I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at what Pope John Paul I (Papa Luciani) had to say during his pontificate about marriage and the family.
The following is an excerpt from his address to the American bishops on September 21, 1978.
Although we are new in the Pontificate – just a beginner – we too want to choose topics that deeply touch the life of the Church and that will be very relevant to your episcopal ministry. We believe that the Christian family is a good place to start. The Christian family is so important, and its role so basic in transforming the world and in building up the Kingdom of God, that the Council called it a “domestic Church”. Let us never grow tired of proclaiming the family as a community of love: conjugal love unites the couple and is procreative of new life; it mirrors the divine love, is communicated, and in the words of “Gaudium et Spes”, is actually a sharing in the covenant of love of Christ and his Church. We were all given the great grace of being born into such a community of love; it will be easy for us to uphold its value…… It is up to us to keep this realization strong, by supporting and defending the family – each and every family…. Ours too is the role of encouraging families to fidelity to the law of God and the Church….. safeguard the marriage bond..give witness to its indissolubility in accordance with the teaching of Jesus, and to assist families in need. The holiness of the Christian family is indeed the most apt means for producing the serene renewal of the Church which the Council so eagerly desired.…. Let us do everything we can for the Christian family, so that our people may fulfill their greatest vocation in Christian joy and share ultimately and effectively in the Church’s mission – Christ’s mission – of salvation. (Italics mine.)
Read it all at: Address of John Paul I to a Group of American Bishops on their “Ad Limina” Visit.
The holiness of the family is the “most apt means for producing the serene renewal of the Church.” I suspect, if he were alive today, Papa Luciani would add, “and of the world.”
