By Judie Brown
The Preamble to the United States Constitution says: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
If you have ever wondered how this nation can have such peace when we are killing innocent babies, ending the lives of the vulnerable, and prescribing medications that either control the creation of a child or kill the child prior to birth, you are most likely in possession of a well-formed conscience. For that you can be thankful.
But if we look at the situation many families are living in these days, it is immediately apparent that not everyone got the message. And maybe this is why Saint John Paul II’s writings on the family need to be revisited, considered, and shared.
One of the unique features of the pontificate of St. John Paul II was his thoughtful teaching on marriage and family. The pope saw family as a “domestic church” and the way of new evangelization. Thus his Letter to Families, published in the Year of the Family in 1994, remains one of the most important and encouraging papal documents regarding spouses and parenthood. A source of priceless wisdom, it helps us respond to the challenges and crises that families experience in today’s secular world. He wrote:
It is clear that the family is fundamental to what Pope Paul VI called the “civilization of love,” an expression which has entered the teaching of the Church and by now has become familiar. Today it is difficult to imagine a statement by the Church, or about the Church, which does not mention the civilization of love. The phrase is linked to the tradition of the “domestic church” in early Christianity, but it has a particular significance for the present time. . . . Created in the image and likeness of God, man has received the world from the hands of the Creator, together with the task of shaping it in his own image and likeness. The fulfilment of this task gives rise to civilization, which in the final analysis is nothing else than the “humanization of the world.”
But this humanization is a challenge when we consider, for example, the fact that according to recent research, Americans just do not want children.
One of the reasons this is so dates back to what Pope John Paul II described as the numerous forces that are aligned against the family as God designed it. He said, “The Church perceives in a more urgent and compelling way her mission of proclaiming to all people the plan of God for marriage and the family, ensuring their full vitality and human and Christian development, and thus contributing to the renewal of society and of the People of God.”
Thus it appears clear that to experience domestic tranquility as a nation, we must be committed to bolstering the family, not destroying it, which is exactly what acts of contraception, abortion, infanticide, and divorce bring about as the concept of domestic tranquility crumbles under the pressure of godless national policies and leaders.
Perhaps the most glaring example of a lack of domestic tranquility is seen in a battle in Texas. There, the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, is suing the Biden administration over the administration’s healthcare policy that overrides state laws in order to provide chemical birth control to teens without parental consent. Paxton said:
By attempting to force Texas healthcare providers to offer contraceptives to children without parental consent, the Biden Administration continues to prove they will do anything to implement their extremist agenda—even undermine the Constitution and violate the law. . . . Federal courts have already shut down their previous attack on parental rights, and I will ensure that we stop them once again.
In order to preserve domestic tranquility, Americans are encouraged to embrace their God-given rights as human beings, parents, and citizens of this great nation. As long as we tolerate the government strong-arming our rights that are guaranteed under the Constitution, civility will evaporate under the pressure of godless demagogues.
This is not a prediction; it is an all-too-familiar reality. It is time to end it.
The Catechism wisely teaches that “peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity. Peace is ‘the tranquility of order.’”
