in the law relating to family life in Scotland, Archbishop Mario Conti, on behalf of the Bishops of Scotland, has written a pastoral letter on the subject. 65000 copies of the letter have been printed and sent to each of Scotland's 500 Catholic parishes for distribution to Catholic households this weekend (28 - 29 January 2006). The full text of the letter is shown below, preceded by several bullet points which summarise the concerns of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland. KEY CONCERNS:
The full text of the Pastoral Letter is given below: ENDS Peter Kearney Director Catholic Media Office 5 St. Vincent Place Glasgow G1 2DH 0141 221 1168 pk@scmo.org www.scmo.org FAMILY LIFE IN SCOTLAND 28 - 29 January 2006 'The grace to see life whole' S that was the gift which Pope St Gregory the Great in the sixth century prayed might be given to him. It is also our prayer as bishops: 'To see life whole and the power to speak effectively of it.' Pope St Gregory was commenting on a passage from the prophet Ezekiel which describes the leader in terms of a watchman: 'Now a watchman takes up his position on the heights so that he can see from a distance whatever approaches.' This means that he scans the horizon for the first signs of danger and alerts those who look to him for a warning. We can continue the metaphor. It is over the horizon that the first glimmer of dawn comes, illuminating, as yet dimly, the foreground over which the watchman's eye roams. This dawn is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What do we see? We see a society in moral decline, a civilisation in cultural decay, as our temporal leaders fail to take a global view of society. They respond to particular concerns and pressure groups instead of addressing the common good. Nothing is more fundamental to the common good than the stability of family life. As the Holy Father recently said to the new British Ambassador to the Holy See: 'You have spoken of the importance for the United Kingdom of remaining faithful to Europe's rich traditions, and such fidelity naturally involves a profound respect for the truth that God has revealed concerning the human person 'It requires us to acknowledge the indispensable role of stable marriage and family life for the good of society "Above all, it directs us towards a proper understanding of human freedom which can never be realized independently of God but only in cooperation with His loving plan for humanity. Tolerance and respect for difference, if they are truly to benefit society, need to be built upon the rock of an authentic understanding of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and called to a share in His divine life." Alas, that 'authentic understanding of the human person' and that global vision seem not to be guiding recent developments. At all levels of Government, laws are passed and instructions given which fail to see life whole. Strategies address the particular and fail the general good. The most obvious example is the failure to recognise in a practical manner, the primary role of the family in society and the particular responsibility of law givers to protect and promote it. Instead of reserving to married couples's tax reliefs, inheritance rights, priority housing and such benefits as would assist those who need to establish an environment of love and stability for the sake of the family, Government extends such benefits to partnerships which are of their nature incapable of providing tomorrow's citizens whose values will determine our society. Children are also the future contributors to a community's prosperity and economic wellbeing. On their future support will hang the care of the elderly. Single parents, particularly those who are single not through choice but by circumstance, need our support and it will not be lacking in a caring society and from within the Church. Any claim to society's privileges is derivative. They belong, by right, to the family, and reflect society's concern for the well-being of children whatever their circumstances. While the registering of civil partnerships does not appear to be limited to those who form them on the basis of sexual orientation, nonetheless it was to benefit such persons that recent legislation found its way onto the statute book. The law has created a fiction of marriage by implicitly basing such legislation on a sexual engagement. While it can be argued that it is no business of the state to interfere in what consenting adults do, it is equally arguable that it is not wise for the state to accord such partnerships the privileges and benefits reserved until now to married couples. As it is, this civil partnership legislation is defective, excluding from benefits family members who share their property and accept responsibility of care for one another. Let us make the Church's position clear. Nobody should be excluded from society, nor from benefiting from the common good on account of their sexual orientation, but this is quite different to according the expression of such sexuality an equivalence in law and public esteem to that of conjugal love. In doing so our legislators have acted unwisely, have wounded the body politic, and trivialised the respect due to marriage. Some will have been touched by the sincerity of those taking advantage of such legislation and experiencing the apparent approval of society. Others will have been entertained by the media circus surrounding the extravagancies of some. Many will have been saddened by the apparent disparagement of the unique respect and affection accorded in the past to those who in the public forum pledged their love in testimony of their intention of founding a family. The horizon has been lost sight of in a well-intentioned but disingenuous piece of legislation which will do nothing to enhance the dignity of marriage, the support due to the family, and the respect to be accorded conjugal love by which, in God's design, new life is procreated and society established and maintained. To any who are confused by the debate and who look to the teaching of the Church for guidance, we say this: All sexual intercourse outside of marriage is wrong, and within marriage such intercourse must always be ordered to the procreation of new life. The act by which a man and woman love one another is the same act in the design of the creator by which the love of God brings to birth new human life. That is the truth by which all sexual activity is governed, the beauty by which it is ennobled. That is the rule by which all who wish to follow Christ must live. That is the Christian lifestyle, not the world's and in it lies virtue. It is that horizon to which we must raise our eyes to witness the dawn of grace. It is not unreasonable for us to expect those elected to govern a society which has its historic base in Christianity to be guided by its values and enlightened by its insights and so consolidate the foundations of marriage and family life. This cause finds ready support among followers of the other great world faiths in our midst who have also expressed their concern for the dignity and stability of family life. This is a time when marriage and the family are in crisis with many of our social ills traceable to this cause. Therefore we must be at the forefront of promoting family life. Promoting the family means assisting in the provision of suitable and affordable accommodation to young married couples. It means offering them counseling in preparation for marriage and conciliation services where circumstances require them, and this rather than providing easier divorce. It means offering parenting skills, something which the authorities are beginning to recognise and for which they should be commended. It may also mean requiring in some circumstances couples to take advantage of such opportunities where it is evident that they are not coping as parents. It means backing all those agencies which already in the field are working with the Church in addressing aspects of family support. May the Lord bless all those who uphold the dignity of conjugal love, who promote the family, and whose eyes are ultimately turned towards the Father from whom all good things come, the dawn of whose grace was revealed in the birth of His Son. Yours devotedly in Christ +Mario Conti President, Commission for Christian Doctrine and Unity Bishops' Conference of Scotland |