Marriage and procreation/parenthood/family

[Guest guest]

There was a post to the list earlier (last night or early this morning) about the incompleteness of marriage without parenthood – I read it on my phone and then mistakenly deleted it – which means I can’t now pull it up on my computer. But, just a thought in response. There’s certainly lots and lots in the Church’s teaching rightly emphasizing procreation as the supreme gift that completes marriage – in Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes, in II’s Letter to Families, and so on. I think it’s also worth noting a passage from ’s pre-papal work Love and Responsibility which presents what I think is a full/balanced account of the relationship between marriage and family – certainly not denying that procreation is a key (even the principal) purpose of marriage – but also noting, in summary: “A marriage which, through no fault of the spouses, is childless retains its full value as an institution.†The full passage – which includes an explanation of “why a family originating in polygamy, though it may be a larger society [i.e. with more children – as in some OT cases], will none the less necessarily have a lower moral value than a family originating in monogamous marriage†– begins with the paragraph that starts maybe 2/3 of the way down p. 217, and continues through the paragraph that ends maybe 1/3 of the way down p. 219. If you want to read the whole passage and don’t have L & R on your shelf (or your e-reader), you can pull up the Amazon page for L & R, click on “Search inside this book,†and do a search for “institution†– then click on the “Page 217 ...†link among the results – then just use the forward arrows to browse through the next couple of pp.

KM