Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio 1. In Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II suggests that: “The situation in which the family finds itself presents positive and negative aspects: the first are a sign of the salvation of Christ operating in the world; the second, a sign of the refusal that man gives to the love of God.”  What, according to John Paul II, are the positive developments, what are the negative ones?  Describe each briefly. 2. Describe what Pope John Paul II calls “the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being” and why we humans have that particular vocation. 3. Explain what Pope John Paul II means when he suggests that: “sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is by no means something purely biological.”  How, according to John Paul II, is sexuality realized “in a truly human way”? 4. What is the Pope talking about when he refers to “the demands of responsible fertility” and what does it involve? 5. What are the biblical images — one from the Old Testament, and one from the New — that the Pope uses to describe the natural of the conjugal union between husband and wife?  What do these two biblical images teach us about the nature of marriage? 6. According to John Paul II, “marriage is the foundation of the wider community of the family.”  Please explain what he means. 7. If marriage has as its natural fruit the procreation of children, does that mean that when procreation is not possible, the conjugal life of marriage loses its value?  What does Pope John Paul II say? 8. One of the entries of the document is entitled: “The Family, a Communion of Persons.”  What does the Pope have in mind? 9. What does the Pope mean when he suggests that, “The Church thus finds in the family, born from the sacrament, the cradle and the setting in which she can enter the human generations, and where these in their turn can enter the Church”? 10. According to John Paul II, “Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God not only does not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes it and confirms it.”  How can that possibly be?  What does Pope John Paul II say?  How can it be, for example, that “By virtue of this witness, virginity or celibacy keeps alive in the Church a consciousness of the mystery of marriage and defends it from any reduction and impoverishment”? 11. What according to the Church are the “four general tasks for the family”?  Please explain each. 12. According to Pope John Paul II: “The first communion is the one which is established and which develops between husband and wife: by virtue of the covenant of married life, the man and woman "are no longer two but one flesh" and they are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving.  How does this growth come about and in what is it rooted? 13. Why, according to John Paul II, should marriage (“conjugal communion”) be characterized “not only by its unity but also by its indissolubility”?  Please explain both the natural and the biblical reasons. 14. Is the family mean to look inward and close in upon itself or open up to a broader community and a deeper communion with others outside the family?  Please explain. 15. According to John Paul II, “Family communion can only be preserved and perfected through a great spirit of sacrifice. It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation.”  Please explain why. 16. Please discuss what Pope John Paul II describes as “the rights and role of women.” 17. What does the Pope have to say about women’s access to work outside the home and their role within the home? 18. What “offenses against women’s dignity” does the Pope mention in particular? 19. Many people assume that the problem of families came when mothers began to work outside the home.  What does Pope John Paul II have to say about fathers and work?  What does he have to say about fathers and their relationship with their family? 20. What does Pope John Paul II have to say about our duty toward the elderly? 21. According to Pope John Paul II, “The teaching of the Church in our day [with regard to marriage, family, and conjugal union] is placed in a social and cultural context which renders it more difficult to understand and yet more urgent and irreplaceable for promoting the true good of men and women.”  Explain why.  What are the developments that render it “more difficult”?  What response does the Pope call upon Catholics to give amid these circumstances? 22. In section 32 of the document, Pope John Paul II repeats the Church’s perennial teaching in these words: “the Second Vatican Council clearly affirmed that ‘when there is a question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspect of any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives. It must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human person and his or her acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced.’” What does this paragraph imply about using contraceptive methods while still intending to have children “in the long run”? 23. Immediately following the previous paragraph, John Paul II says this: “It is precisely by moving from ‘an integral vision of man and of his vocation, not only his natural and earthly, but also his supernatural and eternal vocation,’ that Paul VI [author of the encyclical Humanae Vitae on sex and contraception] affirmed that the teaching of the Church ‘is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning.’ And he concluded by re-emphasizing that there must be excluded as intrinsically immoral ‘every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible.’” What does this paragraph mean concretely? 24. What does the Pope mean when he says that: “When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as ‘arbiters’ of the divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality — and with it themselves and their married partner — by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.” 25. What is the difference, according to Pope John Paul II between methods of controlling birth that separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act and those that involve recourse to periods of infertility? 26. Does the Pople understand that obeying this teaching can involve very great difficulties for married couples?  Or is he basically saying “Obey, and get used to it”?  If following the teaching does involve difficulties, what sort of dispositions are needed?  Are these dispositions needed when it comes to obeying any of the commandments?  What have we seen thus far in this class?  Explain.