Episode Transcript  

One

Family as the Fundamental Unit

It may be that one of the most counter-intuitive teachings of the Catholic Church on civil issues is her declaration that the family is the most basic unit of society. Most of us would tend to think that individuals are the most basic unit. We’d figure that it’s individuals who get together and form families, and that it’s individuals who get together and form towns and cities and nations. In fact, in political or civil discussion, the family as such is frequently disregarded, and people talk about individuals or larger communities. 

That’s a big mistake; it’s a division that goes too far. The basic unit of water is a molecule made up of three atoms, if you get down to less than three atoms, you don’t have a unit of water anymore. The same is true of society. If you break the family down into individuals, you don’t have a unit of society anymore. 

As with water and even God Himself, the basic, indivisible unit of humanity is at least three. 

Two

The Family is More Fundamental than Individuals

Even though we may be tempted to put the individual ahead of the family, or the larger community ahead of the family, we must remember that the family is in a sense more critical, since it is the unit which forms both. The family forms the individual. A human being first enters the world through the relationship between his father and mother, and that relationship, for better or worse, remains critical to his development throughout life. 

This is why John Paul II says, “The first and fundamental structure for ‘human ecology’ is the family, in which man receives his first formative ideas about truth and goodness, and learns what it means to love and to be loved, and thus what it actually means to be a person.”

On the natural level, persons are constituted most fundamentally to be who they are by their family experiences. Their habits of thought, their values, lifestyles, and even skill-sets are largely determined by the family dynamics in which they were raised. Naturally speaking, it is the family, more than anything else, that makes us who we are.

Three

The Family is More Fundamental than the Larger Society

It’s also key to remember that the family forms society as a whole. The larger society is made up of a multitude of families. And naturally speaking, it is only in the intimate setting of the family where you can create and instill the qualities of courage, selflessness, compassion, and loyalty. 

In other words, only the family can cultivate the virtues that are needed for civil society to function. Consequently, if the family begins to crumble, so will the nation as a whole. It is the state of the cells which determines the state of the larger organism, and if those cells grow sick, the organism sicken too, and eventually die.

Again, the basic building block of the civil community is family life, since it is family life that supports the individual and the nation. It has become commonplace to encounter dysfunctional, broken families. That should make us very, very nervous, because if the family becomes dysfunctional and broken, then inevitably the individual and the nation will quickly become dysfunctional and broken. 

In fact, it may not be an exaggeration to say that the collapse of the family is the gravest threat to national security which we are now facing (remember that the gravest threats are always those which come from within). So if you care about your country, you should care first and foremost about the family.

Four

How Do We Begin to Restore the Family?

The family is not just the foundation of society; it is the first school of friendship. It is in the family that we first learn how to love, how to trust, how to give ourselves, and how to be loyal to another person. And because Jesus is not an abstract idea but a Person, friendship with Him is learned first in the family.

So the Fourth Commandment is not just about authority or structure; it is about learning the kind of love and loyalty that makes friendship with Jesus possible. The key commandment God gave regarding the family is the Fourth Commandment: Honor Your Father and Mother.

If children can honor their parents, it will enable them to honor God, who is their Supreme Parent. It will also make it possible for them to honor the legitimate authorities in their lives, and make them fitted to serve their own country and community and their own family, when they have one. So children must, must, must be taught to honor their father and their mother.

But that’s going to be really difficult for them to do if their parents act dishonorably. Children have a hard time maintaining honor for parents who act shamefully. So, if you want to know what you can do to make a holier, more just, more decent, and more stable society, one of the first questions to ask yourself is: how could I set a better example for my children? What shameful, dishonorable habits do they see in me? What shameful, dishonorable habits do I hide from them, and what will the effect on them be if and when they ever find out?

You are not responsible for making your children holy, only God can do that. And even God does not force holiness, because He has chosen to give us freedom. So no, you are not responsible for making your children holy. But you are responsible for becoming holy yourself. For your children and grandchildren, the greatest gift you can give is this: holy parents and holy grandparents.

As always, each of the commandments demands that we examine ourselves first. How can we live in such a way as to help our own children better follow the fourth commandment?

Five

Start with Yourself 

The family is what sustains everything human. And what sustains the family is simple: love and honor. So ask yourself: How am I loving my family? How am I showing them honor?

Let me suggest a resolution—One of the biggest obstacles to love and honor in my family is not others, it’s me. My failure to love and honor my wife, my parents, and my children as I should. It may even be that my children struggle to love Christ and His Church because of my example.

So, I begin here: not by fixing them, but by looking in the mirror. What in me needs to change? And then, with God’s help, I remove it, so I can love and honor them the way they deserve.

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