Catechism of the Catholic Church
§ 1652 By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.
“Look toward Heaven, and number the stars, if you are able…” Then He said to him, “So shall your descendants be” (Gn 15:5).
With these words full of enchantment and mystery, God promised the patriarch Abraham a numerous offspring. This pledge of God’s blessing, the offspring, is precisely “the primary purpose of marriage”1 and – alas – a good so often neglected in our day. The documents of the Pontifical Magisterium, some of which we will consider below, show us just how high this purpose is.
As Pope John Paul II points out, the ultimate reason why the contemporary mentality often closes itself off to the “spiritual riches of a new human life” lies in the “absence in people’s hearts of God.”2 In fact, Pope Paul VI3 warned that only in the light of the supernatural and eternal vocation of the human being can questions concerning life be rightly considered.
In this sense, Pius XI4 recalls two truths that emphasize the importance of the mission entrusted by the Creator to parents, to cooperate with Him in the propagation of the human race (cf. Gn 1:28). The first refers to the dignity and very high purpose of man, who, by virtue of the pre-eminence of rational nature, surpasses all material creation and is called to participate, through grace, in the life of God Himself. The second alludes to the fact that Christian parents are destined not only to populate the earth, but above all to provide Christ’s Church with new members and to procreate citizens of Heaven, authentic saints.
It is also worth remembering the moral aspect of the issue: “they [the spouses] are not free to act as they choose in the service of transmitting life, as if it were wholly up to them to decide what is the right course to follow. On the contrary, they are bound to ensure that what they do corresponds to the will of God the Creator. The very nature of marriage and its use makes His will clear, while the constant teaching of the Church spells it out.”5
Finally, the Ecclesiastical Magisterium also has a word of praise for the spouses “who with a gallant heart and with wise and common deliberation, undertake to bring up suitably even a relatively large family.”6
The value of their witness “consists not only in rejecting out of hand and with the force of facts any intentional compromise between God’s Law and man’s selfishness, but in the readiness to accept with joy and gratitude the priceless gifts of God that are children, and in the number that pleases Him.”7 For this reason, Pius XII did not hesitate to affirm that large families are “the most blessed by God, favoured by the Church and esteemed by her as precious treasures.”8 ◊
Notes
1 ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. De bono coniugali, c.XXIV, n.32.
2 ST. JOHN PAUL II. Familiaris consortio, n.30.
3 Cf. ST. PAUL VI. Humanæ vitæ, n.7.
4 Cf. PIUS XI. Casti connubii, n.6-7.
5 ST. PAUL VI, op. cit., n.10.
6 SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL. Gaudium et spes, n.50.
7 PIUS XII. Speech, 20/1/1958.
8 Idem, ibidem.
