The Church’s Response to the Socialist Attack on the Family

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com ^ | Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

[ReformationFan]

Why do the most deliberate and sustained attacks on the family so often come from the socialist side of the political spectrum? While modern industrial capitalism puts pressure on the family, this pressure is incidental to the main structures of the market economy. By contrast, the most profound attacks on the family, including easy divorce, abortion and same sex marriage, have come deliberately from Socialism, not as its unintended by-product.

My purpose today is to show that the socialist ideal of equality has played an independent role in the breakdown of the family. Socialism, which has grown up in parallel with, and in reaction to capitalism, has attacked the family directly, and has adopted policies that have led to demographic collapse.

I will first explain why I believe that the most violent attacks on the family come from the most committed Socialists. I will then show why the attack on the family evolves into an attack on the Catholic Church and any other religion that defends the family. Finally, I will argue that the Church really is threat to the socialist ideals, precisely because she offers more appealing solutions to the problems socialism claims to solve.

I should note at once, that my definition of the family is the one grounded in the teaching of the Catholic Church and based on the clear instruction of our Founder, Jesus of Nazareth. We believe that the family is based upon the life-long conjugal love between a man and a woman. The married couple sustains itself, brings forth new members, and provides for the care of its elderly and infirm members. I do not accept the various attempts by the United Nations and others to redefine the family into “families.” I simply mean one man, one woman, for life.

[ReformationFan]

This 2006 essay by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is still very relevant today. Socialism is the enemy of both the church and the family since both institutions preclude a person's ultimately depending entirely on the state, Jean Jacques Rousseau-style.

[anniegetyourgun]

So true. Of course, what’s behind the enemy of socialism is the enemy of the individual soul.

[LifeComesFirst]

The family is the fundamental unit of the market economy, not the individual as if often assumed. In a command economy however, the state is the fundamental unit. Individuals are resources and families get in the way of “proper” resource allocation, incentives, etc.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Canedawg]

Thanks for posting.

“The life-time assistance of the state displaces the economic function of the family.”

“But over the period that these benefits have been enacted, fertility levels have continued to fall. Between 1970 and 2000, the total fertility rate of the 15 original EU countries fell from 2.38 children per woman to 1.48 children per woman, a drop of 38%. These economic subsidies to child-bearing have failed because they are attempting to replace the father.”