The role of love within marriage and the family is another theme dealt with in the text. The family is a place where communion is brought about, and thanks to love each person is recognized, accepted and respected.
Love, affirms the Compendium, is essential for human beings. But marital love is more than just emotions or sexual expression. It is a full and total gift, marked by unity and fidelity. Moreover, the nature of conjugal love requires the marital union to be stable. The introduction of civil divorce "has fueled a relativistic vision of the marriage bond" and can be termed "a plague on society For those couples who have divorced and remarried the Compendium adds that the Church does not abandon them. "She prays for them and encourages them in the difficulties that they encounter in the spiritual life, sustaining them in faith and hope." Nevertheless, they cannot receive the Eucharist until they obtain reconciliation through the sacrament of penance.
The text also rejects attempts to redefine marriage through the introduction of new concepts that see gender as dependent merely on social and cultural factors. "Physical, moral and spiritual difference and complementarities are oriented towards the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life." It is therefore incongruous to demand that same-sex unions receive the status of marriage. At the same time the Compendium calls for homosexuals to be fully respected in their human dignity, but also encouraged to exercise chastity.
The Compendium is also critical of de facto unions as they are based on a false conception of the freedom to choose. Marriage is more than a simple agreement to live together but is a social instrument and the principal means for helping each person to grow in an integral manner.
Source: Love And The Family Retrieved from https://socialdashboard.com/soapbox/love-and-the-family
