Local media have hardly given any importance to a major document published by the Pontifical Council for the Family on June 6. The document, Family and Human Procreation, explains Church teaching on a range of controversial issues including abortion, contraception, homosexuality, genetic manipulation, and divorce.

The document argues that "responsible procreation" always occurs within the context of marriage and family life. It decries the growing acceptance of single-parent households and homosexual unions, and in particular the demands for government recognition of same-sex "marriage" and the right of homosexuals to adopt children.

Family and Human Procreation reiterates the Church's teaching that abortion is "an abominable crime," which can never be justified, and should never be legally accepted. The document also condemns the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, experiments on foetal tissues, in vitro fertilisation, and no-fault divorce.

The fundamental problem with modern ideological approaches to sexuality, the Pontifical Council for the Family argues, is the absence of reference to a loving God: a Creator who calls mankind to choose life, and whose plan is etched on the human heart. The natural law requires a responsible approach to sexuality, the document says, and sets "objective points of moral reference."

Among the points fixed by human nature, the document points to the complementary roles of the sexes. The Vatican charges that feminist ideology has "exacerbated the relations between the sexes and accentuated the polemical character" of male-female ties.

The breakdown in family life, the document says, has caused a "demographic winter" in many countries, which bears testimony to the lack of solidarity between the generations.

New laws and political trends have created a "crisis of the family" and a severely unstable situation for the institution of marriage, the Pontifical Council says.

The document cites the tendency to delay marriage, the social acceptance of extra-marital relationships, and the frequency of divorce as clear evidence of disorder. These problems have arisen, Family and Human Procreation observes, alongside several new trends in bioethics that have the same tendency to "separate sexuality from love."

When the process of transmitting human life is viewed as a question of technology, the document notes, married couples are "alienate from the true intimacy of their sexual relations."

The Vatican laments the arrival of "procreation without human love". The attitude underlying this new approach, the document observes, is strongly influenced by ideological trends that are hostile to family life. In particular Family and Human Procreation decries the tendency to see human sexuality as purely recreational, so that "acts linked to procreation are subordinated to the search for pleasure and the utility of individuals." In this context the document renews the traditional Christian condemnation of contraception.

Political threats to family life include a Malthusian attitude towards population, the Vatican observes, noting with regret that many governments have put steadily increasing pressure on families to limit the number of children. The document notes the practice of pressuring or even forcing women to be sterilised, especially in poor countries.

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