The Family, the Vital Cell of Society

Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin has noted that "Vice Presidential Candidate Ryan is aware of Catholic Social Teaching and is very careful to fashion and form his conclusions in accord with the principles mentioned above. Of that I have no doubt" (Subsidiarity, Solidarity, and the Lay Mission, 4/16/12)."  As per Paul Ryan himself, "The Catholic Church offers a rich overview of its thought, summarized in the Compendium of Social Doctrine, to guide Catholics in bringing truth to society’s problems" (Applying Our Enduring Truths to Our Defining Challenge, National Catholic Register, 4/25/12).  As per Chapter Five of the Compendium, The Family, the Vital Cell of Society,

 “The family, the natural community in which human social nature is experienced, makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the good of society....The family possesses inviolable rights and finds its legitimization in human nature and not in being recognized by the State....

“Faced with theories that consider gender identity as merely the cultural and social product of the interaction between the community and the individual, independent of personal sexual identity without any reference to the true meaning of sexuality, the Church does not tire of repeating her teaching: 'Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral and spiritual difference and complementarities are oriented towards the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarities, needs and mutual support between the sexes are lived out'…. responsibility for protecting and promoting the family as a fundamental natural institution, precisely in consideration of its vital and essential aspects, falls to the whole of society….

“Marriage is not a simple agreement to live together but a relationship with a social dimension that is unique with regard to all other relationships, since the family…is the principal instrument for making each person grow in an integral manner and integrating him positively into social life....

“Homosexual persons are to be fully respected in their human dignity and encouraged to follow God's plan with particular attention in the exercise of chastity. This duty calling for respect does not justify the legitimization of behaviour that is not consistent with moral law, even less does it justify the recognition of a right to marriage between persons of the same sex and its being considered equivalent to the family….

"All programmes of economic assistance aimed at financing campaigns of sterilization and contraception, as well as the subordination of economic assistance to such campaigns, are to be morally condemned as affronts to the dignity of the person and the family. The answer to questions connected with population growth must instead by sought in simultaneous respect both of sexual morals and of social ethics"

It should be noted that advocacy for both abortion and alternative definitions of marriage appear to be hallmarks of the campaign of Kathy Boockvar, who is challenging Congressman Fitzpatrick in Pa's 8th Congressional District.  Boockvar even faults Fitzpatrick for voting "to defund Planned Parenthood", which is the nations's largest abortion provider.