«Man is a family animal: only in the family does he build his psychological, linguistic, moral, cultural and social relational identity. To accomplish this task of incorporation, of formation of individual identities in the context of the generations, the family needs to be recognized in turn in its identity». This is said by the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, in the Preface to the book by Francesco Belletti and Gabriella Ottonelli, I diritti della famiglia. Solo sulla Carta? (Edizioni Paoline, 2013, € 12,50) [The rights of the Family. Only on Paper?], put out thirty years after the publication of the Charter of the Rights of the Family, in October 1983, the date on which the authors celebrated the first anniversary of their marriage.
At the beginning of the introduction to the volume of the wise and balanced comments on the chapters of the Charter, in the perspective of real, daily family life and in the light of Christian faith and the Church's social doctrine, the Belletti couple states: «The rights of the family are now seriously threatened in many ways, in all parts of the planet. Old and new internal weaknesses combine with attacks coming from the outside: poverty, disease, migration, job insecurity and religious persecution make family life very difficult». In this context of crisis, rampant individualism and the domination of uncertainty in every sphere, «the promise of ‘forever’ is almost impossible and the flight of parents from their parental responsibility is increasingly frequent. Even sexual difference, the architrave of the family, is radically questioned. Yet, most importantly, families feel alone, abandoned, in a world that wants to do without the family».
In the bleakness of «a scenario in some ways distressing, where the clarity of the statements of the 1983 Charter is faced with the guilty inertia of public authorities», here, on the thirtieth anniversary, it is worth reigniting the lights of this Charter that «has constructed an analytical map of the rights of the family, which still remains impressively topical».
