In an editorial published in La Verdad, Bishop José Libardo Garcés of Cúcuta, Colombia warned that the challenges faced by society have their origins much closer to home – literally. “We see how society is deteriorating in many areas, and this has its root in the deterioration of family life,” he wrote, adding that the reason for this breakdown can be found in different ideologies and “ways of conceiving marriage and family” that reject God.
Colombia itself has seen this kind of societal deterioration as it has faced a tragic number of pro-life problems in recent years. As Live Action has reported, a number of international abortion activist groups have targeted abortion laws in Latin America, leading to the legalization of abortion up to 24 weeks in Colombia. The nation has also seen a rise in cases of assisted suicide in an atmosphere in which the practice is completely unregulated, as well as an increase in illegal surrogacy, which commodifies both women and babies. Bishop Garcés’ diocese of Cúcuta borders the country of Venezuela, a recent locus of economic and humanitarian crises.
For Garcés, healing and strengthening the family as a unit of society is a crucial part of resisting the decay the world faces. “In [the family] you learn the healthy relationship of father, mother, husbands, children and siblings, to go out into society and create healthy interpersonal relationships,” he said. Although these challenges are great, a focus on Jesus Christ as the sanctifier of family life “helps us to overcome problems, heal wounds and opens paths of hope.”
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The relationship between the family and society is a theme that has long been present in the Church, from popes to prelates. In a 1981 encyclical, St. Pope John Paul II highlighted this relationship, stating the family, “given life by love, is a community of persons: of husband and wife, of parents and children, of relatives.” He states that this little community “nourishes [society] continually through its role of service to life,” and that “it is from the family that citizens come to birth and … find the first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself.”
Garcés emphasized that building the family firmly on the rock of Christ provides the strength to push back against the attacks against life and human dignity. “The constant call that God makes to us … is to build the life of the home on the firm rock of Jesus Christ, to receive from Him the strength to face the challenges and tasks in the mission he has received from God to guard human life.” And in fact, a Christ-centered family is key to a pro-life society. A Christ-centered family “goes against the ideologies that present abortion, euthanasia, and other attacks against the life and dignity of the human person as the behavioral norm.”
The core of Bishop Garcés’ message? “We have to strengthen the family that protects life as a free gift from God.”
