Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 69 No. 2-3, 1999.
Original scientific paper
Moral Marital Problems in Facing Morden-Day Challenges
Tomislav Jozić
; Vrhbosna Catholic Theology, Sarajevo, Bosna and Herzegovina
Abstract
The themes of marriage and the family have entered into today's Church as burning moral and pastoral issues. Relative silence in its solution was interrupted by the II Vatican council, which has also influenced the continuation of a number of documents. Their innovation also lies in the fact that they not only concern themselves with internal questions of marriage and the family, but many pages of these documents also deal with external circumstances and experience which these two »institutions« face. Our particular circumstances at the present moment are also taken into consideration, and at the same time reasons that here we can not apply to the question of marriage, because it is inseparable from that of the family.
As a result, besides many others we touch here on two essential common problems. First of all, internal questions concerning marriage, and these are concerned with marital morality in the service of life, as well as questions of divorce. Based on already well known Church documents, these two questions are worth answering through becoming well acquainted with these documents, but also through adapting new pastoral forms to our circumstances. Therefore, it is necessary to take into consideration the final document of the Pope's Council on the family, »Manual for confessors« (1997), which suggests a few of these pastoral forms.
The second theme is concerned with external family challenges. The weight of these questions and temptations in us has been increased lately by political interests due to the apparent usefulness of the displacement of families. This type of political orientation in certain surrounded parishes lead to as many as 130 thousand displaced families (Sarajevo, Banja Luka). However, it looks as though in this matter the Church did not quite find its way, because it did not always react quickly and decisively with moral pressure against the compromised political and civil morality. In truth, they can not deny public appeals or statements, but these were for the most part from certain »top officials« or joint conferences, and more or less everything has been published and is known. It seems necessary to touch on this question, because it directly affects the familiar-pastoral situation here.
The solution to these two problems (internal marriage questions, and temptations outside the family) is worth looking for in the necessity of familiarity with circumstances in which today's marriage and family materialise, as well as in the new »new evangelisation«. According to John Paul II, it must be »new in its enthusiasm, new in its methods, and new in its manner of expression«. New forms of evangelisation demand the establishment of family centres with counsellors. This and the second solution to marital and family problems in the face of modern-day challenges, would certainly be worth looking into within existing Church trends, according to our circumstances.
Keywords
marriage; family; familiarisation with circumstances; family centre; new evangelisation
Hrčak ID:
31501
URI
Publication date:
22.12.1999.
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