Elections
2004 - Crossroads
Marriage
and Common Good
Traces continues a series of articles on topics likely to emerge as important
in the United States Presidential election in November 2004. This number deals
with marriage and family. Future issues will deal with economic justice, social
justice, religious liberty, respect for life, education, and world leadership.
Different authors will discuss these issues from different political perspectives.
Publication in this series does not mean that Traces necessarily shares their
points of views. Our purpose is to promote the study, reflection, and discussion
that will lead to a judgment
by Lorenzo Albacete
The marriage between a man and a woman reveals the very structure of the human.
As such, the meaning of marriage is not determined by the State; it is recognized
as the expression of the ideal of a creative community serving the common good
of its members. The legal recognition of “gay marriage”, therefore,
betokens a change in the ideal that motivates society.
The marriage between a man and a woman overcomes the individual’s fear
that sees the “other” as a threatening competitor, affirming the
possibility of a mutual respect independent of individual power. As such, it
is the proper context for the welcoming acceptance and respect for children as
the weakest members of human society. Therefore a society that can no longer
recognize the privileged status of the family based on the marriage between a
man and a woman is a society that has become a dangerous environment for those
who cannot compete in the struggle for power.
“
Love is man’s greatest value, and therefore the example of the man and
the woman is the formula that represents the ideal…. Man lives only in
love, in a true love. The human becomes true in love.... Humanity is realized
in a real love, that has no fear of desperation, what Dante sings in his Vita
Nova: ‘When love finds me close to you it makes me so bold and confident
that I change into someone else’” (L. Giussani, “Letter to
the Holy Father”–Traces, Vol. 5, no.10, p. 49)