I came to the 2012 Catholic Social Justice Statement on the family [PDF] with some curiosity. Although the Catholic tradition deals extensively with both personal and social morality, there is often some tension among Catholics between those who focus on one or the other aspect.
The family is usually studied from a personal and interpersonal perspective, raising such issues as the uses of sexuality, marriage and the nurturing of life in its beginning and endings. So I was interested to see how a social justice statement, from which we would usually expect a focus on such issues as work, discrimination and solidarity, would treat the family. I found this document very helpful.
It begins by emphasising the social importance of families for the nurturing and formation of children, and then expatiates on the practical difficulties that families encounter in contemporary Australian society.
It stresses the difficulties created by a consumer society. The emphasis on the individual choice to buy and sell and the relatively unrestricted freedom to do so puts pressure on people to work long and unsociable hours. It restricts the opportunity for families to spend time together. Family members would like to live in an environment that nurtures their family relationships but feel themselves compelled to live largely separate lives by the need to pay off mortages and so on.
As one might expect from any reflection from within the Catholic tradition of social justice the statement pays much attention to the plight of poor families. It discusses in some detail the needs of Indigenous and asylum seeker families. It points to the potentially destructive effects on families of government policies when these are imposed without consultation. They weaken the sense of responsibility of families for their own lives.
The statement recommends all legislation be accompanied by detailed statements of its impact on families. It urges Catholics to develop the spiritual resources to be found in the scriptural understanding of the Sabbath, with its emphasis on rest and reflection in the face of the restlessness encouraged by a consumer society.
The tone of the document is encouraging and practical. It invites Catholics to reflect on how to enrich their family lives in the face of aspects of society