Review article
The Church and Family in the Advocation of the Protection of Life
Tonči Matulić
orcid.org/0000-0003-3419-9938
; University of Zagreb, Catholic Theological Faculty, Zagreb, Croatia
Ante Bekavac
; University of Zagreb, Catholic Theological Faculty, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In this work the authors expound on the historical and analytical synapsis of the Church’s advocation of the protection of life. First and foremost, they present the Second Vatican Council as the source which encourages the promotion of the dignity of marriage and family as well as the protection of human life. Next they present, on the basis of Council guidelines, the teaching of postconciliar popes up until and including our times who have strongly advocated for the protection of life from conception until natural death as well as the promotion and protection of the dignity of marriage and family, while at the same time promoting the values which flow from those principles. Human life is an unalienable greatness due do the Christian understanding that mans’ sacredness and right to life proceed from the fact that he is created in God’s image (Gen 1, 27). God created man with a free will and calls him to cooperate with him in the world. That relationship carries with it a call to responsibility toward human life and the institutions set up in order to protect and promote human life. The authors, then, highlight the importance of the proclamation of the Christian view of marriage and family connected with the communication and protection of human life in the pastoral activities of the Church. The authors accent the fact that the Church, as a caring mother, recalls into the conscience the basic truth of the vocation and mission of the family as the shrine of life, as well as the true fount from which life if born, and the true school of fuller humanity. The vocation of the Church as well as the family in our time is the promotion of the culture of life, namely the sanctity and invulnerability of human life in all its phases. Although the Church is aware of the many dangers which threaten life in our modern times, she still does not stop arousing hope, and calling everyone to the promotion and protection of human life.
Keywords
Church; culture of death; culture of life; family; holiness; human dignity; marriage
Hrčak ID:
236034
URI
Publication date:
20.3.2020.
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