VATICAN CITY (CNS): In a detailed document on cohabitation, the Vatican said the unique legal status of marriage and the family must be defended as indispensable goods for society.
Far from merely being traditional models, the document says marriage and the family express the most fundamental truths about human love and social relations – a truth it says Christian families are called to make apparent with their lives.
The 77-page document, “Family, Marriage and ‘De Facto’ Unions”, was released at the Vatican on November 21.
It was prepared by the Pontifical Council for the Family after consultations with family experts from around the world, said the council’s head, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo.
Cardinal Lopez Trujillo said he hoped the document’s reflections would be useful to lawmakers and to Church
o leaders, as well as in generating a wider social dialogue about the essential value of the traditional family to society.
The document analyses different forms and possible causes of cohabitation, lays out a series of arguments for favouring the family based on marriage over “de facto unions”, and examines the roots of Christian marriage.
