Mary Betz says that Church teaching now needs to include the reason and experience of lay members in theology of families.

Family Yesterday

On the seemingly endless summer days of the 1950s, my childhood friends and I chanted rhymes as we jumped rope: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes mama with the baby carriage.” Today, not only the ideal order, but the people involved and very nature of these experiences has changed for many of our children and grandchildren.

In those “olden” days, at least in the Catholic world, only men and women were thought to “properly” fall in love with one another, marry and have children. The father worked for an income, and the mother (usually having her firstborn in her twenties) cared for children, home and husband. Nuclear Pākehā families consisted of mum, dad and — for many Catholics — a large number of children. Māori whānau have always included multiple generations, and whānau is broader and more inclusive than “nuclear family”.

Contemporary Families

Today in Aotearoa, a family may be a couple (LGBTQI+ or heterosexual, married or “living together”) with or without children, a single parent with children, or multigenerational. The influx of immigrants of over 200 ethnicities, especially from Asia, the Pacific and Africa, continues to contribute to the growth of multigenerational families.

Children today may have been born with IVF or sperm donation to biological or non-biological parents, have a surrogate parent, live in a blended or step-family, or live part-time in two or more households. A 2021 study (with children of the Dunedin Study participants) found that fewer than half of 15-year-olds live with both biological parents, and only 20 per cent had always lived with only nuclear family members. In addition to changing care arrangements and household occupants, the average number of houses the 15-year-olds had lived in was six.

Women today are more likely to have post-secondary education and a career, which they often return to after having children. Men may be stay-at-home dads. Children usually spend some preschool years in early childhood education. Numbers of children have declined, from a peak in 1870, when the fertility rate in New Zealand was 5.7 births per woman of child-bearing age (statista.com), to 1.6 births per woman in 2020 (stats.govt.nz).

Family finances usually require both parents to work outside the home. Stigmas around working mothers, stay-at-home dads, LGBTQI+ relationships, “living together”, births outside of marriage, use of contraception, separation and divorce, have all lessened. Mobility, complexity and diversity in family life are now the norm.

Church Teaching on Family

The Church has traditionally emphasised Genesis 1:26-28 (in which God created male and female, commanding them to be fruitful and multiply) and natural law (based on its observation and deduction) as revealing God’s word on sexuality and family.

Jesus held marriage and children in esteem, using children and parables of wedding feasts to speak of God’s kingdom, while a generation later, the apostle Paul encouraged those Christians who could to remain unmarried and thus focus single-mindedly on the arrival of the kingdom of God (1 Cor 7). When it became clear the kingdom was not imminent, post-Pauline writers accepted marriage and borrowed household codes (for better and worse) from the Greco-Roman world to ensure ordered family households with husbands presiding over wives, children and slaves.

For many reasons — including the need for a distinctive discipline to attract pagans, the decline of martyrdom as a “heroic” Christian choice, and the pervasive (and perverse) beliefs that women were “misbegotten” and that original sin was passed on through intercourse — church “Fathers”, theologians and hierarchy developed a “cult” of celibacy and exalted it over marriage.

Even though the Council of Trent (1547) named marriage a sacrament, its Canon 10 still warned that “If anyone says that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.” It was not until Vatican II that the equal value of marriage was acknowledged.

In the 1960s, there was rapid uptake of “the pill”. Although Gaudium et Spes (1965) encouraged parents to think about individual and family welfare before having more children, Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae (1968) limited the means of birth control. It ignored a papal commission in which 64 of 68 voting members recommended allowing “artificial” contraception. Many Catholics “walked” and by 2014, a US survey found that 85 per cent of Catholics used a form of contraception prohibited by the Church.

John Paul II had drawn attention to Humanae Vitae’s call for “responsible parenthood”, noting that it did not mean “unlimited procreation”, and cited a couple’s “inviolable liberty” to determine family size. Couples were to consider “social and demographic realities, as well as their own situation and legitimate desires”. Pope Francis repeated these teachings in Amoris Laetitia (2016), but he too has declined to condone “artificial” contraception. In a similar vein Donum Vitae (1987) prohibited fertility treatments which engender life outside of natural intercourse.

The Church still cites Genesis and natural law in refusing to sanction LGBTQI+ unions, although it has toned down its offensive rhetoric on homosexuality. Its Relatio Finalis (2015) following the Synod on the Family found “no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous for God’s plan for marriage and family”.

As for “living together”, which most young people today take for granted, the Church regards it as sinful. This and other sins related to sexuality are regarded as threats to the stability of the family and the social fabric of life.

Where to from Here?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the family as the fundamental unit of society because of its role as primary educator, economic driver and social safety net. A large body of social science research positively associates stability in families of all kinds with health and well-being. But while society’s understandings of sexuality, marriage and family have evolved and broadened with changing global realities like population growth and climate change, science and social science — the Church’s understandings seem rigidly rooted in worldviews that are 2,000-2,500 years old.

Most of us have family members who are LGBTQI+, live unmarried with a partner, have conceived using IVF, or use contraception. Catholic ethical decisions should rest on understandings of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Why has the Church neglected reason and experience? When so much teaching on sexuality has not been “received”, why hasn’t this sensus fidei been acknowledged?

There is something amusing yet disturbing about reading in Amoris Laetitia that “pregnancy is a difficult but wonderful time”, when written by a 79-year-old celibate male. In 2022, should not women and men — and lay people above all — be teaching about sexuality and family?

We Can Do Much Better

The people of God need thoughtful, inclusive theologies and guidelines which trust in the goodness of human relationships, consider circumstances and context, embrace care for Earth and support conscientious discernment by individuals and couples.

Jesus himself tried to break down the purely kinship model of family, teaching that all who did God’s will were his brothers, sisters and mother (Mt 12:50). Jesus’s attentiveness and love for people in a myriad of life situations should prompt us to acknowledge many human groupings as family, judging them as early Christians asked the world to judge them — by their love.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 270 May 2022: 4-5