These pages gather contributions on the topic generated by a seminar organized by the Foundation for Subsidiarity in Italy, attended by jurists and theologians, psychologists and philosophers, scientists and social workers. And the witness of adults at work: the Welcoming Families Association

A natural sacrament
A family is a man and a woman united in the reciprocal gift of self and open to procreation. This is a datum of reality, so much so that–as reminded by Father Roberto Colombo, Professor of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics–marriage is the only “natural sacrament,” that is, the only one that belongs by right to man as a created being. But, today, family is also a homosexual union, a patrimonial agreement, a pact that excludes any undesirable third parties. “We live in a narcissistic culture,” continues Carmine Di Martino, Professor of Philosophy at the Statale University of Milan, “that has an immaterial and virtual conception of man. It tries to disincarnate the soul to manipulate the bodies.” And the law, instead of regulating the order of things, becomes pure power. This way, any desire claims to become a right and to demand protection. “When laws become norms dictated by desire,” says Luca Antonini, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Padua, “rights become insatiable.” In a world where science and technology make everything possible, this power becomes nearly unlimited. The writer Eugenia Roccella invites us to “battle against the utopia of perfection and the dictatorship of science, against a world that takes us away from the past, turns the heart into a desert, denies maternity as the root of the family, and annihilates creatureliness.” This is the paradox: we build an individualistic society that is nonetheless a potentially totalitarian one, completely in the hands of scientists who do not answer to anybody.

Denying the differences
This is a world, adds Eugenia Scabini, Head of the Faculty of Psychology at Catholic University in Milan, “that talks about welcoming, all the while canceling the differences, starting from the original one between man and woman, forgetting that the family is not a couple but a triad: husband, wife, and children. Today, difference represents a problem. And marriage–that is to say, the bet of putting together two radical differences–is the issue that is most under attack.” Another paradox is emphasized by Giovanna Rossi, Professor of Sociology of the Family at Catholic University: “Marriage is avoided, but there’s the will to regulate cohabitations as if they were marriages. The DICO are the posthumous homage to the very institution that is rejected.” At the origin of the crisis that has led to the DICO, says Vittadini, there’s also “that grave betrayal of the idea of family that is the bourgeois family, where unity is not determined by the sense of destiny, but by a contract, a reciprocal ownership. It is the reduction of gratuitousness and of openness to the other to a matter of patrimonial relationships.” As to the strictly juridical aspect, Marta Cartabia (Professor of Public Law at University Milano Bicocca) and Lorenza Violini (Professor of Constitutional Law at Statale University of Milan) underline that the constitution proposes a model of family “strongly supported by three articles that protect it in a way that has few equals in the West. The introduction of a model of ‘marriage-like’ cohabitation would not be constitutionally tolerable.”
Cesana anticipates a “long and all-encompassing war. What is under discussion is precisely man’s experience and his nature. In our battles, we have to go to the heart of the matter, to what holds everything together. And the true antithesis of ideology is called hope. It is very difficult to avoid the question of Jesus Christ; I don’t believe we can. Christ is the word that above any other has to become a neologism, a new content for Catholics too.” Francesco Botturi, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Catholic University, observed that Catholics are often culturally naïve in front of the nihilism that dominates today. “God’s plan for the family must be defended on a social level,” insists Paola Soave, looking forward to Family Day in Rome.

Original evidences
Therefore, the first thing that has to be recovered is a realism that recognizes the natural datum. This is important in setting up a dialogue, as well. Fr. Stefano Alberto clarifies: “When defending the family, more than referring to natural law, a somewhat ambiguous concept generated by rationalism, it’s better to retrieve the ‘original evidences and needs’ Fr. Giussani spoke about. This common data is the ground on which one can build a dialogue.”
Fr. Julián Carrón, going more deeply, continues: “The elementary experience affirms the subject, but it is not subjectivism because it affirms the existence of an objective natural datum. What can facilitate the recognition of these evidences? Not a correct discourse, not an ethical effort against a law, but only seeing individuals who are fulfilled, whole. It is the witness of a fullness of affection found in that which corresponds to the heart. It may look like nothing, but it’s a lot, because this is the method that the Mystery chose to begin to change something.” The challenge of the DICO becomes, therefore, the tip of the iceberg of an epochal challenge that–quoting Carrón–“can allow people to discover the newness of Christianity in present times.”