“We must start with training the younger generation”underline it “every human being deserves respect, dignity, men, women, everyone. We need to eliminate the violence that often affects children and find ways to educate them and form a different mentality. We must be a people of peace who love everyone”. Thus Pope Leo, speaking to journalists in Castel Gandolfo, spoke on the International Day for the elimination of violence against women. Just today the Vatican handed over a document that underlines that sex unites couples and its purpose does not always have to be to have children.
The Vatican speaks about the relationship of couples, praising monogamy but also sexuality which is an important aspect of marriage. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith today presents a doctrinal note which, by highlighting the values of mutual respect, is in some ways also linked to the Day for the Eradication of Violence against Women. In the doctrinal note “there is no word feminicide” but the theme of “violence against women is there, we are thinking about this very serious problem”, said Cardinal Prefect of the Faith, Victor Manuel Fernandez. “It is a reality that has a name and we find it explained” in the document presented “in its roots and its causes: in non-possession, in the non-domination of others. It is a theme that we still have to explore and I am grateful – underlined the cardinal – that this document is presented today”, on the Day for the Elimination of Violence.
The lengthy document – which received the approval of Pope Leo XIV – highlights in several passages the need to never confuse love with possession, jealousy and violence. “He who loves – we read in the Doctrinal Notes – knows that another person cannot be a means of resolving his own dissatisfaction, he knows that his own emptiness must be filled in other ways, never through the domination of another. This is what is not the case in many forms of unhealthy desire that result in various manifestations of violence, oppression, psychological pressure, control, and ultimately overt or subtle asphyxiation.” Among other things, if “one uses the other as the only way to get off, the pleasure will leave more dissatisfaction.” Therefore, the importance of living sexuality well is underlined in several passages which “are not limited to ensuring procreation, but help enrich and strengthen the unique and exclusive union and sense of mutual belonging”.
The document was created in response to requests from African bishops regarding widespread polygamy on the continent. But the Argentinian Prefect stressed that polygamy also occurs elsewhere, including Italy: “Polygamy is not public and explicit but is equally offensive to women.” And then in the West, “polyamory” became increasingly popular. For the Vatican, “polygamy, adultery or polyamory is based on the illusion that the intensity of a relationship can be found in a series of faces. As the myth of Don Giovanni illustrates, numbers dissolve names: they dissolve the unity of the love impulse”. So the conclusion is “one man and one woman”, after years of the Catholic Church stressing that marriage cannot be dissolved. Now you are looking at a two-way relationship that cannot be “divided”. Scripture, Popes, theologians and philosophers say it. But “the beauty of this unique and exclusive union” was also highlighted by poets. And “they are not necessarily Catholics,” the cardinal said, citing from Eugenio Montale to Pablo Neruda, from Emily Dickinson to Walter Whitman.
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